HARVESTING AND INTERPRETING BIOGRAPHIC, EPIGRAPHIC,

1
HARVESTING AND INTERPRETING BIOGRAPHIC,
EPIGRAPHIC, AND GENEALOGIC DATA FOR MIDDLE-PERIOD
PROSOPOGRAPHY Section 1 reviews sources of
prosopographic data (and provides a certain
amount of technical details on how to harvest
data). I stongly promote the use of excavated
epitaphs for the pre-Huang Chao period. The one
somewhat radical proposal I make is that Late
Imperial genealogies may potentially be of use in
prosopographic studies of the pre-Song. Section
2 provides an overview of the scope and coverage
of these various sources. One point I argue
(based largely on my Asia Major article) is that
the bulk of transmitted sources deal with elites
who resided in the capital cities of Luoyang
and/or Chang'an. A corollary of this constitutes
the basis of a book project I am working on
transmitted biographies in conjunction with
epitaphs from Chang'an and Luoyang provide a
tremendous amount of information on the capital
urban elite of the Late Tang. I estimate that
63000 individuals residing in the capital
received epitaphs in the period 800-899 I
suspect I will have the names of 20000 of these
individuals by the culmination of my study.
Section 3 consists of various reflections on the
nature of prosopographic data (with a focus on
Late Tang data). I propose that 1) Generic
conventions precluded dramatic change over time
in how life histories are portrayed on the other
hand, substantial differences exist between
different genres (including different genres of
epitaphs). 2) The identity of provincial elites
was rooted in a place, whereas the identity of
capital elites was rooted in a spatially-undefined
social network. 3) Choronyms have little
significance in the ninth century. 4) Database
structures share weaknesses inherent to all
systems of classification.