Foreigners in early China: new evidence

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
1

Archaeology Magazine has just published an interview with Prof. Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania in which he describes how a west Eurasian has been found to have worked on the tomb of Qinshihuang, China’s first emperor (260-210 B.C., r. 247-221 B.C.). (For those not familiar with this emperor, that’s the terra cotta warriors guy.)

Mair notes that, “The genetic evidence, while sensational, is by no means indispensable in building a case for the active presence of foreigners in early China. Indeed, it only adds to a large body of evidence from history and archaeology.”

Read the rest here: Worker from the West.

2

Some of my Scotish ancestors no doubt.
Go anywhere for the women and a drink.

3

Very interesting. I don’t know why people react with surprise to findings like this, though; humans have been roaming the planet ever since there were humans; there’s plenty of evidence of ‘foreigners’ in contact with the proto-Chinese, as far back as funerary figurines and even the written script go.

[quote]Was this discovery surprising to you?

I’m not the least bit surprised by the report of a supposedly Iranian “worker” having been buried next to the tomb of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. After all, at this time and even earlier, we’ve got Iranian peoples–Wusun, Scythians, and others–running all over the Eurasian steppes from the Black Sea to what is now northern China. We have nearly contemporaneous physical descriptions of Europoid individuals–including Wusun–in Chinese historical sources. Not too much later, we have the Khotanese and Sogdians, and no one denies that these Iranian peoples were active in the East Asian Heartland (EAH). It’s also easy to document the presence of Persians and Sassanians in China. Furthermore, back in 1990, I published an article in Early China that provided many different types of evidence indicating that Iranian magi were present at the Zhou Dynasty capital circa 800 B.C., about six centuries before the time of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty.

What’s the early literary evidence for foreigners in China?

Among other texts, the official histories, including Records of the Scribe (Shi ji) and History of the Han (Han shu) have numerous references to individuals from the “western regions” with large noses, deep-socketed eyes, and full beards. These persons are generally called hu, which is loosely translated as “barbarian,” but there are many specific names for different groups as well.

And the early archaeological evidence for foreigners in China?

To be brief, there are figurines, sculptures, wall paintings, and a host of artifacts (coins, textiles, glass, silver vessels, etc.) that either depict persons from abroad directly or indirectly indicate their presence. [/quote]

4

And don’t forget those Roman noses in Gansu. Saw an article somewhere recently that claimed villagers of Zhelaizhai (哲來寨) in Gansu were so proud of their Roman roots they plan to erect a bloody great coliseum type memorial.

[quote]Romans in China? Volume 52 Number 3, May/June 1999
by Erling Hoh

Baffled peasants in a windswept village in Gansu province are being described by Chinese newspapers as blond-haired, blue-eyed descendants of Roman mercenaries who allegedly fought the Han Chinese 2,000 years ago. While no one in the modern town of Lou Zhuangzi is fair and there is no proof that the Romans ever set foot in Gansu before the Christian era, the reports have revived discussion over whether a group of Romans offered their services to the Hun warlord Jzh Jzh in 36 B.C. before settling in the Gansu village of Liqian, thought by some to be Lou Zhuangzi.

This idea was first proposed by Homer Hasenphlug Dubs, an Oxford University professor of Chinese history, who speculated in 1955 that some of the 10,000 Roman prisoners taken by the Parthians after the battle of Carrhae in southeastern Turkey in 53 B.C. made their way east to Uzbekistan to enlist with Jzh Jzh against the Han. Chinese accounts of the battle, in which Jzh Jzh was decapitated and his army defeated, note unusual military formations and the use of wooden fortifications foreign to the nomadic Huns. Dubs postulated that after the battle the Chinese employed the Roman mercenaries as border guards, settling them in Liqian, a short form of Alexandria used by the Chinese to denote Rome. While some Chinese scholars have been critical of Dubs’ hypothesis, others went so far as to identify Lou Zhuangzi as the probable location of Liqian in the late 1980s.
[/quote]

How’s the name of that Oxford don? I suppose there was noithing else for him in life given a name like that.

TC’s rels might be among the mummified Celts of Xinjiang

And here:
fi.edu/inquirer/mummy.html

HG

5

No it’s not that surprising.

But Victor Mair is obssessed demonstrating this and the identification of foreigners in China was a special interest of Sinologists.

It’s easy to understand why the Chinese, fired up with European-style nationalism, would want to imagine a pure Chinese past. It’s harder to understand why Sinologists are so fixated on the issue. What about all the other non-Chinese people all over the place in places like Chu and Yueh?

Mair is also intent on ‘proving’ that the Chinese should get rid of their characters.

[quote=“Dragonbones”]Very interesting. I don’t know why people react with surprise to findings like this, though; humans have been roaming the planet ever since there were humans; there’s plenty of evidence of ‘foreigners’ in contact with the proto-Chinese, as far back as funerary figurines and even the written script go.

[quote]Was this discovery surprising to you?

I’m not the least bit surprised by the report of a supposedly Iranian “worker” having been buried next to the tomb of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. After all, at this time and even earlier, we’ve got Iranian peoples–Wusun, Scythians, and others–running all over the Eurasian steppes from the Black Sea to what is now northern China. We have nearly contemporaneous physical descriptions of Europoid individuals–including Wusun–in Chinese historical sources. Not too much later, we have the Khotanese and Sogdians, and no one denies that these Iranian peoples were active in the East Asian Heartland (EAH). It’s also easy to document the presence of Persians and Sassanians in China. Furthermore, back in 1990, I published an article in Early China that provided many different types of evidence indicating that Iranian magi were present at the Zhou Dynasty capital circa 800 B.C., about six centuries before the time of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty.

What’s the early literary evidence for foreigners in China?

Among other texts, the official histories, including Records of the Scribe (Shi ji) and History of the Han (Han shu) have numerous references to individuals from the “western regions” with large noses, deep-socketed eyes, and full beards. These persons are generally called hu, which is loosely translated as “barbarian,” but there are many specific names for different groups as well.

And the early archaeological evidence for foreigners in China?

To be brief, there are figurines, sculptures, wall paintings, and a host of artifacts (coins, textiles, glass, silver vessels, etc.) that either depict persons from abroad directly or indirectly indicate their presence. [/quote][/quote]

6

I would say that the term “foreigner” is inappropriate in this case. The person may well have been born in and/or a subject (not citizen - no such thing in those days) of the Qin Empire or one of the kingdoms that immediately preceded it…

7

Gosh, those guys must have had a hard time sending all that Forumosa stuff to each other… by pen and paper.

8

Is there any evidence that native Taiwanese persons were working in China in that era?

I have heard that there may have been several expeditions of native Taiwanese persons to China in those ancient times, who went there with the specific intention of promoting Taiwanese culture … so I was wondering if the latest research had turned up any details on this fascinating aspect.