Talk:Zhou Dynasty

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[edit] Removal of years in title and page redirection

Why are they years necessary in the article title? -- Zoe

Dunno. When people talk about Zhou dynasty they are usually talking this one. I suppose it is better to redirect the Zhou dynasty here and simply add an extra link to the short Zhou dynasty of Empress Wu. -- Wshun

shall we remove the years now or wait until a "consensus" is reached? kt2 23:22, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

IMO follow Wshun's recommendation: redirect Zhou dynasty; add the link the short Zhou dynasty of Empress Wu at the bottom of the page. kt2 00:29, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That was already done some time ago. I merged the other Zhou dynasty article with Empress Wu's. --Jiang 00:36, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Wshun's disambiguation method. Wu Zetian's Zhou is much...much..much less famous. --Menchi 00:32, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The only outdanding issue is whether to include the dates, like Song Dynasty. --Jiang

IMO the dates shall not be included for this Zhou dynasty as the starting year has not been confirmed yet. kt2 00:43, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Shall we now proceed to remove the year and redirect the page as Wshun sugguested ? kt2 00:45, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes. And the same thing for Song Dynasty. --Menchi 01:09, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with the removal for the Zhou Dynasty but not for Song dynasty where the accuracy of the dates has never been disputed. kt2 02:01, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It's not about knowing the dates. The dates are there for diambiguation purposes. If there is not ambiguation, then get rid of it! --Jiang 05:37, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I say disambiguation works much better than putting dates. Redirects should go to the main or more well known dynasty. Empress Wu Zetian's dynasty need not an article of its own, or at least that's my opinion. Personally I don't like dates in titles too much. Colipon 04:39, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If we want to get rid of the dates then we may rename Song Dynasty (420-479) to be Liu-Song Dynasty, as it is sometimes called by Chinese historians. -wshun 04:53, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's sounds pretty unrecognizable from what it really is. Colipon 05:05, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Wu's Zhou doesn't need not an article on its own, so it is now redirected to Empress Wu Zetian. But Song Dynasty (420-479), the first Song Dynasty, seems to deserve its own article. If Liu-Song Dynasty is not good, then it means we have to let the dates in its title! :P -- wshun 06:08, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, it seems that we have good reason to get rid of the dates in Zhou Dynasty (they may not be correct). But the reason to get rid of the dates in Song Dynasty is simply that "It is too cumbersome" and it seems not a really convincing reason--indeed, the article with this title is not going away, it just becomes a redirect! Again, I have no strong opinion on that. -wshun 06:08, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I vote for the simpliest title possible. Simple title makes wiki-links elsewhere in other articles much easier to do. I'd rather type [[Zhou Dynasty]] everywhere than [[Zhou Dynasty (.... .....)]] or [[Zhou Dynasty (.... ....)|Zhou Dynasty]] to establish the link. Again redirection actually makes all syntax of title equivalent, i.e it does not matter one way of the other. Anyway is fine with me as long as they all converge to the same article. Kowloonese 06:12, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I Agree that the "first" Zhou Dynasty should be titled as is whereas the Song dynasties shall include the years. Reasons are:

1) The years clearly disambiguate the two dynasties, as one in the fifth century and another in the tenth century.

2) Using the family names for disambiguation i.e. Liu-Song dynasty and Zhao-Song dynasty is just asking for trouble since these titles are mostly seen in historical journals and texts but way less commonly in mainstream media. An exception is their use in Bai Yang's Zizhi Tongjian, an edition intended for general audience.

Most audience with substantial western background would prefer Song Dynasty for both dynasties since they usually refer to the Song dynasty in the tenth century.

Above was my summary of different opionions on the issue as of yet. Hope it help. kt2 06:37, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I personally strongly oppose the date shown in "Zhou dynasty kings" since the the controversy regarding this project never died down, and the project never published its final report in the complete version as they promised. Now, many people in China believe that this project is dead in water. In any event, many new alternative results by both the official scholars and private scholars (myself being one of them) has proposed alternative dates. My research shows that the founding date of Zhou Dynasty was Marhc 10, 1044 BC, different from any other previously published result (posted on Chronology Research (http://www.niandaixue.com/bbs/index.php?showtopic=1872) on Sept. 5, 2006. Teh modified version is available on http://bbs.guoxue.com/viewtopic.php?p=472539#472539 and on http://www.history-forum.com/node/26. Now there is a certain "prof. Jiang xiaoyuan" who, presumably, has reached a similar/identical conclusion with a computer software and is trying to claim the "First" with merely a "record of private conversation".

