An outline, era by era

Xia dynasty (traditional/semi-legendary)

Bronze Age · ~3300 – ~1200 BCE

The Xia dynasty is the first of the three ancient dynasties (Xia, Shang and Zhou) in Chinese tradition. According to later texts, it ruled the Yellow River plains of northern China for about four centuries, in the early second millennium BCE and perhaps earlier. Traditional chronologies place it roughly between 2070 and 1600 BCE, though these dates are reconstructions made much later. Its founder, Yu the Great, was said to have tamed a great flood, and the throne then passed from father to son.

The Xia are called traditional or semi-legendary because no writing from the period survives, and no inscription of the time names a Xia king. The earliest accounts come from works written more than a thousand years later, such as the Book of Documents and Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. Archaeologists have found a major bronze-age culture at Erlitou in Henan, dated to about 1750 to 1500 BCE, with palaces and early bronze vessels. Many Chinese scholars link it to the Xia, while others doubt that link can be proved. The question matters because it bears on how China's earliest state and its idea of dynastic rule began.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Yu the Great tames the flood

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    A terrible flood covers the land, and Yu's father Gun fails to stop it by building dams. Yu takes over the work, and instead of damming the waters he digs channels to lead them to the sea. He labours for thirteen years and passes his own door three times without going in. The grateful people make him ruler.

    The rest is history

    The story appears in the Book of Documents (the Yu Gong chapter) and in other Zhou-period texts, written well over a thousand years after the supposed events. No evidence shows one flood of this size, though the Yellow River has flooded catastrophically throughout history. In 2002 a bronze vessel, the Sui Gong xu, was reported with an inscription of around 1000 BCE that mentions Yu controlling floods. This shows the tale was already told by the early Zhou, but not that it happened. Many scholars see Yu as a figure who grew over time from myth into the model of a hard-working ruler.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryShangshu (Book of Documents), chapters Yu Gong and Gaoyao mo. Chinese classic, compiled in the Zhou and Han periods, first millennium BCE.
    2. BookAllan, Sarah. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
    3. BookLewis, Mark Edward. The Flood Myths of Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.

  2. Yu passes the throne to his son

    Origin story

    The legend

    Yu names an honest minister, Yi, as his heir, but after Yu dies the nobles turn to Yu's son Qi, who is wise and kind. Qi takes the throne and from then on kingship passes from father to son. This is how the Xia became the first hereditary dynasty.

    The rest is history

    The tale is found in Mencius and in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, written in the 4th century BCE and around 100 BCE. It explains why rule came to be hereditary after earlier rulers such as Yao and Shun, who chose worthy heirs. Other early texts tell a rougher story in which Qi seized the throne from Yi by force, so the tradition was disputed. Whatever happened, Shang kings later seem to have passed rule within a family too, and the idea of the dynasty became central to Chinese politics. No contemporary record survives to settle how the Xia succession worked.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryMencius, book 5A. Chinese philosophical text, 4th century BCE.
    2. PrimarySima Qian. Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), chapter 2, Annals of Xia. Chinese history, c. 90 BCE.
    3. BookNienhauser, William H., ed. The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume 1: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

  3. Jie, the last tyrant of Xia

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Jie, the last Xia king, is cruel and wasteful. He builds lavish palaces, drinks to excess and favours his beautiful consort Mo Xi while his people suffer. Tang of Shang rises against him, defeats him in battle and exiles him, and the Mandate passes to the Shang.

    The rest is history

    This account comes from Zhou and Han writings such as the Book of Documents and the Records of the Grand Historian. It follows a pattern repeated for the last ruler of several dynasties, including the Shang king Zhou, which suggests moral shaping by later writers. The Zhou, who themselves overthrew the Shang, found it useful to show that dynasties fall when rulers lose virtue. Details such as pools of wine are thought to be literary additions. Nothing from Jie's own time survives, and Shang texts on oracle bones do not tell this story.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryShangshu (Book of Documents), chapter Tang shi (Speech of Tang). Chinese classic, compiled in the Zhou and Han periods.
    2. PrimarySima Qian. Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), chapters 2 and 3. Chinese history, c. 90 BCE.
    3. BookKeightley, David N., ed. The Origins of Chinese Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

  4. The nine bronze tripods of Yu

    Myth

    The legend

    After taming the flood, Yu has the nine regions send him metal as tribute and casts nine great bronze tripod cauldrons, each marked with the creatures of its land. Whoever holds the tripods holds the right to rule. They pass from Xia to Shang to Zhou.

    The rest is history

    The earliest account is in the Zuo Zhuan, a text of about the 4th century BCE, where a Chu prince asks the weight of the Zhou tripods and is rebuked for it. The tripods themselves never turn up, and the number nine is probably symbolic. But ding cauldrons were real and important: bronze vessels for ritual offerings were central to Shang and Zhou rule. At Erlitou, bronze vessels for ritual use appear to be the earliest in China, dating to roughly 1700 BCE, which shows ritual bronze casting began about the time of the supposed Xia.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryZuo zhuan, Duke Xuan, year 3. Chinese chronicle commentary, c. 4th century BCE.
    2. BookChang, K. C. Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
    3. BookLiu, Li, and Xingcan Chen. The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  5. Erlitou is the lost Xia capital

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Archaeologists, it is often said, have found the Xia capital at Erlitou in Henan, proving that the dynasty was real, just as the old books describe.

    The rest is history

    Erlitou, discovered in 1959 near Yanshi, has palace foundations, workshops for bronze and turquoise, and the earliest known ritual bronzes in China, dating to about 1750 to 1500 BCE. Many Chinese archaeologists identify it with the Xia, and a state project in the 1990s and 2000s set Xia dates of about 2070 to 1600 BCE. Others point out that no text found at Erlitou names its rulers, so the link rests on later traditions and on location. Some Western scholars therefore treat the Xia as unproven and call the site simply the Erlitou culture. The site is certain; its identification is debated.

    Sources

    1. BookLiu, Li, and Xingcan Chen. State Formation in Early China. London: Duckworth, 2003.
    2. BookAllan, Sarah, ed. The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
    3. ArticleCampbell, Roderick. "Toward a Networks and Boundaries Approach to Early Complex Polities: The Late Shang Case." Current Anthropology 50, no. 6 (2009): 821-848.

← Back to the outline