Chinese rubbings, or tayin, are an ancient art form and practical method for reproducing texts and images carved into stone or other hard materials. For over 1,500 years, rubbings have been a vital medium for preserving China’s cultural, artistic, and historical legacy.
By pressing thin, wet sheets of paper into carvings or inscriptions and carefully applying ink to the surface, artisans created faithful reproductions of inscriptions and images etched into monuments, steles, and tablets.
See a simple demo from The Art Institute of Chicago. ->
Harvard University is home to one of the largest and most significant collections of Chinese rubbings in North America, housed at both the Fine Arts Library (FAL) and the Harvard-Yenching Library (HYL). Some of these rubbings are now the only remaining witnesses to the lost originals.
In 2004, Harvard Library’s Preservation Services and Imaging Services embarked on a long-term digitization project to preserve and provide access to this rare and fragile collection. The effort began with the Fine Arts Library’s Rübel Chinese Rubbings Collection and concluded a decade later in February 2014 with the digitization of the largest rubbings held by the Harvard-Yenching Library. One of these final rubbings measured an extraordinary 245 x 98.5 inches and had to be stitched together from 18 high-resolution scans.
Mary Kocol scans a Chinese Rubbing on a table top
Mary Kocol and Julia Featheringill prepare a Chinese rubbing
| Library | Duration | Image Count | Total Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAL | 8/2004 – 9/2007 | 5,636 images (archival and deliverable) | 302.326 GB |
| HYL | 5/2008 – 2/2014 | 23,852 images (archival and deliverable) | 996.163 GB |
The first rubbing digitized and deposited into the DRS (Digital Repository Services) was a significant piece: an inscription from Zuo Zhuan, one of China’s earliest narrative histories, covering the period 722–468 BCE. This rubbing was taken from the first part of the San Ti Shi Jing (literally, Three-Style Stone Classic), created in 241 CE, which uniquely presents the same text in three scripts—ancient, seal, and scribe—documenting the evolution of early Chinese characters.
<- Stele of the Chronicle of Zuo (the Ancient commentary
on the Chunqiu– “Spring and Autumn Annals”)
Repository: Harvard Fine Arts Library, Special Collections C-07
Catalog Link: http://id.lib.harvard.edu/images/olvwork204152/catalog
Image Link: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:409574?buttons=y
<- San Ti Shi Jing fragment
Wei Dynasty, Three Kingdoms period
height 38 cm, width 32 cm
The Palace Museum
The final rubbings digitized were equally remarkable. Taken from the interior walls of the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass on the Great Wall, these inscriptions contain Buddhist texts written in six different scripts: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongolian, Old Uyghur, Tangut, and Chinese. The Cloud Platform itself is a 31-foot-high white marble structure built in 1342 CE, a testament to the multicultural religious exchanges of Yuan Dynasty China.
<-Juyong guan Yun tai Tuoluoni jing ji jian ta gong de ji
Repository: Harvard-Yenching Library, TP1046 TP1046
Catalog link: http://id.lib.harvard.edu/images/olvwork304707/catalog
Image Link: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:11729507?buttons=y
<-Juyong Pass: a mountain pass on the Great Wall,
and the Cloud Platform situated in the valley.
“Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass“, in Wikipedia, https://w.wiki/EAFt
Today, thanks to this decade-long collaborative effort, thousands of rubbings—large and small, in black or red ink—are preserved in Harvard’s Digital Repository Service (DRS) and accessible to scholars, students, and researchers around the world. You may browse the digital Chinese Rubbings Collection on Harvard Library’s CURIOSity site: https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/chinese-rubbings-collection.
