an analytical catalogue of ancient rubbings on stone and bronze. Zhao Mingcheng (1081–1129) stressed the importance of using ancient inscriptions to correct discrepancies and errors in later historical texts discussing ancient events. Native Chinese antiquarian studies waned during the Yuan (1279–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties, were revived during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), but never developed into a systematic discipline of archaeology outside of Chinese historiography. Medieval India 12th century Indian scholar Kalhana's writings involved recording of local traditions, examining manuscripts, inscriptions, coins and architectures, which is described as one of the earliest traces of archaeology. One of his notable work is called Rajatarangini which was completed in c.1150 and is described as one of the first history books of India. Renaissance Europe In Europe, interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilisation and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the Late Middle Ages. Despite the importance of antiquarian writing in the literature of ancient Rome, such as Livy's discussion of ancient monuments, scholars generally view antiquarianism as emerging only in the Middle Ages. Flavio Biondo, an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created a systematic guide to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. The itinerant scholar Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli or Cyriacus of Ancona (1391–c.1455) also traveled throughout Greece to record his findings on ancient buildings and objects. Ciriaco traveled all around the Eastern Mediterranean, noting his archaeological discoveries in a day-book, Commentaria, that eventually filled six volumes. English antiquarians of the 16th century including John Leland and William Camden conducted topographical surveys of England's countryside, drawing, describing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered. These individuals were frequently clergymen: many vicars recorded local landmarks within their parishes, details of the landscape and ancient monuments such as standing stones—even if they did not always understand the significance of what they were seeing. Shift to nationalism In the late 18th to 19th century archaeology became a national endeavor as personal cabinets of curios turned into national museums. People were now being hired to go out and collect artifacts to make a nation's collection more grand and to show how far a nation's reach extends. For example, Giovanni Battista Belzoni was hired by Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, to gather antiquities for Britain. In nineteenth-century Mexico, the expansion of the National Museum of Anthropology and the