Xia-Shang-Zhou chronological project

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The Chronological Project Xia-Shang-Zhou ( 夏商周 断 代 工程 , Xià Shāng Zhōu Duàndài Gōngchéng , also known as XSZ project or XSZCP for short ) is an interdisciplinary research project that was commissioned by the People's Republic of China to provide details on the to find out the local and especially temporal circumstances of the earliest Chinese dynasties - the Xia dynasty , the Shang dynasty and the Zhou dynasty . Professor Li Xueqin from Tsinghua University in Beijing led the research group, which comprises more than 200 experts . The ambitious project was financed and implemented within the ninth Chinese five-year plan , which was adopted in 1996. Results of the research project were presented in October 2000.

Researchers outside the People's Republic have since criticized the methodology and the results, which are not up for discussion within the PRC. The main political motivation was to actually underpin the national continuity of China's proverbial 5000-year history.

background

The traditional image of history of ancient China was decisively shaped by Sima Qian , who lived under the early Han dynasty from around 145 to 90 BC . His great historical work Shiji ( records of the chronicler ) took the reader from the original emperors through the kingdoms of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties to the then contemporary Qin and Han dynasties. Sima Qian's source material is largely lost today, but he already struggled to reconstruct events before the reign of Gong He , who ruled from 841 to 827 instead of the exiled Zhou king. While Sima Qian was able to come up with an annual chronology from 841 BC, his reports on the periods before that were limited to lists of kings and isolated, special events. Even subsequent scholars failed to provide more precise information on Chinese chronology before this date.

Many elements of this traditional image of history, especially the earliest parts, were recognizably mythical . In the 1920s, followers of the Yigupai School ( School of Doubt in Antiquity ), including Gu Jiegang , realized that the historical figures that were placed in the earliest periods came from later literature. This led to the assumption that historiography had subsequently created more and more backward levels and myths (so-called fictional tradition ). The growing suspicion was that the Xia or even the Shang dynasties were a mere invention of the Zhou era, which wanted to justify the doctrine of the heavenly mandate in this way .

Oracle bones from the time of the Shang King Wu Ding

However, as early as 1899 the scholar Wang Yirong identified the first oracle bones as an early form of Chinese written culture. In 1928 it was possible to find the place where these oracle bones were found, the former Shang site of Yinxu , on which excavations were concentrated in the following years. It turned out that these bones could be assigned to the last nine Shang kings from Wu Ding ; and that the order of these rulers reconstructed in this way roughly matched the tradition of Sima Qian. Archaeologists have since focused on the Yellow River Valley in Henan as the most likely site of the early dynasties. In the early 1950s, remains of the Erligang culture were found near Zhengzhou , and in 1959 the Erlitou culture was found near Yanshi / Luoyang . Radiocarbon studies suggested that the palace-building Erlitou culture had an organized state around 2100 to 1800 BC. Recent discoveries of other cultures in Sichuan and in the Yangtze Valley ( Sanxingdui , Panlongcheng and Wucheng site ) make the research situation more complicated, as these cultures do not fit into the outdated image of the Erlitou culture as the most outstanding advanced civilization of its time.

Until the middle of the 20th century, most historical works used a “traditional” chronology for the prehistory, which was calculated by the ancient historian Liu Xin . However, because of the more recent discoveries, modern science has since proposed a shorter chronology. This postponed the conquest of the Shang empire by the Zhou in the 11th century, an event which had been dated back to the 12th century.

In 1994, during a visit to Egypt , State Commissioner Song Jian was extremely impressed by the well-researched chronology there, which dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. He called for a comparable study of Chinese history. The project was then launched in 1996.

methodology

The project should find a harmony between astronomical findings, archaeological excavations, radiocarbon dating and other dating methods, as well as the text analysis of traditional historical transmission. Some specific turning points received special attention.

Western Zhou kings

The contemporary evidence of the Western Zhou Dynasty includes thousands of bronze objects, many of which are inscribed. 60 of these vessels bear inscriptions, for example on the 60-year cycle , moon phases or even month and year information on the reign of the reigning ruler, which, however, usually remains unnamed due to the name taboo. Unusual astronomical events were also recorded. One key date was the accession to the throne of Zhou Yi Wang : According to the old bamboo annals, a day dawned twice, which, according to a theory by the Korean Pang Sunjoo, could indicate an annular solar eclipse in 899. Other scientists question both this textual interpretation and the astronomical calculations on this point.

Wu's conquest of the Shang

Probably the most drastic event that has to be dated is the conquest of the Shang Empire by Zhou Wu Wang , which is described in traditional historiography as the Battle of Muye . The location of this battle could not yet be identified, and with regard to the time, there were already 44 different proposals within the period from 1130 to 1018 BC before the XSZ project. The years 1122 and 1027 were particularly popular: the former was calculated by Liu Xin, the latter is derived from the old bamboo annals, which give a duration of 257 years for the western Zhou dynasty, so from the well-known end of the dynasty in the year 770 BC can be calculated back.

