Research on scribal hands in manuscripts from early imperial China goes back to the works of scholars who tried to use the scribal hand as a criterion for the reconstruction of multi-strip-documents from Dunhuang and Juyan. Most of the judgements made in early scholarship were rather subjective insofar as they were mainly based on aesthetics and calligraphic quality. Only recently attempts were made to find more objective criteria to identify scribal hands in manuscripts from the Warring States and early imperial period.

With the help of a workshop we hope to further our understanding regarding scribal hands in two main areas. The first is the analysis of scribal hands itself. What is the state-of-the-art with regard to the identification of scribal hands? Can the criteria that have been forwarded be successfully applied to the different manuscripts the participants are working on? How can we make sure that what we identify are differences in scribal hand and not in style (the latter meaning different styles possibly written by the same person)? What factors influence a scribal hand? (e.g. material features of the writing material, scribal education, the master copy, etc.)

The second area of interest is concerned with questions that arise during research on scribal practices and early Chinese manuscript culture, supposed that scribal hands can be reliably identified. Possible questions include: What does the presence and distribution pattern of different hands in a certain manuscript tell us? How common was a division of labour between scribes during the production of a manuscript? Can we observe differences with regard to different text genres (e.g. administrative vs. literary texts)? How common was the phenomenon that several different manuscripts found in a certain tomb contained traces of the same hand (as appears to be the case in Zhangjiashan tomb no. 247), and can we in some cases establish a link between a certain scribal hand and the tomb occupant?

In each area, the focus should lie on discussion rather than on lengthy presentation.

Funding for this workshop is provided by German Research Foundation (DFG) through the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 933 “Material Text Cultures” at Heidelberg University. The main workshop language will be English.