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Studies in the History of Natural Sciences  2019, Vol. 38 Issue (1): 26-39    DOI:
ARTICLES     
The Composition of the Personnel in the Astronomical Organization during the Early Years of the Northern Song Dynasty
WANG Jichen
Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, CAS, Beijing 100190, China;
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS,Beijing 100049, China
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Abstract  In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the official astronomical institutions faced the serious situation of what was called "the scarcity of calculating experts." In order to organize a new team of astronomers, the imperial court recruited a large number of experts from amongst officials of the previous dynasty and new appointees from among the common people as Astronomical officials. However, from the late Tang and Five Dynasties, the families that produced these experts had been in decline and astronomical officials were rare, so their contribution to the development of astronomy in the early Song Dynasty was limited. Under these conditions, the imperial court recruited common people and appointed officials of special merit to fill the astronomical institutions. These people had different levels of astronomical knowledge, but their participation helped to relieve the shortage of talent. In addition, relying on the assimilation of experts from among the common people, the astronomical institutions in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty were able to organize and absorb the astronomical knowledge scattered among the common folk in the late Tang, providing a foundation for the historical leap in the development of astronomy during the Song dynasty. This paper also provides a new research perspective to re-examine the relationship between folk astronomy and official astronomical institutions under the astronomical ban.

Key words： Folk Astronomy      Calculating experts      Directorate of Astronomy and Calendar      imperial astronomy specialists     
Received: 19 October 2018      Published: 21 June 2021
ZTFLH:  N092  
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WANG Jichen. The Composition of the Personnel in the Astronomical Organization during the Early Years of the Northern Song Dynasty. Studies in the History of Natural Sciences, 2019, 38(1): 26-39.

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http://www.shns.ac.cn/     OR     http://www.shns.ac.cn/Y2019/V38/I1/26

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