Further documents bring astronomical observations to this event:

  • The Han Shu quotes from a lost chapter in the Book of Documents and could possibly describe a lunar eclipse shortly before Wu's campaign. Their date is given in months and days within the 60-year cycle.
  • A passage in the Guoyu gives the positions of the sun, moon, Jupiter and two fixed stars for the day on which Wu attacked the Shang.
  • The current bamboo annals mention the occurrence of conjunctions of all five planets both before and after the Zhou conquest. According to texts from the Han era, the first of these conjunctions was in the 32nd year of the last Xia ruler. For these rare events, May 28, 1059 and September 26, 1019 come into question. The positions in heaven were described upside down; but at the time of writing, centuries after the event, it was not possible to recalculate the constellations with reference to self-selected data.

The project pursued the strategy of first using archaeological findings to reduce the choice of dating options in order to compare the remaining dates with the astronomical data. Although no traces of Wu's campaign have been found so far, the Feng Hao site of the former Zhou capital Fengxi has been excavated and the layers of the pre-Zhou period have been identified. Radiocarbon dating of there, of Yinxu and other early Zhou sites using the wiggle matching method revealed a period for the conquest between 1050 and 1020 BC. Only January 20, 1046 corresponds to all astronomical observations at this time.

Various criticisms came from other scientists to this process: The assignment of the shift assignments at the time of the conquest was too uncertain; radiocarbon dating has a confidence interval of 68% that is too low compared to the usual requirement of 95%; this should have resulted in a longer period. Some of the astronomical observations used are very questionable, for example a key text could also be interpreted in different ways, with an alternative reading having indicated January 9, 1044.

Late Shang kings

For the Shang, there are far less good written documents with the oracle bones, which only recorded the day within the 60-year cycle. A longer cycle of rituals has been adopted for the last two Shang kings. Mentions of five lunar eclipses in the prophecies of the oracle bones from the time of Wu Ding and Zu Geng were identified with events from the period 1201 to 1181, from which a start date for Zu Geng's reign was calculated. After that, the start date for Wu Ding's rule was derived from the book of documents , according to which he is said to have ruled for 59 years.

Early Shang and Xia

Important Erlitou sites and Xia capitals according to traditional lore. (after Kwang-chih Chang , The Archeology of Ancient China , 1986)

Traditionally, Pan Geng , a predecessor of Wu Ding, relocated the Shang capital to its final location, which is commonly equated with Yinxu in Anyang . Different interpretations of the bamboo annals suggest that 253, 273 or 275 years could have elapsed between this event and the Zhou conquest. The XSZ project committed itself to the shortest of these intervals.

The four phases of the Erlitou culture were divided in different ways between the Xia and the Shang by various prominent archaeologists. The XSZ project assigned all four phases to the Shang culture, arguing that the construction of the fortified city of Yanshi must have coincided with the establishment of the Shang dynasty. The time of the Xia dynasty was calculated using the bamboo annals and a conjunction during the reign of the first Xia king Yu , which emerged from later texts. Because this period lasted longer than the time covered by the Erlitou culture, the project also assigned the later phases of the Wangwan III variant of the Longshan culture to the Xia dynasty.

Resulting ruler's chronology

The chronology project concluded its work with precise dates for all rulers from Wu Ding, the Shang king, of whom the oldest oracle bone finds are documented. All previous data are given as estimates only:

  • The Xia dynasty was dated to about 2070 B.C. (traditional traditions assume the year 2205)
  • The appearance of the Shang dynasty has been dated to around 1600 BC ( Cambridge History assumes 1570, tradition 1766)
  • Pan Geng is said to have moved the Shang capital to Yinxu around 1300 BC.

The ruler dates from Wu Ding are listed below and are compared with the previously established dates of the Cambridge History of Ancient China and the historiography of Liu Xin:

dynasty king Beginning of rule (BC)
XSZ project Cambridge History Traditional (Liu Xin)
Shang Wu thing 1250 before 1198 1324
To Geng 1191 after 1188 1265
To Jia - circa 1177 1258
Lin Xin - circa 1157 1225
Kang thing - circa 1148 1219
Wu Yi 1147 circa 1131 1198
Whom thing 1112 circa 1116 1194
Di Yi 1101 1105 1191
Di Xin 1075 1086 1154
Zhou Wu 1046 1045 1122
Cheng 1042 1042 1115
Kang 1020 1005 1078
Zhao 995 977 1052
Mu 976 956 1001
gong 922 917 946
Yi (Jian) 899 899 934
Xiao 891 872? 909
Yi (Xie) 885 865 894
Li 877 857 878

reception

The project published a preliminary final report in 2000. This final report was the central topic of the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies in 2002 and was critically evaluated by (Western) academic experts on the occasion. There were scientists who partially defended the methodology, but the sinologist David Nivison declared "almost every single result [...] to be wrong", since scientific standards for falsifying and considering alternative theories had been disregarded. No other reports were published; an international conference that was scheduled for further discussion in October 2003 was initially postponed and then canceled due to the SARS outbreak.

