Tools of State: The Evolution of the Chinese Scholar’s Toolkit

The ink stone, brush, ink stick and paper, commonly termed the “Four Treasures of the Scholar’s Desk,” are the key components of the “scholar’s toolkit” with which scholars in ancient China conducted the administration of state affairs, private and official correspondence and the literary arts. Despite a wealth of interest in the origins of writing and substantial prior research on Chinese scholars as well as inscribed objects from the early dynasties, the ancestry of the Scholar’s Desk writing assemblage and its establishment as a standardized set has yet to be explored in depth from an archaeological perspective. The development of the writing assemblage from its origins to standardization as a complete set comprised of brush, ink, ink stick and paper, which took place from the Neolithic to the end of the Han dynasty (c. 7000 BC – AD 220), remains a gap in scholarship that needs to be addressed. The extent to which the early states and the scholars were involved in the development of the writing assemblage also requires examination. A broad pattern analysis with focus directed towards the overall trends in the frequency of occurrence of writing assemblage finds, in addition to evidence of changes in their use and co-occurrence in burial, is necessary in order to illustrate how the four components of the Scholar’s Desk assemblage came together and were established as a set through its use by the state and by the scholars. This research contends that the writing assemblage, which had an extensive ancestry and extended development process, was established as a standardized set both through the combined interests of the scholars and then of the state. Through the use of the assemblage by the scholars in the service of the state, the scholars and the writing assemblage became the “tools of state” that were essential for the running of Chinese society.