Le serpent, la mort et les Sources Jaunes dans la Chine archaïque

“Snakes, Death and the Yellow Springs in China’s Early Bronze Age”

Conférence du professeur Sarah Allan (Dartmouth College-Berlekey) 

何毓灵、李志鵬《殷墟出土骨角牙蚌器》2018

Abstract 

This talk traces the evolution of snake and snake-bodied motifs from the dawn of the Bronze Age to the late Shang Dynasty (ca. 1300-1050 BCE). It argues that two snake motifs with different cultural origins and based on two different species of pit viper were combined and became interchangeable in the late Shang period. Snakes have been shown to cause a neurophysiological reaction of elemental fear in all higher primates. Thus, they are used as “embodied metaphors” that refer to death or the land of the dead in various ancient cultures. This talk argues that the traditional Chinese cosmology of two afterworlds, one in the sky and a watery underworld, that became known as the Yellow Springs, was already present at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This cosmology serves as the context in which snake motifs served as image metaphors that referred to death and the watery afterworld.

La conférence sera donnée en anglais et sera suivie d’un moment d’échange avec le public  

Date : mercredi 29 novembre 2023

Horaire : de 14h à 16h

Lieu : Collège de France, Institut des civilisations, salle de conférence du rez-de-chaussée, 54 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris.