Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Role of Material Culture in The Establishment of Centralized Authority

曾凌仪女士将在耶鲁大学Anne Underhill博士的指导下，通过此次博士论文进修奖，为她的博士论文收集数据。因此，该项目除了将产生知识外，还将促进一位有前途和能力很强的年轻科学家的智力发展和职业道路。本研究要解决的中心问题是：庞大的、地理上广泛的社会实体，包括说多种语言的多个种族群体，是如何在很长一段时间内整合成有效运作的单位的？曾女士以蒙古帝国为例，蒙古帝国建立于13世纪初，在其鼎盛时期从东欧一直延伸到中国的太平洋沿岸。她关注的是中央生产的权力符号的生产，她认为这些符号被精心分配，以加强被委派官员的权威，并赋予他们地位。所采用的考古方法允许在以几个世纪为单位的一段时间内研究这一系统的发展和修改，并提供通过短暂的时间快照无法获得的见解。曾将研究蒙古帝国（13 -14世纪）两种瓷器的生产、消费和分销。她推测，在蒙古帝国初期，统治者故意创造了这两种瓷器作为新的名贵商品，并控制了新产品的生产和分销。后来，这两种瓷器变得更加普遍，并为追求更高社会地位的帝国中间精英所使用。她将采用多种方法，不仅包括在中国景德镇著名的瓷器生产中心进行实地考察，还包括对蒙古帝国其他地区（包括内蒙古和蒙古）出土的陶瓷和藏品进行SEM-EDS分析。她将调查中央政府和地方代理商使用的不同生产和分销策略，以及它们如何随着时间的推移而变化。生产的组织和技术选择的原因也将被考虑。

Through this Doctoral Dissertation Improvement award Ms. Lingyi Zeng under the direction of Dr. Anne Underhill of Yale University will collect data for her PhD thesis. Thus the project, in addition to the knowledge it will produce, will further the intellectual development and career path of a promising and highly competent young scientist. The central question which this research addresses is: how do large, geographically extensive social entities, which include multiple ethnic groups speaking many languages, become integrated into effectively functioning units for extended periods of time? Ms. Zeng choses as her example the Mongul empire which was established in the beginning of the 13th century and at its height extended from Eastern Europe to the Pacific coast of China. She focuses on the production of centrally produced symbols of power which, she believes were carefully distributed to reinforce the authority of delegated officials and confer status on them. The archaeological approach adopted permits development and modification of this system to be studied over a time period measured in centuries and provide insight not attainable though a brief snapshot of time.Ms. Zeng will examine the production, consumption, and distribution of two kinds of porcelains in the Mongol Empire (13th-14th centuries). She hypothesizes that at the beginning of the Mongol Empire, the rulers deliberately created these two types of porcelains as new kinds of prestige goods, and they controlled the production and distribution of their new products. Later in time, these two types of porcelains became more common and available to intermediate elites of the empire who were pursuing higher social status. She will employ a variety of approaches including not only fieldwork in the well-known porcelain production center in Jingdezhen, China, but also SEM-EDS analysis of excavated ceramics and collections from other areas of the Mongol Empire, including Inner Mongolia and Mongolia. She will investigate different strategies of production and distribution used by both the central government and local agents, and how they changed over time. The organization of production and the reasons for technological choices will also be considered.