Talk:Xia dynasty/Archive 1

Deleting Unverified Claims About Race

I'm going to be bold and delete some encyclopedic content here. The claim that "Archeology and forensic" prove that the Xia were probably "Black Africans" is uncited, and just plain wrong, further incoherent drivel about Madras Indians and Australoids in Trinidad seems like someone using words when they aren't quite sure what they mean. (No offense, but the grammar of the sentence doesn't establish a coherent relationship between the words, for example, forensic is an adjective, not a noun.) If by "black African" you are referring to the "Recent Single Origin" hypothesis, which is a genetic hypothesis, not archeological, then imposing a contemporary term like "black African" would be just as misleading as if a white person used the term "Aryan." Bottom line, it's not encyclopedic, it's not verified in any peer-reviewed resource written by a scholar of China. It sounds like more NOI "Asiatic Black Man" theories, which are personal, religious and philosophical beliefs. Not only are they not proven by science, trying to blur the line between science and philosophy cheapens both.

Please don't revert unless you can add sources to verify these claims, preferably from a peer-reviewed journal of bio-cultural anthropology or China Studies. Ouyangwulong (talk) 03:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Charts

I would like to modify the dynasty chart as shown below.

Order	Reign*	Chinese Character	Pinyin Name	English Name	Notes
01	45	禹	yu3	Yu	or Xia Yu (夏禹; xia4 yu3) or Da Yu (大禹; da4 yu3)
02	10	啟	qi3	Qi
etcetera
16	11	發	fa1	Fa
17	52	桀	jie2	Jie	or Xia Jie (夏桀 xia4 jie2) or Lu Gui (履癸 luu3 gui3)

* possible length of reign, in years

I would definitly want to keep the links to the kings; however, the ones I looked at did not link to anything, and the "Edit Page" option did not show the links. Please comment. Jiang, if you can add the links, I would apprecite that; I did not see them. Thanks. User:MLG —Preceding undated comment added 00:36, 18 February 2004 (UTC)

Red links head to empty pages because articles for them havent been written yet. It's perfectly fine to have red links, for articles to be written in the future. --Jiang —Preceding undated comment added 00:37, 18 February 2004 (UTC)

There's no such thing as an "english name". The "English name" is the same has the pinyin. I would have:

10	16	泄	Xìe
11	59	不降	Bù Jìang

Note that the tones are on the wrong letter. This site doesnt do it quite right. --Jiang 22:42, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

1. I agree that the "English Name" is uneeded.
2. However, I use the numbers since the other characters do not copy on a cut and paste. This is very important for a universal wiki usage.
3. Please comment on using the brackets:

10

11

仲丁

Zhong4 Ding1

I did not see your post until I made a similar changes to the Shang dynasty. I will try to do the changes suggested here when we finish. User:MLG —Preceding undated comment added 19:28, 20 February 2004

The tones c/p when I try to - pinyin is appropriately written with the tones. They're not absolutely necessary, but it's good to have them. What brackets? You can sign your name with ~~~~. --Jiang 00:35, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Which type of pinyin do we use?

1. After checking, I see I can cut and paste the pinyin characters in my editor.BUT It does not work all the time. Apparently the text that gets pasted must be in a font that handles the special characters. For example, I can not paste chinese GB or B5 fonts into a Text document using courier, arial, verdana fonts. Similarly, I was not able to paste the pinyin characters into the documents I was using at the time.
2. In order to evaluate the usefulness of our different approach, we need to know what popular fonts work with those characters. We also need to think about possible shortcomings (variations, limitations), such as does switching to a character based method effect spell check, searches, XML, conflict with translation processes. I am sure there are other relevant criteria. Frankly I do not have that data. It seems (do not hold me to this) that I see more numbered based methods, but that may only be my niche.
3. I have not had the time to check into this. Possibly someone else can make an informed recommendation. Let me know what you think. --User:MLG —Preceding undated comment added 17:17, 23 February 2004

If the issue is whether to use tones at all, then I think this discussion belongs at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style for China-related articles. What matters most should be presentation with this online form, IMO. --Jiang 07:53, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think the problem isn't the font, it's more the character set. Is there a way to have the server send a header thing or include a meta tag that specifies one of the Chinese charsets? I don't know much about this because I rarely deal with charsets; I just use the default. raylu 17:06, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

UTF-8 Gisbrother (talk) 07:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Legendary history - Shun abdication and clan control myth

From the transcriptions under 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. It was during this period that Chinese civilization developed a ruling structure that employed both a benign civilian government and harsh punishment for legal transgressions. From this the earliest forms of Chinese legal codes came into being.

