Xia Dynasty (2070 - 1600 BC)

The undocumented dynasty

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The Xia dynasty (c. 2070 – c. 1600 BC) is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese history and according to histography the oldest of the three Dynasties of antiquity Xia, Shang and Zhou. However the authenticity of the Xia could never be surely established by archeological findings. According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was ennobled as Viscount of Xia by the legendary Yu the Great  as a “hand-over” from the mythical emperor Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him. The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang dynasty (c. 1600– c. 1046 BC).

The tradition of tracing Chinese political history from heroic early emperors to the Xia, and on to succeeding dynasties, comes from the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, in which only one legitimate ruler exists at a given time. This political philosophy was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period, later becoming the official position of imperial historiography and ideology.

Although the Xia is an important element of early recorded Chinese history, reliable information on the history of China before 13th century BC can only come from archaeological evidence, as China's first established written system on a durable medium, the oracle bone script, did not exist until

 

 

then. No mention of the Xia, or the supposed lonquest of the Xia by the Shang, has been found in any Shang period oracle bones. The first documentary reference to the Xia dates from more than a thousand years later, in the records of the Zhou dynasty. Some historians have suggested that the Zhou rulers invented the Xia as a pretext, to justify their conquest of the Shang, by noting that just as the Shang had supplanted the Xia, they had supplanted the Shang. The existence of the Xia remains unproven, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link them with the Bronze Age Erlitou culture.

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