Weng Cheong Lam

Weng Cheong Lam will spend his time at CASBS working on a writing project that delves into the development of market systems in ancient China. By blending historical texts with archaeological discoveries and recent advances in archaeological science, this project aims to explore how the distribution of commodities reflects underlying market systems and their historical evolution. Focusing on the political transformations during the Han empire, the project will also tell the stories of goods used in daily life and engage archaeological studies in interdisciplinary discourses on markets, contributing to a broader discussion about the rationale behind economic systems in ancient China. This exploration will also prompt a reconsideration of the consequences of political turmoil and its impacts on economic systems.

Lam is an associate professor of archaeology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. An expert in the archaeology of ancient China, his work focuses on the development and social control of ancient metal technology and commodity economies. In addition to various scholarly articles in archaeological science, Lam is the author of Connectivity, Imperialism, and the Han Iron Industry (Routledge, 2022) and one of the authors of the forthcoming work The Archaeology of Han China (Cambridge, 2024). Lam is the CUHK-Stanford University CASBS fellow for 2024-25.