Teachers of the first paleography class of Tsinghua University's "Qiangji Project" are showing paleography materials to students.
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Wang Binzhong Ding Wang Xiang scribbled Zhu Bu bone inscription. The content involves sacrifice, field hunting, celestial phenomena and many other aspects, and is a rare treasure in the oracle bone inscription of the late Shang Dynasty.
Collection of the National Museum of China
Western Zhou bronze "He Zun". There are twelve lines of inscriptions and one hundred and twenty-two character inscriptions on the inner bottom of zun, of which "Zhaozi China" is the earliest written record of the word "China".
Collection of Shaanxi Baoji Bronze Museum
The word "Yi", first seen in oracle bones, is a hieroglyphic character, like the shape of Ge Li (the handle of the weapon Ge), often borrowed as "generation" and "style" in the literature, after a series of evolutions in later generations, it has become the current form of the "Yi" character - in the first semester of freshman year, after combing the evolution of the word "Yi" in his name, Zhang Yiyang, a 2020 student of Tsinghua University's Rixin College, gradually deepened his interest in paleography. In the first semester of his freshman year, he chose to take paleography as his professional direction, and passed the examination to enter the first paleography class of Tsinghua University's "Qiangji Plan". At present, he has been studying in the paleography class for more than a year.
In 2020, the Ministry of Education implemented the "Strong Foundation Plan" in 36 "double-first-class" colleges and universities, aiming to select and cultivate students who are interested in serving the major strategic needs of the country and have excellent comprehensive quality or top-notch basic disciplines. Among them, tsinghua university, Peking University, Fudan University, East China Normal University and other more than ten universities have incorporated the direction of ancient characters into their "strong foundation plan". This is the first time that paleography has been included in undergraduate enrollment, which has completely changed the situation of the previous paleography education mainly cultivating graduate students, and injected a strong impetus into the continuous inheritance and pioneering innovation of paleography.
The sustainable development of paleography requires talent
Words are the carriers of culture. Ancient characters carry the genes of Chinese civilization and are of great significance to inheriting Chinese culture, carrying forward the national spirit, enriching human culture, and exchanging and learning among civilizations.
Taking the written materials on the early excavated cultural relics as the main research objects, paleography focuses on the Yin Shang oracle bones, the inscriptions on bronzes in the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods, and the Jian Mu Shu Shu of the Warring States and Qin and Han Dynasties. For a long time in the past, due to the multidisciplinary fields involved, the long talent training cycle, the small number of training units and fewer employment positions, the number of people engaged in the study of ancient characters in the country was relatively scarce. Paleography is therefore regarded as "unpopular".
In the early 1980s, the state began to rescue the "unpopular learning" including paleography. In the following decades, paleography talents have been taking graduate students as the starting point for training, and some universities and research institutions have recruited and trained in relevant second-level disciplines under the first-level disciplines such as middle and Chinese literature, archaeology, and history according to their own conditions.
"Over the past few decades, although the achievements in the study of ancient scripts such as oracle bones have been outstanding, and a number of academic masters and a number of academic backbones have emerged, on the whole, the lack of research strength and the lack of reserve talents are still prominent, and the current situation of ancient script research and team cannot well meet the strategic needs of the inheritance and development of China's excellent traditional culture in the new era." Huang Dekuan, director of the Research and Protection Center for Excavated Documents of Tsinghua University and president of the Chinese Character Society, said in an interview with this reporter.
Relevant data show that in recent years, the excavation of ancient script materials throughout the country has shown a blowout trend. So far, more than 100,000 pieces of oracle bones have been found, more than 20,000 pieces of Bronze ware of the Ming Shang Zhou Dynasty, and more than 300,000 pieces of the Warring States Qin and Han Jian Mu. There are about 4500 oracle words alone, of which about 1500 words have been confirmed by interpretation, and more than 2000 words are waiting to be cracked. These are all important resources to promote the study of the history and culture of the pre-Qin and Qin and Han dynasties.
A few years ago, the Chinese Character Museum in Anyang, Henan Province, issued an announcement: a single word reward of 100,000 yuan was awarded for deciphering the research results of unread oracle bones and being appraised by the expert committee; The research results that have been newly interpreted and approved by the expert committee will be rewarded with a single word reward of 50,000 yuan.
In the face of a large number of excavated documents waiting to be deciphered and the withdrawal of the older generation of scholars, how to strengthen the strength of paleography research and accumulate reserve talents has become the key to the sustainable development of paleography research.
The "Qiangji Plan" promotes the selection and training of talents
In 2020, the "Qiangji Plan" of colleges and universities will incorporate paleography into undergraduate enrollment and reform the training mode of paleography talents.
As an expert who pays attention to and studies the "Qiangji Plan", Qin Hongxia, vice president of the Institute of Education of Xiamen University, told reporters that the core and highlight of the "Qiangji Plan" lies in the integration of selection and training. The selection and training of innovative talents will be raised to the height of national strategic needs, and the purpose is to cultivate reserve talents who are truly interested in basic disciplines and have innovative capabilities.