This section should be rewrite to exclude information borrow from Xi-Ji. Shun abdication story is rather insulting one intelligent.

Reference from Bo Yang, "Death of the emperor"(帝王之死) It is myth create by Confucius about the abdication

1. In fact, Shun is the one who order to execute Yu father, Gun
2. Yu inherit Xia tribes after his father death. It is known that Xia tribes are expert in irrigation.
3. When Shun step down from the throne(BC2208), he is exile to Chang-Wu mountain, 1,200KM away from the capital. In Chinese literature, it is twisted and say the old Shun "go hunting" in a thick jungle.
4. It is a myth that Yu start the clan control. Predecessor of Shun, Huan Di tribes (BC2697 -BC2357 )are practicing clan control.

--Sltan 13:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, if the author refuse to sanction the section "Yu start the clan control tradition", it will contradict with the same reference history facts. --219.93.185.42 06:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

However, as much as I may respect Bo (it was, after all, his writing that got me interested in history in the first place and got me to study history in college, eventually), his view is the minority view -- and was also written at a time when Bo's own bitterness toward traditional Chinese models of rule (then exemplified in the persons of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, whom Bo was convinced was the one behind his imprisonment) was clearly showing through. I don't think that Bo's view, which was itself insufficiently supported by textual evidence, can be considered the NPOV view. It might be notable in the article, but it certainly shouldn't become the main part of the article without further evidence. (It should further be noted that Bo himself toned down his theories considerably after the end of the Chiang "dynasty.") --Nlu (talk) 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Map of Xia

I reverted the addition of Image:Xia.jpg because 1) the existence of Xia has never been verified by archeological evidence and 2) the traditional histories claiming the existence of the Xia do not give indication of the domain of the Xia rulers. Therefore, I do not see how it is a possible to construct a map of Xia when no such information exists. --Jiang 23:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the construction of the map of Xia is based upon historical records, like the Records of the Grand Historian, I believe there is something written there where the boundaries of the Xia are. --Mar vin kaiser 20:51, 01 January 2009 (UTC)

All Kings of Xia

I finnished all the kings of Xia according to Bamboo Annals. To me the existence of Xia is undoubted. I can list at least 5 books they all indepently mentioned Xia. They are 史记、竹书纪年、水经注、左传、周易 etc. Dongwenliang 01:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can list a couple dozen books and about a hundred scholarly articles--Western and Chinese--that do not acknowledge the existence of the Xia Dynasty as a historic fact. Elijahmeeks 15:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes you can. But your books are some what 4000 to 2000 years late than my books. From the Yaodian(尧典) and Yugong(禹贡) in Shangshu(尚书) to Shiji(史记). What is the defination of history? History is about what happened from memmory and saying or wrtings of the previous gennerations about the early events before present. The Shang records comfirmation by Anyang discovery implys that the Xia in the same records did exist. Dongwenliang 01:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Too Definite

This article provides none of the many arguments against Erlitou Culture as the Xia Dynasty. It also states that the symbols found on the pottery there were 'characters', which most scholars disagree with. Elijahmeeks 15:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this article needs a rewrite. Do you need any help? --Niohe 03:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ive restored some old text and tagged the image of purported Xia writing. Everything Ive been taught in the west is that writing had not been found in possible Xia settlements, as if they were, they would serve to confirm the yet unconfirmed Xia dynasty. --Jiang 03:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks better now, great job! --Niohe 03:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I did a bit of change, but all I had in front of me were my notes on Sarah Allen's excellent book. When I get a chance, I'll put together my archaeology notes and see if I can flesh things out a bit more. Elijahmeeks 00:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Historical records

Here is what the source in the article says:

Though it is mentioned in history books centuries later, the name does not appear on archaeological finds from the period, or even in inscriptions from the centuries that followed its supposed demise. Some Western scholars feel it remains more legend than fact.

