Japanese religion, Shinto, and required to speak Japanese in schools and in
business. Manchuria would also be at the heart of the Russo-Japanese war
of 1904–5, a war related to the Japanese opposition to Russia’s permission,
granted in 1898, to use the ports with warm waters in winter of Port
Arthur and Dairen, a permission denied to the Japanese. This eventually led
to the above war won by Japan. In 1914, under the son of the Meiji Emperor,
the Taishi Emperor, Japan sided with the Allies led by Britain and France in
the First World War.
Antiquities in ancient China and JapanThroughout their history China and Japan had not been ignorant of their past.
It is even possible to see a certain resemblance between the way in which both
countries related to antiquities and ancient Rome. In the late Roman Republic
and during the Roman Empire, history had been used as a way of providing
useful examples for educating, and preserving the Roman virtues and mores
from erosion. 11 Around the same time in China a few antiquities were also
passed around and preserved. As far back as 200bcean Eastern Zhou Dynasty
philosopher, Feng Hu Tzu, described a three-age system similar to that used
centuries later by Thomsen in Denmark, for it also divided periods into those
in which the main artefacts in use were made of stone, bronze and iron (Bleed
1986: 59; Chang 1986: 4–5). About 100bceSima Qian, a historian at the court
of the Western Han, visited and recorded the reliable information about
ancient monuments in hisShiji(Historical Records). The Sung dynasty
(960–1297ce) paid great attention to history. It was considered that past
events could provide models, and be a source of inspiration. During their
period in oYce excavations were undertaken at the site of Anyang, the last
Shang capital of the fourteenth to eleventh centurybce, and treatises, such as
theKaogu tu(An Illustrated Study of Ancient Things) written by Lu ̈Dalin in
1092, were produced. In its ten volumes two hundred and eleven bronzes and
thirteen jades from the imperial palace, as well as from private collections,
were described. In 1123 a catalogue of the antiquities collection of the Sung
court, theBogo tulu, was published. The prestige of the antiquities was,
however, surpassed by that of the texts, which were sought as the main
reference (von Falkenhausen 1993: 840). After an impasse, during the late
seventeenth century a certain renaissance of epigraphical studies emerged
11 In Rome, the writing of history was a task for men of the highest social strata. Ancient
relics were stored in temples and some inferences about antiquity were occasionally made for
objects as well as ruins (Lintott 1986; Schnapp 1993: ch. 1).
188 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism