An Empire and an Archaeologist on the Edge

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ID: 322077
2026
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Abstract
Abstract The archaeology of the Kitan Liao state (907–1125 CE) has a complicated past. Situated in steppe regions peripheral to China and part of the Mongolian and Manchurian world, its sites were out of reach to Chinese archaeologists in the early 20th century. It was Japanese archaeologists who initiated archaeological research into the Liao. The pioneer in this field was Torii Ryūzō (1870–1953), an anthropologist and explorer in Japan with a career that spanned the Japanese archipelago and continental eastern Eurasia. And yet it was Liao archaeology that came to be defined as his ‘lifework’, epitomised to scholars outside Japan by his 1936 book of photography, Illustrations of Archaeology: Supplement to the Culture of the Liao dynasty from the Viewpoint of Archaeology. While Torii’s documentation of Liao sites is celebrated, his contributions are, inevitably, also controversial. His fieldwork in areas that are now part of the PRC was carried out against a backdrop of Japanese aggression and with the support of colonial Japanese institutions. Questions of complicity with Japanese imperialism shadow evaluations of Torii’s work and that of his generation of scholars, highlighting the tension involved in separating scholarship from political context, and empirical data from ideological interpretation.
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openalex_W7170050271 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Lance Pursey
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197800324.013.0004
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197800324.013.0004
Keywords Keywords not found

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