Chinese studies (pre- 1949): Digital special collections

This digital collection of oracle bone rubbings held in the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica can be searched by subjects, reference sources or transcriptions.

This database was developed by the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, based on its bronze collections. There are several related databases that are accessible through this website.

This database is the digital collection of Han bamboo and wood slips held by the Academia Sinica. Among them are more than 11,000 pieces that were excavated from 居延.

This database focuses on the bamboo slips found in the 郭店楚 tomb. It was a cooperative project by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Prof. Zhang Yuguang. The website allows searching of the texts of the 郭店楚簡. There are also secondary sources.

This is a digital collection of bronze and stone rubbings held in the National Central Library. Among the more than 6,000 items in the database there are more than 2,000 epitaphs.

This database is a digital collection of Chinese stone relief and rubbings held in the Kyoto University. It is divided into two categories for searching and viewing images.

The East Asian Library of UC Berkeley has more than 1,500 items in its rubbings collection, which contains many albums of model calligraphy (fa-tieh 法帖), bronze inscriptions, and stone rubbings. About half of the collection date before the year 1000.

Zhejiang University Library has developed a free access database of epitaphs. It contains 6,800 records. Majority collections are Tang epitaphs. Most of the images of the rubbings are scanned and can be browsed or saved.

It is a freely accessible database. Browsing, full text searching and downloading of the excavated texts in the ancient region of Chu is available.

This database is developed by the Institute of History and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. The rubbings are from the Fu Sinian Library collection. The rubbings date from 946 to 1382 AD and majority of the collection are Yuan Dynasty rubbings. The collection has about 1,910 pieces of rubbings.

This is a digital project made by the British Library. It provides access to the richness and diversity of the texts from the world’s great faiths. Dozen's texts on Buddhism have been digitized and accessible.

IDP is a ground-breaking international effort to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artifacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet, and to encourage their use in educational and research programs.

The Fu Ssu-nien Library at the Academia Sinica contains forty-nine manuscripts that appear to be from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. Thirty-six of these are in Chinese, nine in Tibetan, one in Tangut, another in Uighur and two are images of Buddhas. The metadata and images of the collection can be viewed online.

This is a collaborative project initiated by the National Institute of Informatics of Japan. It is the integration of information technology with the study of culture. The website has a digital collection of cultural artifacts, archives, and online exhibitions on the Silk Road.

The Yale Silk Road Database presents over 11,000 images of major sites in the Silk Road region taken during faculty site seminars led by Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan (Professor, History of Art) under the auspices of the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University in the summers of 2006-2010.The collection serves as a multi-disciplinary resource with relevance to students and faculty working in the fields of art and archaeology, religious studies, history, East Asian languages and literatures, Central Asian and Islamic studies.

The Xiangtangshan Caves Project is a collaborative initiative to further understanding on the rich art and visual culture of the late Northern Dynasties in early medieval China.

This is part of Library of Congress's "World Digital Library" project. Religion, history, geography, government administration, literature, medicine, technology, and early translations of European books into Chinese are represented in the collection. These documents can also be viewed on an interactive map.

This database is an index for 40,000 Qing records held in the National Palace Museum (Taiwan).

An index database for finding the names of people who appear in Qing archives held in the Academia Sinica and the National Palace Museum (Taiwan).

This database was created by the National Palace Museum (Taiwan), which indexes imperial edicts from famous Qing emperors. It contains 7,416 edicts from the emperor Kangxi, selected from 一史館藏康熙朝漢文硃 批奏摺彙編，and 45,005 documents from the Yongzheng emperor, selected from 一史館藏雍正朝漢文硃批奏摺彙編. Documents can be searched by official titles, dates or keywords.

An index of art and crafts that were created by the Imperial Household Department (內務府造辦處) during Qianlong emperor's reign, which are held in the National Archive in Beijing. This database allows 1,608 items to be searched, by year, reign title, unit, volume number or keywords.

This database was developed by The Kyoto University Library. It contains 295 digitized documents from the Qing and the Republican periods, most of them are personal trade documents and official files.

This database, constructed by the Institute of Modern History, Academic Sinica contains 4 archival collections that can be searched, diplomatic files, economic files, maps and personal documents.

Created through collaboration between historians at Cambridge University and the Second Historical Archives of China, this project was designed to further understanding on the modern Chinese state, British imperial history, and the history of modern globalization in China, by focusing on the role played by the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and its staff in these historical processes. From this website you can find and download catalogues of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service's archives, its publications and access digitized versions of materials produced by the organization and its staff.

The Hoover Institute has digitized some of its archival collections, including on modern China. These collections can be browsed on the website by region and language.

The Ailing Zhang papers is a special collection hold at the USC library. It consist of six boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and journal articles, photographs, and essays, articles, and speeches (written by Zhang Ailing). 138 letters, 45 photos, 5 articles and 2 manuscripts are digitized and can be accessed online.

Visualising China is a JISC-funded project that allows users to explore and enhance more than 8,000 digitized photographs of China taken between 1850 and 1950.

The Needham Research Institute (UK) has collected about 1,000 photos that were taken by Joseph Needham during this trip to China from 1942-1946, when he was preparing his project on the history of Chinese science and technology.

This database is a collection of early western postcards of China. It was created under patronage from the Institut d'Asie Orientale (IAO) in Lyon, France. About 500 postcards will be fully processed and additional research, such as articles, bibliography, etc. will be entered into the website.

Sidney D. Gamble (1890-1968), an avid amateur photographer and a sociologist, took more than 5,000 photos during his travels in China from 1908-1932. This digital collection is the first comprehensive public presentation of his work.

These photographs were taken during the late 1920s and early 1930s by John B. Shackford during his travels and tenure as an English teacher in southern China.

This mainly image based database is developed by Shanghai Library. The website contains chronology, image collections of Shanghai and famous actors/actresses, old films, and old film magazines.

Rev. Carter D. Holton was an American missionary working in Northwest China from 1923 to 1949. Over 5,000 photos taken by him were digitized by Harvard Yenching Library and can be browsed online.