Li Ji (archeologist)

Li Ji (Chinese: 李濟; July 12, 1896 – August 1, 1979), also commonly romanized as Li Chi, was an influential Chinese archaeologist. He is considered to be the founder of modern Chinese archaeology and his work was instrumental in proving the historical authenticity of the Shang Dynasty.

Li Ji came from a wealthy family of Hubei province, where, in 1896, he was born in the city of Zhongxiang. In 1918 he left for the United States to study anthropology at Harvard University. He received his PhD degree in 1923 and began teaching anthropology and sociology at Nankai and then Tsinghua Universities. In 1925 and 1926 he conducted archeological excavations of the Yangshao culture in the southern part of the Shanxi province, for which he was invited to join the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. as a field worker. In 1928 he became the first director of the archeology department of the Academica Sinica while continuing to work for the Freer Gallery.

Li Ji led the excavations at Yinxu near Anyang from 1928 to 1937 until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War prevented further work. Regarded as the first set of archaeological excavations following modern archaeological principles in China, these excavations yielded the discovery of a royal palace and over 300 graves, including 4 royal ones. The recovered artefacts comprised among others early bronze casts and a large number of oracle bones, which represent the earliest significant body of ancient Chinese writing. Those findings finally established historical authenticity of the Shang Dynasty, which had still been a subject of debate up to that point.

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