Archaeology (kaoguxue) is considered an important part of history (historiography, pre-modern) in China. "The study of the examination of antiquity" is the translation of the Chinese term for archaeology and implies a historiographical approach that has been known in China since the Zhou dynasty. Simultaneously, there developed a nurture of antiquity in which, in addition to the written fixation of history, the cataloging and archiving of artifacts, primarily of bronzes from the Shang dynasty, played an i…