Please don't revert my addition, which is basically a paraphrase of this. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with the accuracy of this statement. I made a slight change to the wording and reordered the sentences (As I believe the radiocarbon dating is in reference to Erlitou, I'm not familiar with the scholarship around Yanshi). Elijahmeeks 02:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Niohe, I see now the distinction you're making and also agree with it (Ah, I'm so agreeable these days). As I primarily deal with the Sandai period, I've grown accustomed to treating all historical "records" as "works" that have been heavily interpreted (And, conversely, must be heavily interpreted) and I can see how we need to make sure that the casual reader understands that the Chinese historical tradition began during the Late Zhou/Han period so that they don't think these were primary records created during the period in reference. Elijahmeeks 02:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Great! I think that we should be strict about these distinctions, there is a tendency on China-related pages to treat anything in the dynastic histories as good sources on almost anything in Chinese history. Recently, I was involved in a dispute with some editors who think it is perfectly OK to use Xin Tangshu as a reliable source on the Zhou dynasty. To me this is a clear violation on everything Wikipedia stands for, but I eventually had to give up the debate for lack of time.

Anyway, I appreciate your edits to Wikipedia and I'm looking forward to see more. --Niohe 03:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Historical "works" is fine. Niohe, Chinese history is hardly the only one of its kind that use historical "works" as sources of information. Even Egyption history, the earliest found record of dynastic Egypt dates to about the 25th century BC (see Palermo stone), while the First Dynasty supposedly goes as far as the 31st century BC. Here's an even better one, the earliest Korean kingdom, Gojoseon, is supposed to be as old as 2333 BC, but the oldest historical text that mentions this is Samguk Yusa, which was written in 13th century AD. You can go "correct" those articles, too, if you feel so inclined. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 03:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean that Chinese-related pages are more inaccurate than others, but I worry more about Chinese articles because I can contribute more to them than to other articles. I have looked at some Korean history pages, and they may very well be more messy than those on Chinese history. I have tried to set some of these pages right, but it sometimes seems that verifiability is settled by consensus rather than the reliability of the sources.

As for Egypt, it is my understanding the histories of early Egyptian dynasties have been corroborated by archaeological findings, such as the Narmer Palette, very much like Oracle bones have corroborated information in the Shiji. But to this date, there are no conclusive evidence that the Xia emperors ever existed. Until then, everything before Shang belongs to China's prehistory. --Niohe 03:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Western and Eastern Scholars

