Talk:Xia Dynasty

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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

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

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

4) 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

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)

Contents 1 Which type of pinyin do we use? 2 Legendary history - Shun abdication and clan control myth 3 Map of Xia 4 All Kings of Xia 5 Too Definite 6 Historical records 7 Western and Eastern Scholars 8 Sovereigns of Xia

[edit] 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

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)