The Western press gave the project particularly critical voices regarding the (non-) agreement between nationalism and science. It is a largely political project and less an archaeological one. The aim is to glorify the Chinese nation and promote the ethnocentric Han nationalism in China, which could lead to foreign policy tensions. The existence of the Xia dynasty was taken for granted; and a final final result was expected and delivered within a narrow time frame - this poisons the research atmosphere. In addition to these stated goal setting and methodological concerns , researchers were also concerned that the project had assigned archeology only the role of confirming a narrative , thus using archeology as an auxiliary science to historiography . Chinese history is more complex and diverse than a sequence of almost identical Chinese nation-states.

However, Lee Yun Kuen observed that members of the research group would have expressed their own opinions, also towards the head of the team. This was a strong sign that dates were not set on the basis of political considerations or decisions from above, and that the questions of detail were unaffected by politics. Chinese researchers themselves viewed the data as the “best currently achievable result” and hoped for further research opportunities after the revival of their subject. In fact, a follow-up project was started in 2004 to “research the origins of Chinese civilization”, which, according to the information, aims to go back further into the early days.

In China, the results are now viewed as an established doctrine. The dates are taught, published and even immortalized in a monument. According to official announcements, the project had been successfully completed, the reliable chronology had been extended backwards by 1229 years, which means that China now has 4200 years of dated history.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Lee Yun Kuen, Building the chronology of early Chinese history . In: Asian Perspectives , Vol. 41, pp. 15–42, 2002. Digitized : ( PDF )
  2. ^ Donald B. Wagner: Iron and Steel in Ancient China . Brill Publishers , 1993. p. 10. ISBN 978-90-04-09632-5 .
  3. ^ A b John K. Fairbank , Merle Goldman: China: A New History . Belknap Press of Harvard, Cambridge, 2nd edition 2006. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-674-01828-0
  4. ↑ David N. Keightley (eds. Michael Loewe , Edward L. Shaughnessy): The Shang: China's first historical dynasty . In: The Cambridge History of China , Cambridge 1999, pp. 232-291. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8 .
  5. ^ Robert Bagley (eds. Michael Loewe , Edward L. Shaughnessy): Shang archeology . In: The Cambridge History of Ancient China , Cambridge 1999. pp. 124-231. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8 .
  6. ^ A b Edward L. Shaughnessy: Calendar and Chronology . In: The Cambridge History of Ancient China . Cambridge 1999, pp. 19-29. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8 .
  7. ↑ a b c Yin Weizhang: New development in the research on the chronology of the Three Dynasties . In: Chinese Archeology , Edition 02/2002, pp. 1–5. Digitized version (PDF)
  8. ^ A b Edward L. Shaughnessy: Chronologies of Ancient China: A Critique of the 'Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project . In: Windows on the Chinese World: Reflections by five historians , pp. 15-28. Lexington Books 2009. ISBN 978-0-7391-2769-8 . Digitized version ( memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ A b Douglas J. Keenan: Astro-historiographic chronologies of early China are unfounded . In: East Asian History , 23/2002, pp. 61-68. Digitized
  10. ^ F. Richard Stephenson: How reliable are archaic records of large solar eclipses? . In: Journal for the History of Astronomy , 39/2008, pp. 229-250. Digitized
  11. ↑ a b David W. Pankenier: Astronomical Dates in Shang and Western Zhou . In: Early China , 07 / 1981-82, pp. 2-37. Digitized version (PDF)
  12. ↑ a b c Liu Ci-Yuan: Astronomy in the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project . In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 05/2002, pp. 1-8. Digitized
  13. ^ A b Zhang Peiyu: Determining Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology through Astronomical Records in Historical Texts . In: Journal of East Asian Archeology 04/2002. Pp. 335-357.
  14. ↑ Douglas J. Keenan: Defense of planetary conjunctions for early Chinese chronology is unmerited . In: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage , 10/2007, pp. 142-147. Digitized
  15. ^ A b c d Li Xueqin: The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project: Methodology and Results . In: Journal of East Asian Archeology , 4/2002. Pp. 321-333
  16. ↑ Lee Yun Kuen: Differential Resolution in History and Archeology . In: Journal of East Asian Archeology , 4/2002. Pp. 375-386
  17. ↑ XSZCP Group: The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project Report for the years 1996–2000 ( 夏商周 断 代 工程 1996 - 2000 年 阶段 成果 报告: 简 本 ). Beijing 2000. ISBN 978-7-5062-4138-0 . Digitized version ( Memento from December 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ Robert Henry Mathews: A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission . Harvard University Press, 1943. ISBN 978-0-674-12350-2 . P. 1166
  19. ^ Lena Wesemann: Conception of history and nationalism in China. The "Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project" and the archeology of the Xia Dynasty. Thesis at the RUB Bochum, digitized
  20. ^ A b Erik Eckholm: In China, ancient history kindles modern doubts , in: New York Times , November 10, 2000.
  21. ↑ a b The project to research the origins of Chinese civilization , press release from the Chinese embassy in Austria.