On the morning of October 18th, the opening ceremony of the Second International Academic Forum on "Paleography and Chinese Civilization" was held at Tsinghua University. Qiu Yong, Secretary of the CPC Tsinghua University Committee; Liu Peijun, Director-General of the Department of Language Information Management under the Ministry of Education; Wu Zhenwu, President of the Chinese Society of Paleography and former Vice President of Jilin University; and Dirk Meyer, Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford University, and Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Culture, attended and delivered speeches at the opening ceremony, presided over by Wu Huaqiang, Tsinghua Vice President.
Qiu Yong stated that Tsinghua University has been thoroughly implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, actively promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture, and has achieved a series of major academic achievements in the study of paleography, while continuously advancing the interdisciplinary integration of artificial intelligence technology with this field. He expressed confidence that this forum will further deepen and expand international academic exchange and collaboration in the study of paleography, fostering mutual learning between Chinese civilization and world civilizations. The University will continue to explore the contemporary value of China's fine traditional culture, strengthen international cooperation, contribute wisdom to building up China's cultural strength, and inject more vitality into the progress of human civilization.
Liu Peijun stated that the Ministry of Education and the State Language Affairs Commission lead the implementation of the "Paleography and Chinese Civilization Inheritance and Development Program," which aims to inherit and promote China's excellent traditional culture and deeply explore the historical thought and cultural values contained within it. Tsinghua University, as the lead unit of the collaborative platform, provides crucial support for the Paleography Program. The Research and Conservation Center for Unearthed Texts plays a key role in the documentation of excavated documents and in research on cutting-edge issues. Academic achievements nurtured by different civilizational backgrounds and academic traditions effectively promote the global reach of China's excellent traditional culture and foster the common progress of global humanities scholarship.
Wu Zhenwu noted that whether through traditional research or with the support of new technologies, the development of ancient Chinese characters and unearthed document studies is promising. The interpretation of Chinese civilization and world civilizations will undoubtedly benefit significantly from Chinese paleography.
Dirk Meyer emphasized that the study of ancient civilizations is a shared celebration of humanity and looked forward to fruitful discussions among global scholars at the forum.
Professors Edward L. Shaughnessy (University of Chicago), Michael Friedrich (University of Hamburg), Chen Wei (Wuhan University), and Scott Cook (National University of Singapore) delivered keynote speeches. The forum was hosted by Tsinghua University and organized by the Research and Conservation Center for Unearthed Texts and the Secretariat of the Paleography Program, and featured five parallel sessions: "Oracle Bones," "Bronze Inscriptions," "Warring States Characters," "Qin-Han Characters," and "Characters and Civilization." Over 180 scholars from more than 80 universities and research institutions across 14 countries and regions, including China, the US, Russia, and the UK, attended.
Since its establishment in 2008, the Research and Conservation Center for Unearthed Texts, Tsinghua University, has been selected as a key research base for humanities and social sciences under China's Ministry of Education and a leading unit in national collaborative innovation centers. To date, the center has published 14 volumes of the Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts, part 1 of the Collation and Interpretation of the Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts (Volumes 1-4), and the Studies and English Translations of the Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts (Volumes 1, 2, 3, 6), and other related works.
The opening ceremony
Editor: Li Han
