Seitenhistorie

Beim Chaîne opératoire-Ansatz geht es darum, durch das Heranziehen der Gesamtheit eines Steinartefaktinventars die verschiedenen Stufen von der Rohmaterialbeschaffung über Grundformproduktion, Werkzeugfertigung und Recycling bis hin zum Verwerfen nachzuvollziehen. Damit können einerseits Aussagen zur zeitlichen Abfolge sowie Gestaltung und andererseits zur räumlichen Organisation der Operationskette (chaîne opératoire) getroffen werden. Dabei wird davon ausgegangen, dass die Steinartefaktherstellungsweise als kognitives Projekt entsteht, das auf intellektueller Ebene in ein konzeptuelles Schema umgewandelt wird, welches schließlich durch eine Reihe von Aktivitäten, das operative Schema, konkretisiert wird. Dieses Kapitel erläutert den forschungsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund sowie die methodischen Grundlagen und gibt abschließend Beispiele zur Anwendung.

Abstract

Diagrams make wonderful templates for technical action. It follows that for scholars of science and technology they are both an object and a tool of study. The author explores this relationship in the first part of the article, focusing on one particularly effective format for communicating or retrieving complicated technological sequences: the chaîne opératoire, or procedural sequence. Today we usually think of a diagram as a graphic, but diagrammatic thinking is also frequently expressed in other forms, including text or hybrids of graphics and text. To illustrate this, the author compares the formulation and use of chaînes opératoires in two canonical Chinese agricultural treatises. The Qimin yaoshu (Essential Techniques for the Common People) by Jia Sixie, completed ca. 540 CE, was composed before printing was available and makes no use of graphics. The Nongshu (Agricultural Treatise) of 1313, authored by Wang Zhen, was published using woodblock print, a medium that facilitated Wang’s copious use of graphics. The comparison between these classic treatises invites reflection on how the material techniques of inscription available to an author might influence their diagrammatic thinking. But the chaîne opératoire is good to think with at a more general level too. For historians, the matches or discrepancies between the chaîne opératoire they might draw up to map a technical operation, and the versions that they find in historical sources, suggest ways to think both about technology as a total social fact, and about differences between cultures of communication.

Abstract

While research on Warring States, Qin, and Han manuscripts is flourishing, much less is known about the use of manuscripts during the earlier stages of Chinese history, for which material evidence has not been preserved. Based on the layout features and textual anomalies in the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, this article explores the traces of use of perishable writing supports in the process of the production of bronze inscriptions in this period and reconstructs their functions and physical qualities. Based on the surveyed evidence, the article posits that two distinct exemplar manuscripts were used in the inscription-making process: an original “master copy” that was kept aside for proofreading purposes and a secondary “blueprint” that was employed directly in the technical process of inscription-making. A single blueprint would be used consecutively by several craftsmen to produce a set of inscriptions on different types of vessels. The word count and layout of many inscriptions were already carefully planned during the process of their composition, and any study of a bronze text should therefore begin with the evaluation of its visual qualities. Moreover, this probe provides unambiguous evidence for the use of tube-lining in the inscription-making process and reconstructs the complete chaîne opératoire of bronze inscription production in the Late Western Zhou period. The article also offers insights into the level of literacy and the division of labor in bronze workshops, and touches upon the display function of bronze epigraphy during the Western Zhou period.