Geoffrey Sampson: Voices from Early China: The Odes Demystified. 445 pp. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars’ Press, 2020. £67.99. ISBN 978 1 5275 5212 8.

Abstract

author’s suggestion that the nomads did not engage in any agricultural activities (e.g. pp. 27–8) should be carefully reconsidered. The author devotes many pages to discussing in detail marriage negotiations between Turkish and Tang ruling houses, pointing out that no successful marital relationships were established. However, the Tang ruler tried to adopt the daughter of the second Turkish ruler, Kapgan Kagan, who defected from the Turkish Empire to Tang, and marry her to the third ruler, Bilgä Kagan. Mentioning this historical fact would have enriched the author’s discussion of this topic. Furthermore, the author upholds the position according to which the status of the ruler bestowing the wife is superior to the status of the ruler being granted a spouse (p. 56). A few years later, however, Uyghur and Tibetan rulers are known to have married Tang princesses, although they held more power than the Tang Dynasty. Even during the Turkish Empire, as the author mentions, there was an agreement for the marriage of the Turkish ruler’s daughter and a Chinese prince (pp. 62–3). If one is to accept the author’s interpretation, then the candidates for the marriage negotiation should have been replaced once the power balance between the rulers changed. This reviewer finds that further careful examination of the above historical facts is required in order to accept this author’s theory. In his discussion of the writing process of the Old Turkish inscriptions, the author suggests that a part of the text was added only later to the stele (p. 138). The author, however, does not point out any evidential traces on the stone monuments themselves. If some lines had been curved later by other writers, then their script shape, size, line distances and so on would have shown different characteristics. In addition, the writers of the later text probably calculated its length according to the limited remaining free space. Providing a clear solution to the above questions would make the author’s discussion of Old Turkish inscriptions worth considering. His discussion indicates, however, that the inscriptions remain privileged objects of research for future studies.