Excerpt from Publication of Field Museum of Natural History, Vol. 10: Anthropological Series
At the close of the year 1907 the Field Museum honored me with the task of carrying on research and making collections in Tibet and China for a period of three years, extending from 1908 to 1910, under an endowment liberally provided by Mrs. T. B. Blackstone of this city. The results of the expedition, accordingly, cover two distinct fields - an ethnological collection bearing on Tibet and neighboring regions, inclusive of an abundance of material relative to Lamaism (paintings, images, masks, objects of the cult), and an extensive collection illustrating the archaeology of China. The latter has been planned in such a way as to afford an insight into the development of all phases of life in China's past. In conformity with the tendency of this Institution, this group of collections is not by any means intended to illustrate the development of art but of culture in China. The results of the work in Tibet are designed to be brought out in six volumes. It has been proposed to work up the Chinese material in a series of monographs, the first instalment of which is the present publication. The mortuary clay figures, the bronze and iron age of China, Buddhist stone sculpture, are the subjects contemplated for the next issues.
This volume does not pretend to be a contribution to sinology. Its general scope is explained in the Introduction. Written, in the first place, to furnish the necessary information on the jade collection in the Field Museum, it applies to students of archaeology and religion in that it furnishes a great deal of new material and research on the early development of religious and artistic thought in ancient China. All specimens, with the exception of the jade and stone implements on Plates IX-XIII, and of the jade book on Plate XIV, are in the Field Museum and form part of the Mrs. T. B. Blackstone collection.
The lack of Chinese types is met by two expediencies. In all illustrations derived from Chinese books, the Chinese titles accompanying them have been reproduced in facsimile, so that the Chinese designations for the various types of jade will be easily recognized. Wherever necessary, in using Chinese words romanized, references are made in parenthesis to the number of the particular character in Giles's Chinese-English Dictionary, which is on the desk of every student in this field. The second revised and enlarged edition, as far as it has appeared (four fascicules), is quoted throughout; for the remainder the first edition is referred to.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Publication of Field Museum of Natural History, Vol. 10 (Chicago Natural History Museum)