Updated on 5/31/2011

I. Introductions

• Chine, L'EMPIRE DU TRAIT (China, empire of the brush stroke), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France. Language: French, minor parts in English.
  • Description: This website is the online part of the 2004 exhibition at the French National Library on Chinese calligraphy. It comprises texts and illustrations from the printed catalog with a number of additional material, i.e. video sequences on the Dunhuang manuscripts and a multipart interview with Fan Zheng. The excellent objects of the Oriental Manuscripts department, where also the Pelliot collection belongs to, form the core of the impressive show. Quite unfortunately, the English Pages only cover the very short captions of the "en images" part; all other information is French only.

  • Contents: (1) en images; (2) arrêt sur; (3) repères; (4) gros plans; (5) rencentre; (6) le pavillon des lettrés; (7) informations; (8) crédits.

  • Note: Quicktime player is required for the video material.

• The Origins of Chinese Characters. Sinolingua, 1997.

  This book is intended as a guide to the origins and histories of Chinese characters. It can be used as a Chinese etymological dictionary.

• Hansen, Valerie. "Inscriptions: Historical Sources for the Song." The Bulletin of Song Yuan Studies 19(1987): 17-25.

• Li Leyi, ed. Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases. Beijing: Beijing yu yan da xue chu ban she, 1994. Revised edition 2002.

  This book features 500 Chinese characters arranged in alphabetical order by their pinyin Romanization. The evolution of each character is first traced from its original graph and then through each of its eight possible evolutionary stages. Such forms include oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, small seal characters, regular script, grass stroke, and free style calligraphy.

• Qiu Xigui. Chinese Writing. Translated by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. Berkeley: Society for Study of Early China, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2000.

• Vermeer, E.B. (Eduard B.). Chinese Local History: Stone Inscriptions from Fukien in the Sung to Ch'ing Periods. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.

II. More Advanced

• Shi ke shi liao xin bian 石刻史料新編 (New edition of historical materials carved on stone). 3 series 三輯. Taibei: Xin wen feng chu ban gong si, 1977/1982, 1979, 1986.

  This is the most complete set of epigraphic sources, which includes an enormous amount of primary and secondary material (including the jinshi ?? sections of many gazetteers) in facsimile. The three series consist of 90 volumes altogether containing around 1,030 collections of stone inscriptions of various types. The earliest collections and compilations date from the Song dynasty but most works are later, some of recent (1980) origin. The greater part of the material was collected and composed in the Qing dynasty. A large number of rarities, difficult-to-find and hard-to-obtain works, and many otherwise not well known or unpublished manuscripts are included.

  There are two indices:

  • Kuhn, Dieter, & Helga Stahl. Annotated Bibliography to the Shike shiliao xinbian (New Edition of Historical Materials Carved on Stone). Heidelberg: Edition Forum, 1991. ISBN 3-927943-04-5 [Gest Ref. PL2448 .K79 1991]. The entries in the Annotated Bibliography are arranged alphabetically by title (including the Chinese characters), date of compilation (preface, foreword), name and dates of author or compiler, period of time and geographical region covered by the work, short comment on the contents, inclusion of the title in bibliographic catalogues, edition or congshu used for the reprint. The name of persons of the Song, Liao, Jin, and Wei & Qi dynasties whose completely transcribed epitaphs can be found in the series, are listed in the order of appearance in the title entry. An alphabetically arranged list of these persons as well as an index to the authors is also supplied.

  • Shi ke shi liao xin bian di yi, er, san ji shu ming zhu zhe suo yin. 石刻史料新編第一, 二, 三輯書名著者索引 Index of writers and books in the three series of the New edition of historical materials carved on stone). Takahashi Tsuguo; [Gao Mingshi yi]. Taibei: Xin wen feng chu ban gong si, 1995.

III. Other Large Epigraphical Collections

• Academia Sinica has some online epigraphic materials on their website.

• Rubbings in Digitalarchives.tw: It is part of the Taiwan e-Learning & Digital Archives Program (數位典藏與數位學習國家型科技計畫). It is divided into three parts, which are rubbings of oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨文拓片, divided into 32 categories, 24,031 items), stone inscriptions (石刻部, divided into 17 categories, 12,814 items) and bronze inscriptions (吉金部, divided into 10 categories, 14,785 items).
• National Library of China - National Digital Library of China (中國國家圖書館·中國國家數字圖書館) : For this part, the National Digital Library of China provides "The World of Oracle Bone Inscriptions (甲骨世界)", which includes images of oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨實物) and rubbings of oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨拓片), as well as "Selection of Rubbings (碑帖菁華)", which includes other rubbings (拓片).
• Chinese Rubbings Collection in Harvard University Library : This online collection currently houses 2,602 individual East Asian rubbings, the majority of which are from China. The rubbings were made from ancient stone stelae, tomb tablets, Buddhist and Daoist scriptures on stelae and rocks, as well as inscriptions and designs copied from bronze vessels, jade objects, ceramics, tomb bricks, and roof tiles, objects dating from the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE) to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE). The most significant rubbings in the collection are those from Xiaotangshan (孝堂山) stone chamber, Wu Liang shrine (武梁祠) in Shandong Province dating from the Han Period (206 BCE-220 CE), the Forest of Stelae at Xi'an (西安碑林), and Buddhist grotto sites in Gongxian (鞏縣) and Longmen (龍門) in Henan Province dating from the Northern Wei period (386-534 CE).
• Chinese Etymology: A website established and maintained by Mr. Richard Sears. He have used 20 years to work on Chinese etymology and put the materials on-line. You can use this website to look up the etymological information for every single Chinese character. The website is without advertisements and free to use.
• Ancient Chinese Sources in Digital Library of Peking University (祕籍琳琅——北京大學數字圖書館古文獻資源庫) : This database includes rare books, other ancient Chinese books, rubbings of bronze inscriptions and stone inscriptions, ancient Chinese maps, and ancient Chinese contracts, etc., which are preserved in Peking University Library. More and more materials are being digitalized and put online. You can use the default username and password ("guest" and "guest") which are shown on the webpage to log in. However, it is not for free use. They divided the users into three ranks, so the "guest" users can only view the catalogue information and the thumbnails of some objects in the collection. Sometimes you may need a PROXY SERVER to view the website. If you find some materials which are really useful to your research from this database, you can just contact them by email and find a way to pay the fee, they will provide the electronic version of the materials you need.