In any event, there is no resason to list the precise date as they are so strongly contested by so many, and the date in the list (1046 BC) is not consistent with the one in the article (1122 BC). If we need any date, perhaps we should just give an approximate date (e.g., in the middle of the 11th century BC), or we could list all the alternatives (do we want to do that?). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Line (talk • contribs) 04:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

Archeologists record the first extensive use of iron in China as starting during the Zhou dynasty, yet there seems to be no mention of iron in this article at all. Arkuat 22:09, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)

be bold and please add it! --Jia ng 23:10, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Lester DK Chow info

Lester, the section was probably removed for several reasons. It would have been nice if the person removing it left some type of message with you.

Writing style in Wikipedia (and most encyclopedias) is third person, so the use of "we" and the first person voice is not the norm.
Byline information is not included in an encyclopedia, so remove the biographical information and the "by" portion.
Copyright status may not be compliant, since you state you hold the copyright to the text. You have to make sure you release what you write under the GNU Free Documentation License.
The section is not integrated into the article, so you might want to start a new section called "Heritage" or "Family names" in that article.

Fuzheado | Talk 15:37, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, there's one other problem. The inserted material said, We have done our own research. In other words, this is original research. --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 15:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

NOR does not mean no research. It means no introduction of new ideas. Hence, no original research. We should be careful to look at the spirit behind the texts. —Theo (Talk) 16:56, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

I received an e-mail from Lester and asked him to telephone me. He says he's a second cousin of the premier. I figure that means he has first-hand information. That's not the same thing as "original research". He's not a scientist coming up with a new theory. I think Wikipedia:Don't bite the newbies may be relevant here. 192.195.66.44 13:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused. Are we talking about the section entitled "Added by The Chouclansmen Association of America" that then says "We have done our own research into Chinese history and have found that there were early errors made even by the best of ancient historians"? This seems to me to be the very definition of original research, by Mr. Chow. And as far as "first-hand information" is concerned, I'm not sure where his first hand information regarding the alleged Hebrew origins of Chinese names would have come from either, nor what the relevance of his relationship to a politician would be. Some citations to sources other than his own work might be helpful. --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 17:53, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] qin dynasty

[edit] Wu Zetian's dyn. is never referred to simply as "Zhou Dyn."!!!

I don't think that the blurb under the title of "Zhou Dynasty may also refer to Zhou Dynasty from 690 to 705 AD (see Empress Wu Zetian of China), or the Later Zhou Dynasty from 951 BC. to 690 AD." is appropriately worded. "Zhou Dyn." is never used to refer to Wu Zetian's dynasty (i.e., no one would say simply "during the Zhou Dyn." as a reference to her reign period). The dates of 951 BC. to 690 AD are also bizzarely wrong. Dragonbones 16:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and reworded the dablink blurb to: "See also Empress Wu Zetian of China), who also claimed the dynastic name Zhou for her brief reign from 690 to 705 AD." This makes this use of "Zhou dynasty" for her reign seem less mainstream. Dragonbones 02:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] picture covering text

It looks like the upper left corner of the picture "Western Zhou vase with glass inlays, 4th-3rd century BCE, British Museum" is covering most of a word "by", making it appear as a tick mark ' . Can sb pls fix this? I don't know how. Dragonbones 09:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] end of Eastern Zhou is 256 not 221

The main page gave the correct end date for the dynasty as a whole, 256, but later under the Western & Eastern Zhou section, gave the date of 221. There appears to be widespread confusion over the ending date of the Zhou dynasty, with some sources giving 221 BC, and others giving 256 BC (e.g., the authoritative sources I cite below). The problem is that despite the tendency of casual writers and amateur websites to think of one dynasty being ended by the beginning of another, the truth is rarely so simple. The last Zhou king's reign clearly ended earlier than the unification by Qin. There was a gap in between which is the post-Zhou, tail end of the Warring States period. Another way to present the problem is that the Warring States period (which ended with unification) is often imprecisely mentioned “as” the second half of the Eastern Zhou, when in fact this is only approximately the case; in fact the WS period extends beyond the fall of the Zhou dynasty, by 35 years.