How to select and cultivate talents who are really interested in ancient scripts and have the ability to innovate?
Judging from more than ten colleges and universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, and East China Normal University that have incorporated paleography into the "Qiangji Plan", each university has formulated a diversified and personalized paleography talent training program according to its own disciplinary traditions and advantages.
In 2020, Tsinghua University established five major colleges to carry out the "Qiangji Plan", and the enrollment and talent training of literature, history and philosophy majors were included in Rixin College. In June 2021, after receiving one year of general education, undergraduate students in three majors of literature, history and philosophy formed the first paleography class of Tsinghua University's "Qiangji Plan" through two-way selection and merit-based selection.
The undergraduate stage of the Ancient Chinese Language Class is mainly based on helping students consolidate their ability and literacy in basic disciplines, establish a broad academic vision, and cultivate students' endogenous research interests and aspirations.
"Considering that many students have not been exposed to ancient scripts before, we deliberately set aside a year for them to build a basic understanding of the paleography major, determine their interests and ambitions, and then select them from them." Jia Lianxiang, associate professor of the Center for The Research and Conservation of Excavated Documents of Tsinghua University and head of the first class of ancient characters, said.
Through a year of "preparatory" study, many students have never learned and gradually fallen in love with ancient characters, such as Zhang Yiyang. Zhang Yiyang liked traditional culture in middle school, but knew very little about ancient characters. In the first semester of his freshman year, his study of basic courses such as "Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters" and "Chinese Characters and Chinese Culture" greatly stimulated his interest in ancient characters. After that, he began to read some introductory books on ancient scripts, which further clarified his ambition to study ancient scripts.
Including Zhang Yiyang, there were 7 students in the first paleography class, 6 from the department of Chinese and 1 from the department of history. The overall size of each class of students will remain at about 10 people. In the tutor system, small class and other training models, each student implements "one person, one policy". At the end of the sophomore year, some promising seedlings will be allowed to gradually transfer to direct doctoral training, and the tutor will combine the students' interests and training directions, list books for them, and guide them to take the corresponding courses.
The cultivation of paleography talents focuses on cultural inheritance
In 2017, the Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission took the lead in organizing the research and application of oracle bones and other ancient scripts. In October of the same year, Oracle was successfully inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. In November 2020, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education, the State Language Commission and other departments jointly issued the overall plan of the "Ancient Characters and Chinese Civilization Inheritance and Development Project" and started the implementation of the ancient script project. In recent years, with the attention of the state and the public to paleography, the once unpopular paleography has gradually "heated up" and ushered in the best period of development.
"Paleography has been included in undergraduate enrollment as a 'Qiangji Program', which is the first time in the history of modern education in China. Selecting a number of qualified colleges and universities, starting from the training of undergraduates, and establishing a training model for the connection between undergraduates, masters and doctoral degrees, is a major reform and innovation in the cultivation of high-level talents in paleography. Huang Dekuan said.
In the past, when people mentioned paleography, it was inevitable that there was a "difficult" and "boring" impression, in fact, after continuous development, paleography has become a new interdisciplinary discipline, involving linguistics, archaeology, paleography, history and other disciplines. In Huang Dekuan's words, paleography is "both ancient and new", "both specialized and knowledgeable", and "both difficult and easy".
In the eyes of 20-year-old Zhang Yiyang, learning ancient characters is a cool thing. First of all, this discipline covers a very wide range, not only to learn the professional course of paleography, but also to learn the history, language, archaeology courses of history, language, archaeology, such as pre-Qin history, Qin and Han history, ancient Chinese, introduction to linguistics, and archaeology, and sometimes also involve the content of science and engineering. One of his deep impressions was that he came into contact with Tsinghua Jian's "Arithmetic Table" during the learning process, which restored the world's earliest decimal calculator, which can perform multiplication, division, and multiplication calculations, and even extend the calculation to 1/2 of the score, allowing him to intuitively feel the mathematical wisdom of the ancients. In addition, the study of ancient characters itself is also very interesting, and sometimes in order to study a word, you need to look for evidence like a detective. Successfully examining a word is likely to bring about a major breakthrough in academia.
"Ancient writing is a discipline related to cultural inheritance." The Inclusion of paleography majors in the scope of enrollment and training in the Qiangji Program is a useful exploration for the selection and cultivation of outstanding reserve talents with reasonable knowledge structure, outstanding innovation ability, and interest in engaging in paleography research. Huang Dekuan said. He encouraged young students who have stepped into the field of paleography to dabble extensively, lay a solid foundation, not be afraid of difficulties, regard the study and research of ancient scripts and traditional Chinese culture as a lifelong career, and continuously promote ancient characters to become an important force for discovering the value of culture and tradition, promoting cultural inheritance, and promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations through efforts. (Zheng Na)
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition