User talk:Guss

discussion

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Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! AmiDaniel (Talk) 00:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
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Gokturks
Thanks! I guess I didn't notice that. &mdash; Khoikhoi 07:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yuezhi map
Hi Guss2. A map has to be put on Wikipedia Commons for it to be usable on all Wikipedias. I just did this. Regards. PHG 22:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Will Cuppy
I see that it's not (yet) in the Will Cuppy article; but the chapter on Alexander in The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody spoofs the whole Alexander-as-an-apostle-of-world-peace to the top of its bent. Septentrionalis 17:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Daxia/Bactria
Hi Guss2. Thank you for your note on the problems surrounding the articles on Daxia (Ta-Hsia) and Bactria. you brought up a nmber of very important but rather thorny issues. I have just written a reply which I have posted on the Ta-Hsia Talk Page. Please don't hesitate to contact me again if you disagree with any of them or just want to discuss something further.

All best wishes,

John Hill 03:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Yuanmou Man
Hi Guss2, thank you for your note and your help with the Yuanmou Man article. I am by no means an expert, so I cannot answer your question. It is my understanding that the two major theories of human origin - Recent single-origin hypothesis and Multiregional hypothesis - are both being debated as viable alternative propositions, while Polygenism appears to be a historical concept. It appears to me then that the so-called Asian hypothesis, if I understand it correctly, is a revived polygenetic theory? In any case I am looking forward to your article when translated into English (sorry, my Dutch is too limited). Ekem 19:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

translation Image:National history-dongyi.jpg?
The legend reads "area of the Dong-i/Dongyi ethnicity" and "sphere of influence of Gojoseon/Gao Chaoxian". I thought you could guess what it meant because you wrote several articles on Chinese history. --Nanshu 02:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Reply
You ought to add evidence of Eiorgiomugini's problematic behaviour to the ongoing RfC. We may need it later. --Ghirla-трёп- 14:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Draft History of Qing
Hi Guss,

You recently added a reference to this article, but references should only indicate the sources used to write the article. Were you about to add information, or did you actually need a "See also" section instead? --Bowlhover (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi! Are you sure the heading 'references' is used only for sources actually used for writing an article, and other useful literature should be put under the capture 'see also'? I thought that section should contain references to other articles on wikipedia itself; articles which are closely related to the subject treated in the main article. But if I am wrong, please let me know where I can find the right rules for using 'the 'references' and the 'see also' sections. Thank you. Guss2 (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The references section should indeed only mention sources used to write the article. "See also" sections are for internal links to other Wikipedia articles, the heading "External links" indicates useful websites other than Wikipedia, and "Further reading" is for miscellaneous sources of information.  WP:Manual of Style is a useful source of general information.


 * Sorry for taking a long time to respond, and have fun editing! --Bowlhover (talk) 00:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Reliability
Joseph Needham wrote in 1954 that many scholars doubted that Sima's Records of the Grand Historian had contained accurate information about such distant history, including the thirty kings of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1050 BC). Many scholars argued that Sima couldn't possibly have had access to written materials which detailed history a millennium before his age. However, the discovery of oracle bones at an excavation of the Shang Dynasty capital at Anyang (Yinxu) matched twenty-three of the thirty Shang kings that Sima listed. Needham writes that this remarkable archaeological find proves that Sima Qian "did have fairly reliable materials at his disposal—a fact which underlines once more the deep historical-mindedness of the Chinese."
 * Hello Anonymus. Thanks for your reply. Sure I looked at Shiji, I even put an external link to the quote from Needham, so everyone can read page 88 now. Your quote above from Needham is absolutely correct, but your assumption Needham writes Sima Qian had sources dated from Shang-times is not. It is highly speculative. The only thing Needham says is Sima had fairly reliable materials at his disposal. It doesn't say at all when those 'reliable materials' were written. Probably his information was based upon information dating from the Shang era, but that doesn't mean the sources Sima actually used were written during Shang times. For a very good introduction to the sources Sima used, see pp.53-67 from Mirroring the Past. The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China by On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang (ISBN 978-0-8248-2913-1). An in-depth study in English on sources used by Sima is Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo. Sima Qian's Conquest of History by Grant Hardy (ISBN 978-0-2311-1305-2), but the most comprehensive book on sources used by Sima Qian is Sima renge lun (司马迁人格论) by Cheng Xueliang (陈雪良), ISBN 978-7-2080-2786-2. These three scholars all argue the sources Sima had at his disposal dated from Han, late and maybe early Zhou times or were oral traditions. So nothing on written documents from Shang times. If they really had done so, it would have been a revolution in the study of Chinese historiography and that would have been a well-known fact. But unfortunately it isn't. I don't feel like entering an edit-war by reverting your change over and over again, but I am convinced your change from Western Zhou into Shang isn't right. Looking forward to your answer, Guss2 (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

this is actually what it says in the xia article- n her work, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China, Sarah Allan noted that many aspects of the Xia are simply the opposite of traits held to be emblematic of the Shang. Classical Chinese historians such as Sima Qian had access to records going only as far back as the Shang Dynasty[6]. The implied dualism between the Shang and Xia, Allan argues, is that while the Shang represent fire or the sun, birds and the east, the Xia represent the west and water. The development of this mythical Xia, Allan argues, is a necessary act on the part of the Zhou Dynasty, who justify their conquest of the Shang by noting that the Shang had supplanted the Xia.

the whole paragraph implies that both the shang and the xia dynasties were actually fake and didnt exist, so sima qian made up stories about them. but even now archeology is being done on suspected xia dynasty sites from the pre shang period. the paragraph implies everything is fake about xia and shang.162.84.167.109 (talk) 20:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks again for your answer, although I don't quite understand that answer in relation to your earlier statement Sima Qian had access to sources dating from Shang. Sarah Allan mentions Sima Qian only once, on p.22 she writes: When Sima Qian compiled the Shiji in the second century B.C., he used a variety of ancient sources including the documents in the extant Shang shu. In recording the material from these documents, he kept closely to the original, but he also interpreted the archaic language and changed the text to make it understandable to the modern reader. That's it! No more mentioning of Sima Qian in her book, nomentioning of sources dating back from Shang times in her book either. For the sentence Classical Chinese historians such as Sima Qian had access to records going only as far back as the Shang Dynasty[6] in the Xia article there are no sources, neither Needham p.88 nor Sarah Allan p.22. So I persist my opinion you are wrong. The sentence should be: Classical Chinese historians had access to records going as far back as the Zhou dynasty only. Guss2 (talk) 22:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe your problem is in shang shu? That's another name for Classic of History, Guss2 (talk) 22:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

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