• Beijing tu shu guan cang Zhongguo li dai shi ke ta ben hui bian 北京圖書館藏中國歷代石刻拓本匯編 (Compendium of stone inscriptions and works from successive Chinese dynasties collected in the Beijing Library). Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chuban she (1989-). Zhengzhou, Henan: Zhongzhou gu ji chu ban she, 1989- . Collection of rubbings from ancient times to the 20th century in the Beijing Library. The Ming and Qing volumes (over 40 volumes alone) include civil examination materials from the provincial and metropolitan examinations.

• Michael Fuller's website contains a list of secondary material about tombs and tomb inscriptions, mostly in German and mostly Song-Yuan.

• Li dai shi ke shi liao hui bian 歷代石刻史料匯編. 16 vols. Beijing: Beijing tu shu guan chu ban she, 2000. [Marquand PL2448 .L48 2000]. Contents: 1-2. Xian Qin Qin Han Wei Jin Nan Bei chao -- 3-6. Sui Tang Wu dai -- 7-10. Liang Song -- 11-13. Liao Jin Yuan -- 14-16. Ming Qing.

• National Library of China, Database of Stone Inscriptions: 16,584 items with 21,000 images are now available to the general public, representing about 38% of all extant Chinese inscriptions. They hope to place all digitized inscriptions online by the end of 2006. The holdings of Beijing University Library are not included.

• Shi tou shang de ru jia wen xian: Qufu bei wen lu 石頭上的儒家文獻：曲阜碑文錄 (Confucian writings on stone: record of texts on Qufu stelae). Luo Chenglie hui bian. Publisher Jinan : Qi Lu shu she, 2001.

• Starr, Kenneth, et al. Catalogue of Chinese Rubbings from Field Museum. Chicago: Fieldiana Anthropology New Series, #3, 1981. Researched by Hoshien Tchen, M. Kenneth Starr; prepared by Alice K. Schneider; photographs by Herta Newton and Field Museum, Division of Photography; edited by Hartmut Walravens.

• Shi ke ti ba suo yin 石刻題跋索引 (Index to colophons for stone inscriptions). Yang Dianxun, ed. Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1957. [Gest Reference R2096.5/4271]. Revised edition 1980. The most complete index to premodern colophons on or relating to inscriptions on stone and bronze from "Xia" to Yuan.

• The University of California at Berkeley's East Asian Library has 2,700 Chinese rubbings, second in number among collections outside East Asia only to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Some images are online http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/rubbings/.

• Xi'an bei lin quan ji 西安碑林全集 (Complete collection of the Forest of Stelae in Xi'an). Gao Xia zhu bian ; Li Linna, Wang Yuanyin, Wang Qiyi fu zhu bian. 200 vols. in 25 cases. Guangzhou: Guangdong jing ji chu ban she ; [Shenzhen] : Hai tian chu ban she, 1999.

  Contents:1-58. Bei ke -- 59-101. Mu zhi -- 102-104. Shi ke xian hua -- 105-106. Zao xiang ti ji -- 107-110. Kaicheng shi jing. Zhou yi -- 111-114. Kaicheng shi jing. Shang shu -- 115-120. Kaicheng shi jing. Shi jing -- 121-126. Kaicheng shi jing. Zhou li -- 127-132. Kaicheng shi jing. Yi li - 133-142. Kaicheng shi jing. Li ji -- 143-145. Kaicheng shi jing. Wu jing wen zi -- 146. Kaicheng shi jing. Jiu jing zi yang -- 147-168. Kaicheng shi jing. Chun qiu Zuo shi zhuan -- 169-174. Kaicheng shi jing. Chun qiu Gongyang zhuan -- 175-180. Kaicheng shi jing. Chun qiu Guliang zhuan -- 181-182. Kaicheng shi jing. Lun yu -- 183. Kaicheng shi jing. Xiao jing. Er ya - 184. Kaicheng shi jing. Er ya -- 185-187. Kaicheng shi jing. Mengzi -- 188. Kaicheng shi jing. Mengzi. Da xue. Zhong yong -- 189-198. Shanxi bei shi jing hua -- [suppl.] Bu yi juan.

• Zhongguo lidai shike shiliao huibian中國歷代石刻史料匯編 (Compendium of Chinese stone inscriptions over the dynasties) has been installed on three public machines in the East Asian Library catalog room at Princeton University.

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