The Empire of Sacrifice: The Great City Yong and the Archaeology of Religion
Speaker: Guodong Fan, Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Time: December 12, 2019 (10:00 AM – 12:00 PM)
Location: 403 Kent Hall

The mystery of the Zeng state of Zhou Dynasty (or the mystery of Zeng or Sui) is a tantalizing archaeological problem. This hypothesis that Zeng and Sui were the same state was proposed based earlier on accidental discoveries of bronze inscriptions relating to Zeng, but it was not substantiated until the numerous archaeological discoveries were made in recent years. Over the past half century, with the gradual accumulation of archaeological data, the mystery of the state of Zeng in the Western Zhou period, known very little before, has been gradually unveiled. Some scholars had even said that the history of Zeng should be written completely through archaeological materials. This lecture will start with the latest archaeological discoveries, and especially focus on the bronze vessels that bear inscriptions to introduce the past of the Zeng.