(甲骨文—中国文字的起源) 4 min read One day in 1899, Wang Yirong (王懿荣), a renowned scholar of ancient Chinese texts, noticed unusual markings on a bone fragment floating in his herbal tonic. At the time, bone relics, commonly known as “dragon bones”, were widely prescribed in traditional Chinese medicine. What Wang found in his soup turned […]
Oracle Bone Script—the Origin of Chinese Writing Read More »
(中国历史起源地—殷墟) 4 min read As a latecomer, China’s Bronze Age began around 2000 BCE, when the Xia (夏) people learned to mine and smelt copper and tin to produce bronze tools and weapons along the Yellow River (黄河) valley in northern China. By that time, civilizations in Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia were already well
Yinxu—Where Chinese History Began Read More »
(在二里头探索中华文明的起源) 5 min read The Erlitou Site Museum of the Xia Capital (二里头夏都遗址博物馆) was the highlight of my visit to Luoyang (洛阳). Erlitou rose to prominence in 1959, when archaeologists unearthed artifacts dating back nearly 4,000 years—traces of what may be China’s earliest dynasty. Originally a Neolithic settlement from the 4th millennium BCE, it
Exploring the Origin of Chinese Civilization in Erlitou Read More »
(中华文明如何开始) 5 min read During China’s Neolithic era, more than half a dozen cultures were scattered across eastern Asia. The most prominent among them—Yangshao, Hongshan, Liangzhu, and Longshan (仰韶, 红山, 良渚, 龙山)—are named after the modern sites where they were first identified. Their development was not a simple, linear progression but a long and
How Chinese Civilization Began Read More »
(何谓汉族?) Reading Time: 5 minutes While the Han ethnic group is often equated with Chinese, the latter includes 56 ethnic groups, with Han being the majority, making up more than 91% of the country’s population and nearly a fifth of the entire human species. The term “Han Chinese” refers to the descendants of the Han dynasty
Who are the Han Chinese? Read More »
