Category Archives: Dating

She association circulars from Dunhuang

Posted on 10/17/2015 by imre

“She association circulars from Dunhuang.” In Antje Richter, ed., History of Chinese Epistolary Culture. (Handbuch der Orientalistik.) Leiden: Brill, 2015: 853–877. This is an article published in Antje Richter’s volume on the history of Chinese epistolary culture, which is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Character variants, Codicology, Dating, Dunhuang, Mistakes, Orthography, Palaeography, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Taboo characters in Buddhist manuscripts from Dunhuang

Posted on 06/18/2013 by imre

This is an article that came out in China so the font is a bit–but it is still readable. In the article, I examine how consistently imperial name taboos were observed in Buddhist texts from Dunhuang. Many scholars in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Character variants, Chinese writing, Dating, Dunhuang, Orthography, Palaeography, published papers, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Odd variants in a Buddhist manuscript

Posted on 08/20/2012 by imre

There is a Dunhuang copy of the Da fangbian Fo baoenjing 大方便佛報恩經 (The sutra of requiting kindness) at the National Library of China (shelfmark BD01534) which has a number of interesting character variants. One of them is the character 爾 … Continue reading →

Posted in Character variants, Chinese writing, Dating, Dunhuang, Orthography, Palaeography, Scribal habits | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Manuscripts of translations made from printed texts

Posted on 12/07/2011 by imre

Recently a 16-volume publication came out with “rare and precious” (guji zhenben 古籍珍本) travel manuscripts in the collection of the National Library of China (NLC). Having flipped through the volumes, I was surprised to find a text titled Xiongyali youji 匈牙利游記 (Record … Continue reading →

Posted in 20th century, books, Dating, exploration, History of scholarship, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Manuscript copies of stone inscriptions

Posted on 06/21/2011 by imre

Putting some of my older publications online: Manuscript copies of stone inscriptions in the Dunhuang corpus: Issues of dating and provenance (Imre Galambos) Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques LXIII, 4, 2009: 809-826. Abstract Modern observers tend to simplify the complex process of … Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese writing, Dating, Dunhuang, epigraphy, Orthography, Palaeography, published papers | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Chinese seals in Ireland

Posted on 06/21/2011 by imre

Putting online some of my older publications: The story of the Chinese seals found in Ireland (Imre Galambos) Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 18, 4 (2008), pp. 465-479. In 1850, a paper was read before the Royal … Continue reading →

Posted in 19th century, Chinese writing, Dating, History of scholarship, published papers, Seals | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Looking at the original: Limits of the digital realm

Posted on 04/15/2011 by imre

I have worked on manuscript P.3720 from the Pelliot collection at the Bibliothèque nationale (BnF) as an example of a composite manuscript. This is a scroll originating from the Dunhuang cave library discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. … Continue reading →

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Impossible dates in manuscripts

Posted on 10/01/2010 by imre

Every now and then we come across impossible dates in Chinese manuscripts and inscriptions, which refer to years in reign periods that never existed. The common explanation for these is that the place where the manuscript was written was remote … Continue reading →

Posted in archaeology, Dating, Dunhuang, epigraphy, History of scholarship, Palaeography | Tagged , , | Leave a comment