Talk by Lam Wengcheong, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Dodd Hall 275
This talk examines the development of iron technology in early imperial China from a capital-based perspective, focusing on the Qin and Western Han periods. In the late Warring States and Qin era, recent metallurgical studies point to a case of “technological leapfrogging” in the imperial core. Advanced fined iron (chaogang) techniques emerged despite the absence of large-scale workshops, suggesting a decentralized yet technically sophisticated production model likely coordinated through institutional mechanisms. New archaeological data from the Western Han period shed further light on this evolving system. Excavations at Taicheng and Ducheng—two ironworking sites near the capital—reveal increasing regional specialization and divergent organizational strategies, ranging from large-scale, state-run operations to small-scale, specialized, locally embedded production. These findings underscore the Han state’s growing role in regulating iron production through administrative planning and the coordination of regional specialization.
Together, the Qin and Han cases in the capital region trace a distinctive trajectory of technological change—shaped less by linear development than by political centralization, economic coordination, and institutional adaptation. The rise of ironworking in early China thus reflects not only technical innovation but also the infrastructural logic of imperial governance.
Suggested Reading:
Lam, Wengcheong
2023 Connectivity, Imperialism, and the Han Iron Industry. New York: Routledge. [Chapter 1-4]
Lam Weng Cheong is an associate professor of archaeology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A specialist in the archaeometallurgy of ancient China, his research explores the development of metal technologies and the mechanisms of social and state control over commodity production and exchange. He has conducted fieldwork and collaboration projects in Shaanxi, Guangdong, Hunan, and Yunnan, focusing on the economic systems and social transformations of the Han empire. In addition to various scholarly articles in archaeological science, he is the author of Connectivity, Imperialism, and the Han Iron Industry (Routledge, 2022), and a co-author of The Archaeology of Han China (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Lam is the 2024–25 CUHK-Stanford University Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies