The King Says: Essays on Unearthed Documents

This book is a collection of research papers written over many years by Professor Wang Lianlong on excavated texts, especially the organization and study of newly discovered stone inscriptions and related issues. It brings together twenty of his recent papers on excavated texts. Most of the papers make extensive use of excavated bamboo and wooden slips, stone inscriptions, and transmitted texts. From the perspective of philology, they focus on cataloguing, collating, collecting scattered texts, identifying forgeries, and compiling excavated documents, offering incisive and thorough discussions of their organization and study. The author also presents his reflections on the relationship between archaeology and history in the new era, archaeology and empirical research, and the study of stone inscriptions and history. Many of these ideas are original.