The following properly give a 256 BC end date for the Zhou:

Loewe, Michael & Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China – from the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0 521 47030 7.

Loewe, Michael (ed., 1993). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, (Early China Special Monograph Series No. 2), Society for the Study of Early China, and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, ISBN 1-55729-043-1.

Roberts, J.A.G., A Concise History of China (1999). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. ISBN 0-674-00074-9. Reference is on p.7: “The Zhou dynasty is traditionally dated from 1122 to 256 BC,…divided into the Western Zhou, from 1122 to 771 BC, and the Eastern Zhou, the latter age being further subdivided into the Spring and Autumn Period, from 771 to 481 BC, and the Warring States period, from 403 to 221 BC.” Dragonbones 13:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] origins of Zhou people

周 was an ethnic group of herders inhabited in west of 商，they became sinicized and eventually became farmers. They were originally matriarchal, you could see that by analyzing the surname of the 周 leaders, which is character 姬, composes of characters meaning "woman" and "subjugator", and my surname 姜 is composed of characters meaning "sheep" and "woman". (posted by 24.199.81.64)

24.199.81.64, don't forget to sign your comments with four tilde's (~), thanks! I'm not convinced by your description, especially your character analyses. First, do you have any evidence to cite for the "herder" bit? Second, 姬, found in the oracle bones, is most likely merely a semanto-phonetic compound with 女 semantic and yi/xi/ji-series phonetic; it was a female's given name as well as the name of a ritual. Also, many such names come from placenames, rather than any indication of social structural tendencies; in fact, I'd wager that there are zero examples of the latter in all of Chinese history. And even if its right half were to mean 'subjugator', which I would want to see evidence of, its presence here is more likely merely phonetic (Zhao Cheng, pp. 166 & 248). Next, I don't believe that the structure of 姜 necessarily supports any conclusion about herding. Both it and 羌 are, in oracle bone form, female and male (or gender non-specific) forms with sheep horns attached to the head. This may have indicated headdress, or possibly livelihood, but given the pronunciation of the graphs (jiang, qiang) and the pronunciation of sheep (yang) and the predominance of semanto-phonetic compounding as a character creation method, it is far, far more likely that this was merely an integrated phonetic element. Folk etymology has a long history of falsely reading into graphs a 會意 hui4yi4 or logical aggregate interpretation and ignoring the much more common and therefore more likely phonetic role of one of the components. Note that both 姜 and 羌 represented captives and human sacrifices (with no evidence that they were herders) in the oracle bone record, the former being specifically females of the latter ethnic group (see, e.g., Zhao Cheng p. 164). In the absence of compelling structural reasons for an inference of original but unattested meanings (such as for 九 jiu3, clearly meaning 'elbow' in an original, unattested usage), we should generally rely on the earliest attested meanings of graphs (in the oracle bones) or inference based on attested early uses of a graph's derivative compounds. (Ref. is 趙誠 Zhào Chéng (Chao Ch’eng; 1988) 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 jiǎgǔwén jiǎnmíng cídiǎn – bǔcí fēnlèi dúbĕn. 中華書局 Zhōnghúa Shūjú, ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22 He's one of the top figures in philology in the PRC btw.)Dragonbones 08:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] origins of Zhou people and external links

I hope that you people don't mind my putting an external link to the Zhou Dynasty page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty

1. The Zhou people are among those who were the original Hebrews mentioned in the Holy Bible. We are not Hamites. We are descendants of Shem. http://www.geocities.com/zhouclan/chia_pu.html

2. The Zhou Dynasty, today, is China's Imperial dynasty and Imperial family (by history and court installation), so I thought that I would add a bit of information about the Zhou Dynasty, which is my family's dynasty. By telling people who put this information or link online, I am using myself as an authority source. I am not trying to boast, nor necessarily give myself a pat on the back, but I am allowing people to see the source of authority for this information.

In Wikipedia, you should allow all people to publish information and not exclude people whom you do not like. I am the formost authority on the Zhou Dynasty today. I can be contacted by postal mail or telephone at P.O. Box 4604, Honolulu, Hawaii 96812, (808) 545-7843, if anyone has any questions.

Lester D.K. Chow, historian and president of the Chou Clansmen Association of America.

