The Meaning of the Graph Yi and Its Implications for Shang Belief and Art

About Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Elizabeth Childs-Johnson is a Sinologist specializing in Chinese art and archaeology of the Neolithic through Han eras. In the departments of Art and Asian Studies at Old Dominion University she holds the positions of Senior Research Associate and Adjunct Associate Professor of Art History. She is a recent recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and a National Gallery of Art J. Paul Getty Trust Paired Research Fellowship that has enabled completion of a study that will be published by Stanford University Press The Birth of the Chinese Ancestor Cult: The Shang and Their Ritual Bronzes. This two volume study reviews ritual and belief from Early Middle and Late Shang eras. She currently serves on the editorial board of Chinese Archaeology (Digests) published by the Department of Archaeology CASS Beijing and recently served as Senior Cultural Property Consultant to the Cultural Property Center at the U.S. State Department Washington D.C. and as Research Associate at the International Liangzhu Culture Studies Center in Yuhang Zhejiang PRC. Childs-Johnson has published various state-of-the-art catalogues on jades of Neolithic through Han date (Lustrous Enduring and Translucent: Jades from Traditional China NY: Weisbrod Chinese Art Ltd. 1999; Enduring Art of Jade Age China vol. 1. 2001 and vol. 2 2002 New York: Throckmorton Fine Art Ltd) and a lengthy study of Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age jade-working cultures The Archaeological and Artistic Evidence for Jade as a Power Symbol during the Pivotal Period of 4000-2000BCE (Three Jade Age Cultures). The latter study introduces three newly discovered cultures working jade that were primary stimulants to the rise of civilization in China (see also e.g. Jade As Material and Epoch Ch. 1 in China: 5000 Years Innovation and Transformation in the Arts New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1997 55-68). She not only initiated exhibits focused on these jade cultures at China Institute in l988 (Ritual and Power: Jades of Ancient China New York: China Institute in America) but will publish with co-collaborator Gu Fang and Science Press in Beijing the volume in English and Chinese titled Early Chinese Jades in American Museums this fall of 2006. Her most significant work has been in her study of early Chinese belief identifying the function of ritual bronze vessels of Shang date through an analysis of oracle bone inscriptions archaeological and art historical data followed by the identification of the meaning of Shang imagery and belief. She has coined the term metamorphic to explain Shang royal imagery (see The Metamorphic Image: A Predominant Theme in Shang Ritual Art Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities No.70 (Stockholm) l998 5-171; Jade as Confucian Ideal Immortal Cloak and Medium for the Metamorphic Fetal Posein Enduring Art of Jade Age China Volume vol. 2 15-24. Metamorphic Imagery in Early Chinese Art Kaikodo Journal Feb. 1998 30-51). These novel identifications that have provoked reevaluations of traditional interpretations have been translated and published in Chinese (see e.g. (Yi and Related Issues of Belief in Shang Times in an upcoming issue of Zhongyuan Wenwu; (Metamorphic Imagery and Belief in Shang Times) International Conference In Honor of the 70th Year Since Discovery of Sanxingdui and the Birth of Shang Civilization Symposium Papers 7/ 26-28/ 2000 Guanghan Sichuan). She has also brought to light the significance of the earliest female general in Shang history Fu Zi in several articles and will publish a monograph on the powerful leader in the near future. She has contributed to a further area of research the cultures of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River valley. The latter research has concentrated in the area that has been transformed by the construction of the biggest dam in the world located at Sandouping Sichuan. She was the primary consultant for the award winning documentary The Great Wall Across the Yangtze that aired on PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) in 2000 and won the Berkeley award of most interesting documentary the same year.