the early Bronze Age Erlitou site

[Randy W]

Archaeologists claiming to have proof of China’s mythic first dynasty are putting the cart before the horse.

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Can Archaeology Prove China’s Ancient Historians Right?
Archaeologists claiming to have proof of China’s mythic first dynasty are putting the cart before the horse.

Chen Chun
Archaeologist
Chen Chun is a professor of archaeology at Fudan University.

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Earlier this year, the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum organized two separate exhibitions of artifacts recovered from the early Bronze Age Erlitou site. The two exhibitions shared a name, “Heyi Zhongguo,” which the Palace Museum translated as “The Making of Zhongguo,” and the Shanghai Museum as “The Essence of China.” Both translations reflect the growing consensus that Erlitou was the capital of the mythic Xia dynasty — the first dynasty according to traditional Chinese historiography, though one that left no historical records of its own.

The Xia capital hypothesis dates back almost 70 years, but it has gained new currency thanks to China’s renewed emphasis on archaeology as a means of nation-building. In 2019, the nearby city of Luoyang opened the Erlitou Site Museum of the Xia Capital and began applying for UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status for the site. Support for Erlitou as the Xia capital has only grown since then, peaking this year with the two major exhibitions and a Sept. 16 press conference by the National Cultural Heritage Administration at which Zhang Haitao, the head of the Erlitou team at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, declared that new discoveries “lent more substance to the assertion that the Erlitou site was the capital of the Xia dynasty.”

There is just one problem: There is no textual evidence for the existence of the Xia, much less for the assertion that Erlitou was its capital. The rush to declare Erlitou proof of the Xia reflects a myopia that has characterized Chinese archaeology for a century. Without textual corroboration, no number of artifacts from Erlitou can prove the Xia existed, even as the persistent quest to do so blinds us to the real insights the site offers into the origins of early state formation in what is today’s China.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)