[edit] Start/end of Zhou

Corrected start / end dates for the Zhou. Here is the link. http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/ancient1.html#zhou

[edit] amazing

    hey,,

       I;m at second year high school.. my teacher,Mr. De Vera
    has given me a special project, he let me choose a certain
    dynasty I do want to reaserch,,since, my favorite dynasty
    is the chou dynasty in china,,My teacher asked me to make
    a simple book about my reseach..so..I opened this website
    & was so amazed with the diff. variety of the topics related
    ancient china...

                                    karen kate abarca

[edit] Bao Shu Ya

Bao Shu Ya , Zhou Dynasty...

I'm trying to find information on this person. He was a judge I think...

Omg i have tons f info on Zhou Dynasty one fact i that Zhou Dynasty can be called Zhou Empire. Well if you want to learn more read the page i wrote it is awesonme. Bye! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.186.134 (talk) 18:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] READER/POSTER OPINIONS ABOUT DELETIONS AND INACCURACIES

From what I can see studying Chinese history, the West has its own concepts of what China's history is all about. Sometimes, the West is accurate and sometimes the West is far out of line. In order to be a scholar and in order to learn, people need to be humble and listen more than they speak.

Sometimes, Western scholars are proud and heady, yet history has proven them to be wrong many times.

In the study of history, one needs to be humble. One needs to learn and come as a student, listen and accept the teachings, rather than to destroy a nation's age-long ageless four thousand year history.

Earlier this morning, I posted somethings about my family's dynasty and when I checked back later my posting was erased!

The same happened to my brother and he finally gave up posting, if the organizers and administrators of this online encyclopedia don't care to be factual and they don't care for truth, then continue to delete my postings. Your online encyclopedia isn't worth the effort and you are not the ultimate, when it comes to China's history.

I would like an apology as well as my postings restored.

I would like to add here:

1. The Chou Dynasty is currently China's Imperial family.

2. Western historians, including Chinese-Americans PhD holders, who study in American colleges, have an inaccurate and sometimes distorted idea of what China's history is all about.

3. It is good to have an online encyclopedia, so people can post (not erase) additional facts and views (sometimes conflicting with current day "authorities") of China's ageless four-thoudsand year history.

We, my brother and I, represent the Imperial family of China and we are the best self-taught China experts in the entire world in our own specialty on China history and the Chou Dynasty, my family! There are no better experts!

Yours,

Keith D.H. Chow
User: KDHChow

See WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, among other things. To edit on Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right. If you're going to edit here, you have to play by Wikipedia's rules. --Nlu (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Second posting:
1. We are the experts on China and the Chou Dynasty, I do not delete the postings of others. I contribute to your pool of knowledge, so others might be able to do their own research to confirm or deny our materials. My brother and I are historians.

2. The front page of Wikipedia says: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." We are not just anybody, we are experts in our own very unique field on China and we represent China and her imperial family.

User: KDHChow

I don't think your source can be considered a reliable source. I can agree that western scholars sometimes have a very different view of Chinese history than do Chinese scholars, but unless you've got some reliable sources to point this out specifically about the Zhou Dynasty, we can't add that in the article. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split Into Eastern and Western Zhou

We should split this article. Western Zhou is so different from Eastern Zhou that it would be misleading to a lay reader to have this together. Elijahmeeks 05:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

since they are related, wikipedia:summary style is more appropriate--Jiang 05:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First hydraulic engineering project

The "Agriculture" section states: China's first projects of hydraulic engineering were founded during the Zhou Dynasty, ultimately for means to aid agricultrual irrigation. What happened to Yu the Great and his irrigation project? Uly 12:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yu the Great falls under Chinese mythology, there is no evidence available to prove any of his hydraulic engineering work existed. However, we do have evidence of hydraulic engineering from the Zhou period. I believe it was Shen Tzu in the 4th century who wrote:

As regards the people who protect and manage the dykes and channels of the nine rivers and the four lakes, they are the same in all ages; they did not learn their business from Yu the Great, they learnt it from the waters.

--PericlesofAthens 19:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Art gallery

I just added a new art gallery, and it is very impressive. Hope everyone enjoys. God I love wikipedia commons! And I love being a turtle! Lol. I hope everyone got that corny-ass joke.--PericlesofAthens 19:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, the editer of this page is Peyton well hope yo like the page i wrote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.186.134 (talk) 18:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)