I'm uncomfortable with presenting the disagreements regarding the Xia as an East-West thing. My experience with scholarship in the area is that it doesn't skew directly along these lines, and it gives the impression to the reader that the Chinese scholars think one thing and Western scholars think another. As a western scholar (And a real one, not an Essjay one) I've found that Chinese scholars and Western scholars have a full range of interpretations of this and other disagreements in Chinese Archaeology/Ancient History. Elijahmeeks 02:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The way how the Chinese, Japanese experts research is that they normally comprehense lots of historical documents. For Xia dynasty, all the historical sources say the Xia existed. The differences are reign lengths of few kings, or other details. For most Western scholars, even reading the mordern Chinese newspaper is a difficult thing after 10 years of learning Chinese, needless to say the Classic Wenyan text(600BC to 1900AD), I should not mention Oracle bone writing at all which only about 1/4 of characters are identified. Luckly these maybe the most frequently used ones. The things is even you know all the characters, it is still hard to understand the whole sentence, due to grammer and meaning changes as time passes by, and the fact that name of places and people have been lost. Thus to most Western scholars, thousands and millions historical books do not exist at all, all they can refer to is digging the earth, to them, History equals Archaelogy. For example, did the Korea War really happen? It is hard for me to believe that we need archaelogy findings to believe Korea War did happen, that is the key difference between history and archaelogy. Dongwenliang 02:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Dongwenliang: You are right to point out differences between the research methods between east and west, but you are painfully ignorant about the western world. For your information, readings from Chinese newspapers is a standard assignment in most second or third year university Chinese courses. We are expected to read classical Chinese by fourth year. Anyone who cannot read a newspaper in Chinese is not an expert. Fortunately, most western scholars are quite fluent in Chinese. We have read Chienese classics, but they are not NPOV (in the parlance of wikipedia) so they are not accepted uncritically. Your example of the Korean war is a false analogy, because the people who participated in it are still alive. Anyone with memory of the Xia died thousands of years before Sima Qian wrote the Shi Ji (Which yes, I've read) so he doubtless relied on hearsay, not evidence. In all fairness, medievalists don't uncritically accept the existence of the Kingdom of Prester John, for instance, although western texts often refer to it. It's because sound scholarship relies on an empirical process. It is also extremely misleading to characterize a Chinese Nationalist position as "Eastern" which implies that all scholars of the east (including Russia?) agree, or that China's views are the only relevant scholarship in the east. Among free-thinking intellectuals(not propagandists) in China, and even more so among scholars on the subject in Russia, India, Japan, or Korea, there is significant debate over the Xia. Wikipedia should be precise and not promote stereotypes and ignorance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.120.152.25 (talk) 09:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

What you are saying is that you believe Chinese historians such as Sima Qian are story and fortune tellers instead of historians. As a Chinese expert who reads the classics by fourth year you sure did a fine job of underestimating how much effort they put into their work. You know - writings back then is not as easy as you typing on Wikipedia pages today, so you think they take it as lightly as you are? Yes they do not know the modern scientific methods, but they deal the best with what they have back then. If you think that after one thousand years they are in no position to discuss history, then how are you in the position now? As an expert you are showing ignorance about the difference between between history and archaeology - history is alive in people's minds, but archaeology is dead. No matter how you dig, you are not going to find the people living at that time and ask them what happened. History is only dead when no one is there to pass it on. Dig all you want about the ancient Egypt because that culture is dead, but Chinese culture is well and alive. And if you do not live in this culture - I am sorry, you are just not entitled to hide under the banner of scientific methods to call ancient historian liars, since they are not here to debate with you and you won't be able to dig them up. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yigupai for more "modern proofs" about Sima Qian's diligence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.90.184 (talk) 21:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sovereigns of Xia

Can we move these sovereign lists (Xia Shang and Zhou) to a different place? I find they clutter the articles. Perhaps a List of Sovereigns of the Sandai Period? Elijahmeeks 00:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm mildly against it. All articles about the dynasties of China have these lists. _dk 02:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Reference for the founding date

Has anyone followed this reference? It's a New York Times article bemoaning the politicized nature of the Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project. Not exactly the best source for such precise dates. Elijahmeeks 19:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Impact of Precursors of Writing on Historicity

I'm aware that the first writing is from Shang period and the current forms not stabilized until Han but there should have been even earlier precursors to the Shang inscriptions which would impact on historicity (as it does in other cultures) Lycurgus 17:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"first writing" or "first discovered writing"? But I agree with you, you know all most all the Oracle bone writings were found at same small place called XiaoTun villiage in Anyang County, Henan Province. Let's assume the Anyang site was not found yet, so the existing of Shang is still in question, needless to say the writing. Now about Xia, all the sources mentioned Shang also mentionded Xia, but no writings found yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.186.8.130 (talk) 15:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ancient unknown civilization found?

