Sino-Babylonianism: Difference between revisions

[[File:Yuhuangge (Jade Emperor Temple) in Guide, Qinghai.jpg|thumb|300px|Tower of the [[Jade Emperor]] (玉皇阁 ''Yùhuánggé''), central pavilion of a temple to the [[Chinese theology|supreme godhead]], in [[Guide County|Guide]], [[Qinghai]]. Jade Emperor shrines are frequently built on raised platforms, especially in western China.]]

'''Sino-Babylonianism''' is a theory now rejected by most scholars that in the third millennium B.C. the [[Babylonia|Babylonian region]] provided the essential elements of material civilization and language to what is now China. [[Albert Terrien de Lacouperie]] (1845–1894) first proposed that a massive migration brought the basic elements of early civilization to China, but in this original form the theory was largely discredited.

 

In the late 20th and early 21st century, scholars have used newly excavated archeological evidence to argue that some particular elements of ancient Chinese civilization were carried from western or central Asia into China and that there are linguistic ties between the two sides of the Asian continent.

These theories of the Mesopotamian origins of Chinese civilization were supported by the Assyriologist [[Archibald Sayce]] in the [[Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society]]. They impressed the public but were criticised or dismissed by sinologists then and later.{{sfnb|SunHu|2016| p = [https://books.google.com/books?id=71tzCwAAQBAJ&dq=sino-babylonianism&pg=PT233 online]}} [[James Legge]], whose still-admired translations of the Chinese Classics appeared at the same time as Lacouperie's, questioned Lacouperie's sinological competence. Legge's review of Terrien's translation of the ''I Ching'' charged that only "hasty ignorance" could have led to the mistakes in the translation, which included failing to consult the basic reference, the [[Kangxi Dictionary]]. Another reviewer labelled Lacouperie a "specious wonder-monger". But the final blow to Lacouperie's comparativist theories came when the [[University of Leiden]] sinologist, [[Gustav Schlegel]] dismissed his claims and insisted on the independent origin and autonoumous growth of Chinese civilisation. Schlegel set the tone for later Orientalists. Scholars went on to point out that monosyllabic [[Chinese characters]] could not be equated to polysyllabic Chaldean words used in Bablylon; that in any case, knowledge of ancient Assyria was "dangerously uncertain" and too unreliable to make such claims; and that it had not even been established that Babylonian civilization was earlier than Chinese.<ref>Norman J. Girardot, ''The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 388–390. Girardot describes the controversies in detail, pp. 382–393.</ref>

 

 

==Reception of Lacouperie in Asia==