The Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Lanzhou University School of Letters has a long history, originating from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of National Lanzhou Sun Yat-sen University, which was founded in 1928. After the founding of New China, it belonged to the Department of Chinese Language and Literature. The direction of paleography is planned to be the basic professional direction of the College of Liberal Arts. In more than 90 years of history, there have been many famous experts in ancient writing, such as Zhang Xi, Zhang Shunhui, Feng Guorui, Shu Lianjing, Yang Bojun, Huang Borong, Gu Zheng, Zhao Jun, Zhu Minche, Lin Duan, Xu Qing, Zhang Wenxuan, etc.They have made outstanding contributions to the establishment of this major, formed a deep humanities academic tradition and a solid academic foundation, and cultivated a large number of outstanding ancient philology professionals with both ability and political integrity for the country and society. The outstanding tradition formed by the brilliant history of the discipline has laid the foundation for the establishment and development of the first-class undergraduate major in ancient philology.

   Paleographology is not only a traditional basic discipline professional direction, but also a new interdisciplinary professional direction. As a basic professional direction, ancient philology is based on the basic knowledge of the origin, development and evolution, structural principles of Chinese characters and the rules of character use, interpretation of Chinese characters, and take various ancient Chinese characters (such as oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, bamboo and silk books, etc.) as connotation cornerstone. As an interdisciplinary professional direction, paleographology involves multiple disciplines such as language and philology, archaeology, philology, history, etc., and will reflect the development trend of higher level of multidisciplinary collaborative education with the continuous integration and innovation of the disciplines.

   With the development of society and changes in demand for talents, the direction of the  Paleographology Major of Lanzhou University will advance with the times, respect the law of education, adhere to teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, attach importance to basic education, strengthen interdisciplinary, and strive to meet the needs of building socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, adapt to national strategies and meet the needs of local economic, social and cultural development, cultivate diversified and compound talents with a wide range of knowledge, a solid foundation, a simple style of study, a strong sense of innovation, a strong research ability, a deep family and country feelings and a strong humanistic care, a high sense of social responsibility, a strong sense of historical mission and strong practical ability.