Why cauldrons come first: taxonomic transparency in the earliest Chinese antiquarian catalogues

The term ‘antiquarianism’ is increasingly being deployed as an analytical heuristic for comparing different world traditions of thinking about old things. Central to almost all characterizations of “Chinese antiquarianism” is the construction of a pedigree stretching back to the inventories and catalogs of antiquities produced during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). Close comparison reveals significant ideological differences between the values implicit in the earliest Chinese inventories of two-dimensional inscriptions on metal and stone, and those underlying catalogues of three-dimensional antiquities like bronzes. By situating these differences within the wider intellectual milieu of the Northern Song, this essay explains how the unique ‘taxonomic transparency’ of ancient bronzes reinforced Neo-Confucianism’s conquest of the Chinese ideological landscape at the dawn of the second millennium