Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 C.E.

Download or read book Japanese Historiography and the Gold Seal of 57 C.E. written by Joshua A. Fogel and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the year 57 C.E., the court of Later Han dynasty presented a gold seal to an emissary from somewhere in what is now Japan. The seal soon vanished from history, only to be unearthed in 1784 in Japan. In the subsequent two-plus centuries, nearly 400 books and articles (mostly by Japanese) have addressed every conceivable issue surrounding this small object of gold. Joshua Fogel places the conferment of the seal in inter-Asian diplomacy of the first century and then traces four waves of historical analysis that the seal has undergone since its discovery, as the standards of historical judgment have changed over these years and the investment in the seal’s meaning have changed accordingly.