Return to search

DIETARY CONDITIONS AND DIFFERENTIAL ACCESS TO FOOD RESOURCES AMONG THE VARIOUS CLASSES DURING THE HAN PERIOD

In this thesis, I study how food resources and dietary conditions were determined by social and economic status during the Han period in China, B.C. 206~A.D.220. Even though earlier scholars have published research concerning the Chinese food culture of this period, these studies were limited in that they only illustrated the dietary culture of the upper class or the available food resources in one geographic area. Also, without any persuasive data, it has been assumed by these earlier scholars that there were big differences in food resources and food consumption between the upper and lower classes.
In this thesis, for comparison among the classes, I divide the social and economic classes into five stratified groups: nobles, officials, peasants, soldiers and convicts. After a brief introduction of the nature of each social class, I examine the food resources and nutritional condition of each group using information such as the wealth and income of each group, the market price of food resources, the agricultural products of peasants, and the amount of food distribution to soldiers and convicts. I found these data from archaeological remains, received historical records and pictorial data, and excavated texts.
This research shows a broader view of Chinese dietary condition focusing not only on the variety of food resources of nobles, but also on the different food accessibilities among the officials, and the food deficiencies of peasants. It also deals with the situations of food supply for soldiers and convicts in an effort to reveal the true dietary consumption and nutritional conditions for all Chinese. This research proves that the various classes during the Han period in China had different food resources and dietary conditions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12032004-131428
Date05 July 2006
CreatorsLee, Moonsil
ContributorsKatheryn Linduff, Anthony Barbieri-Low, Kathleen DeWalt
PublisherUniversity of Pittsburgh
Source SetsUniversity of Pittsburgh
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12032004-131428/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Page generated in 0.002 seconds