I assume little is known or verified yet concerning this discovery of large Hsiuyen jade("black-skin jade" for short) statues. I post this here for your interest. See article here [1] ^rossnixon 09:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Starting year of the dynasty

Different sources seem to place the start of the dynasty at different years. So why is this source in particular[2] used as the source for the starting date of the dynasty over other sources? For example, to name a few: [3][4][5][6][7]. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, nobody responded, so I changed the starting year in the intro. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 16:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Afrocentrist drivel

The ancient Xia are believed to be a non-Mongoloid western people from Iran, speculated to be the black Chinese

"Are believed"?! These weasel words make it look like the greater body of professional historians subscribe to this theory, whereas it is promulgated by nary a handful of staunchly Afrocentric revisionists. Not to mention the use of "the" before "black Chinese", as though their existence is an accepted historical fact. Removed. --SohanDsouza (talk) 12:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

dDates provided for by Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project

According to table 1 to be found in: Yun Kuen Lee, 'Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History', in: Asian Perspectives. The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific, Vol. 41, 2002, pp.15-42 these are the dates for the three dynasties, provided for by Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project:

TABLE I. CHRONOLOGY OF EARLY CHINESE DYNASTIES

(DYNASTY - KING - CALENDAR DATES, B.C.)

• Xia: 17 kings (2070-1600)
• Early Shang: 19 kings (1600-1300)
• Late Shang:
  • Pangeng, Xiaoxin, Xiaoyi (1300-1251)
  • Wuding (1250-1192)
  • Zugeng, Zujia, Linxin, Kangding (1191-1148)
    
  • Wuyi (1147-1113)
  • Wending (1112-1102)
  • Diyi (1101-1076)
  • Dixin (1075-1046)
• Western Zhou:
  • Wuwang (1046-1043)
  • Chengwang (1042-1021)
  • Kangwang (1020-996)
  • Zhaowang (995-977)
  • Muwang (976-922)
  • Gongwang 922-900
  • Yiwang (899-892)
  • Xiaowang (891-886)
  • Yiwang (885-878)
  • Liwang (877-841)
  • Gonghe (841-828)
  • Xuanwang (827-782)
  • Youwang (781-771)

Source: XIA-SHANG-ZHOU CHRONOLOGY PROJECT ZHUANZU 2000, Xia-Shang-Zhou Duandai Gongcheng 1996-2000 Nian Jieduan Chengguo Baogao, Jianben. Beijing: Shijie Tushu Publishing Company, pp. 86-88.
Guss2 (talk) 10:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Before the Xia Dynasty

Before the Xia Dynasty, according to the Records of the Grand Historian, there were kings like Shun and Yao. Yao passed the throne to Shun and Shun passed the throne to Yu the Great. Knowing that Yao and Shun passed their throne not to an immediate relative but to one of their officials, can we consider that the succession of those people can be called an elective monarchy? Someone please reply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mar vin kaiser (talk • contribs) 14:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not election.The successor was decided by predecessor, no anybody else can make the final decision. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gisbrother (talk • contribs) 08:14, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Back and forth bias

Last time I read this article, near the end of last summer, it was worded in such a way as to make the reader believe that the Xia Dynasty was most likely mythical (invented by the Zhou), and if not, it probably just had a very small factual base in the Erlitou culture. Now, I notice that the article hints at exactly the opposite. In my opinion, since there is significant disagreement amongts Westerners and Easterners about the Xia Dynasty, both of these extremes are bad and non-encyclopediac.

Could we not simply present both views in parallel, add a disclaimer tag at the top of the article cautioning editors about changing the tone and reminding them that there is significant disagreement on this subject, and maybe semi-protect the article?

Frankly, an encyclopedia article that changes so very drastically in a year, with no significant new sources or evidence quoted, does not deserve to be called an encyclopedia article. Qoou.Anonimu (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The first ruler of Xia

Traditionaly, Qi was considered as the first ruler of Xia, Yu the Great was considered as the last Di, in anciant scource Yu the Great was not called Yu of Xia. Additionally, the name Xia was adopted by Qi. --刻意(Kèyì) 03:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Minoan eruption

Shouldn't this article mention Minoan_eruption#Chinese_records, since that article mentions this one. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 13:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Move request to decapitalize all Chinese dynasty articles

There's a move request to decapitalize "dynasty" in the Chinese dynasty articles, as in Han Dynasty → Han dynasty. For more information and to give your input, see [8]. --Cold Season (talk) 17:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)