Viewing page 2 of 182

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

2

Plateau.[[superscript]]2[[/superscript]] The River Huan [[superscript]]3[[/superscript]](洹） is the main water system near this city; it has its source in Li-ch'eng Hsien（黎城縣）, near the foot of T'ai-hang Shan, and flows in a generally eastward direction, meandering near Yin-hsü and the An-yang city. Further east in Nei-huang（內黃縣), it enters the Wei Hê (衛河),which, after joining the Yün Hê (運河), flows into the sea at Tien-tsin, thru Hai Hê (海河).

Althou the discovery of the true historical significance of the site is a recent event, it is mentioned in historical records quite early. There is a passage in the Biography of Hsiang Yü (項羽本記), by Szu-ma Ch'ien (司馬遷) in his Shih-chi (史記), in which Yin-hsü was definitely recognized as early as the later part of the third century B. C. The following is the translation of this 

[[line across page]]

[[footnote]] 2. For a more detailed geological description of this region read, C. C. Wang, Geology of the Wu-an, Shê Hsien, Ling Hsien and Anyang districts, Northern Honan, Bulletin of the Geological Survey of China. No. 9, 1927. The Peking-Tsi-nan sheet map issued by the Geological Survey of China covers the main part of the Northeastern Alluvium Plain, where, at the southwestern corner, is located the district of An-yang. The Explanatory Notes by H. C. T'an attached to this sheet give all the important geological data concerning this region.

[[footnote]] 3. Althou the character (洹) is sometime pronounced as Yuan or Yüen as Menzies and Chavannes have respectively rendered it, the correct pronounciation in this connection is 'Huan' not 'Yuan'. Thus Yen Ssu-ku (顏師古) in his comment on a passage in the Biography of Hsiang Yu in Ch'ien-han Shu (前漢書), inserted this note: "The sound equivalent to the character (洹) should be ( Huan); the vulgar reads it like ( Yuan); it is wrong (洹音桓，俗音袁，非也). Vol. 31 p. 16, Ch'ien-han Shu, 1739 A.D. Ed.

[[footnote]] 4. The local name of the Huan River in An-yang Hsien is An-yang Hê (安陽河); but among the educated, it is still called Huan Shui (洹水). Yuan Shih-kai (袁世凱), once the president of the Chinese Republic, built a palatial residence near the bank of this river, north of the city of An-yang Hsien and named it Huan-shang T'sun (洹上村). This residence was recently confiscated by the Government. It is now partly occupied by a High School, partly by a Military School. The Academia Sinica twice had its headquarter in this residence during the field season. The name of this river occurs frequently in oracle bone inscriptions, in which it is represented like a meander ([[image-swirl]]). It occurs also in the Records of the Bamboo Annals (竹書記年), and may be said to be the earliest-mentioned River that can be definitely identified at present.

Transcription Notes:
added traditional Chinese characters; several transcription errors still need to be corrected