"5000 years of Chinese history"

It is all depends on one's perspective on the exisitance and time period of Xia dynasty. But most of time, people says 5000 years of history simply because it sounds better than 4200, 3863, or etc years of history  

^ What? Irrigation came long after Chinese civilization had been well established. The tradition of large-scale irrigation and hydraulic works did not come about until the early 6th century BC with engineers and statesmen such as Sunshu Ao, and a bit later with Ximen Bao in the 5th century BC. Although bronze artifacts dated before 2100 BC have been found, that is the traditionally marked date for the beginning of the Chinese Bronze Age. Already by the 16th century BC the Chinese had advanced bronze-smelting technology during the Shang Dynasty.

Edited by Preobrazhenskoe - 10-Aug-2007 at 12:47

<QUOTE>The Xia Dynasty (Chinese: 夏朝; Pinyin: xi� ch�o; 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 Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and followed by the Shang Dynasty.</QUOTE>


Here you go. 2070BC to 2000CE around 4000 yrs of CIVILIZATION

Originally posted by jebusrocks ... Here you go. 2070BC to 2000CE around 4000 yrs of CIVILIZATION

Edited by pinguin - 08-Nov-2007 at 00:31

You can name highly organized tribal societies from all over the world that failed the "test" of civilization. Building , sculpture and all that sort of thing. On the other hand that is also branding 'civilization" as "organized materialism" for they leave much stuff behind for those of the future to find. To say a groups of people with a common heritage didn't form a civilization is a poor indication of how smart they were.

They were often enough better off living in tribal societies and didn't want to go any further in having centralized forms of government where power inevitably falls into the hands of the few. The Celts in Europe remained divided into competing tribes although having the world's first Common Market and they also worked in metal that could travel from the Black Sea the Irish Sea.

So far as China is concerned everybody would like to find more and there are some exciting early finds of casting and metal working and so on, but no real evidence of cooperation between the early clans and tribes. But then again much of the early evidence got washed away and left behind no conclusive records of what their achievements were. One always hopes to find out about ways of life we have never heard about before.


Edited by elenos - 08-Nov-2007 at 11:32

What excites me and many others about Chinese culture is the ideas like "chi" force said to run through all living things. This tells of ways of thought original to the Eastern world for thousands of years. To my mind the unique ways of living with nature predates the rise of Chinese "civilization" though many tend to confuse one with the other.  

The origin of Chinese character might be traced to even earlier stage, some charaters found on the tortoise-shell from Jihu archaeological site(7000BC-5800BC) resembles the one found on tortoise-shell of Shang dynasty, for instance, the character for "eye" could be mistaken as Shang oracle bone inscription if it wasnt actually found at Jiahu.

"Eye" from Jiahu

"Eye" from oracle bone inscription, bronze ware inscription, standardized version by Qin dynasty
http://home.htu.cn/hzdam/05bkzl/hzyy/kewen1_06/kewen1_06_mu.htm

"Eye" in modern form

both the Shang and Jiahu people carved characters on tortoise-shell for divination purpose,
it seems this practice may had early origin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiahu

Edited by The Charioteer - 11-Nov-2007 at 01:35

Originally posted by pinguin Now, it is highly doubtful the "civilization" of the Xia is the same of the Han or the one of modern Chineses

this is a Shang dynasty bronze jue

a Ming dynasty bronze jue

a Qing dynasty Bronze jue which was casted for emperor Qianlong for rituals

"In the west of the Eurasian continent, bronze items were in most cases used for agriculture and warfare. In China, the greatest part of discovered and preserved bronze items was not forged to ploughs or swords but cast to sacrificial vessels. Even a great part of weapons had a sacrificial meaning like daggers and axes that symbolized the heavenly power of the ruler. The strong religious sense of bronze objects brought up a great number of vessel types and shapes which became so typically that they should be copied as archaic style receptacles with other materials like wood, jade, ivory or even gold until the 20th century"

"Jue - one of the oldest wine mugs, the earliest found dates the Erlitou culture. The jue's typical features are the long, canal-like beak (liu 流) and the shorter counterpart on the other side (wei 尾). On both sides, small handles (pan 鋬) are fitted. the Shang dynasty on, jue beaks are crowned by one or two zhu 柱 buttons. This vessel type has been very popular and was copied oftenly. It has been in use until the upcoming of bowls and cups during Song dynasty. "
http://www.a3guo.com/en/china/Art/Bronze/bronze.html

the three legged vessel used to contain liquors for ritual purpose by that of Qing is rather consistent with its earliest Xia counterpart.

besides the origin of Chinese script might be traced to that period, the "ancestor" of three legged vessel which is so typical of Chinese culture might be found at Jiahu as well.

 

Edited by The Charioteer - 11-Nov-2007 at 05:15

Edited by The Charioteer - 22-Nov-2007 at 01:54

Edited by The Charioteer - 22-Nov-2007 at 02:15