Xia Dynasty

The Xia Dynasty (Chinese: 夏朝; pinyin: xià cháo; Wade-Giles: hsia-ch'ao), ca. 2070 BC–1600 BC,^[1] of China is the first dynasty to be described in the Records of the Grand Historian and unofficial Bamboo Annals, which record the names of seventeen kings over fourteen generations lasted 431 or 471 years. The dynasty was preceded by the legendary Three August Ones and Five Emperors, and followed by the Shang Dynasty.

Legendary history

According to the official history, the Xia Dynasty was founded when Shun abdicated the throne in favor of his minister Yu, whom Shun viewed as the perfect civil servant. Instead of passing power to the person deemed most capable of rulership, Yu passed power to his son, Qi, setting the precedence for dynastic rule. The Xia Dynasty thus began a period of family or clan control.

According to traditional Chinese proponents of the Dynastic Cycle, it was during this period that Chinese civilization developed a benign civilian government and harsh punishment for legal transgressions. From this the earliest forms of Chinese legal codes came into being.

Jie, the last ruler, was said to be a corrupt king. He was overthrown by Tang, the leader of Shang people from the east.

Archaeological records

Unlike the later Shang dynasty, no direct archeological evidence exists to confirm the existence of a Xia dynasty. Archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the Xia dynasty at locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. There exists a debate as to whether or not Erlitou culture can be declared as the site of the Xia dynasty. Radiocarbon dating places the site at ca. 2100 to 1800 BC, providing physical evidence of the existence of a state contemporaneous with and possibly equivalent to the Xia Dynasty as described in Chinese historical works. ^[2] In 1959, a site located in the city of Yanshi was excavated containing large palaces that some archaeologists have attributed as capital of the Xia Dynasty. Though later historical works mention the Xia dynasty, no written records dated to the Xia period have been found to confirm the name of the dynasty and its sovereigns. At a minimum, the archaeological discoveries marked an evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the typical Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.

Mythical Opposite of Shang

In her work, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China, Sarah Allen noted that many aspects of the Xia are simply the opposite of traits held to be emblematic of the Shang. Classical Chinese historians such as Sima Qian had access to records going only as far back as the Western Zhou Dynasty. The implied dualism between the Shang and Xia, Allen argues, is that while the Shang represent fire or the sun, birds and the east, the Xia represent the west and water. The development of this mythical Xia, Allen argues, is a necessary act on the part of the Zhou Dynasty, who justify their conquest of the Shang by noting that the Shang had supplanted the Xia.

Sovereigns of the Xia dynasty

See also

• List of Neolithic cultures of China

Notes:

1. ^ http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/ancient-history.htm
2. ^ Fairbank, John K. China: A New History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992, page 35.

Reference

• Deady, Kathleen W. and Dubois, Muriel L., Ancient China. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 2004.
• Sarah Allen (1991), The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China

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