Questions tagged [ancient-china]
Ancient China refers to the oldest period in Chinese history, prior to unification under the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C.) and the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220).
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Did Chinese emperors wear a rectangular hat with suspended gems?
The mythical Jade Emperor is sometimes depicted as wearing a mortarboard hat with strings of jewels suspended from its edges:
According to Shen Yun's post:
Hanging from the front and back of the ...
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Why does the Great Wall of China follow such a bendy route?
Why does the path of the Great Wall of China bend back and forth so much? Naïvely, it would have taken less material and guards to defend if it had taken a straighter path, so there must have been ...
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Did the Romans know about China?
Could there be a possibility that some Romans knew that there was a country north east of India? Because as far as I know the Romans traded with Indians.
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Why did Chinese use high tin bronze for swords?
Also unique for Chinese bronzes is the consistent use of high tin bronze (17–21% tin) which is very hard and breaks if stressed too far, whereas other cultures preferred lower tin bronze (usually 10%),...
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What events led to the fall of the Zhou Dynasty during the Warring States period?
The title above is fairly broad, so more specifically, what specific events led to the Warring States period experienced towards the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty in ancient China? As the lineage ...
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Does Chinese history really span the past 5000 years?
Chinese kids the world over are frequently taught that there is "5000 years of Chinese history". What basis is there for this claim?
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Did early imperial China have a "uniform, multilevel administrative bureaucracy" that the Romans did not?
I'm reading Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order", and on pages 92-93 he makes the following claim (emphasis my own):
But most important, the state that emerged in China was far more ...
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How did the First Emperor of Qin "burn the books" prior to the invention of paper?
The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, is recorded as burning books (among other things). At the same time, the invention of paper is generally ascribed to the Han Dynasty, i.e., the dynasty after ...
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How did the ancient Chinese coordinate armies of tens and hundreds of thousands?
According to what I've read, during the Warring States period and also later during the Three Kingdoms period there were armies of the magnitude of (a few) hundred thousands.
How could they ...
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Why did non-monarchic rule meet with so little success in ancient China?
In the ancient world, the states around the Mediterranean were ruled by various forms of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, each of which had varying levels of success. Meanwhile, in China, monarchy ...
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Did the Chinese Develop Steam Engines Prior to the 17th Century?
I vaguely remember seeing a documentary on the history channel that was discussion on ancient Chinese technology. The basic theme of the program was that China developed many industrial technologies ...
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Song school vs. Han school of Confucian thought in the Qing dynasty
The Song school eventually prevailed due to favor from the Qing emperor and also because some Han texts were determined to be not genuine by scholars of the time.
My question is, were the scholars ...
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Did ancient Chinese and/or Japanese scholars speculate about what lay across the Pacific?
Before the age of exploration, a good number European scholars speculated about the Atlantic beyond the Iberian peninsula, whether it was the location of Atlantis, or whether or not Japan could be ...
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In Romance of the Three Kingdoms why do people still use bamboo sticks when paper had already been invented?
By the time of the setting of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, paper had already been invented. Why do kings often (according to the movies) receive letters on bamboo sticks?
Is this historically ...
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What is the meaning of the cross on a Chinese bronze Gu Chalice?
The ancient Chinese had a bronze chalice called the Gu 觚, some of which feature a square cross near the bottom. Others feature a single slit hole there, as if the slit (cross or single) has a ...
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When did Northern India and N. China begin to dominate in global demographics?
Video: Human Population Through Time
This simple video says that there were 170 million people in the world at the beginning of the current era. Each dot represents a million people -there are about ...
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How were Chinese Dynasties named?
What were the rules or conventions for choosing the name of a new dynasty chosen? Was there a single method for naming all of the Chinese dynasties?
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What was the standard spoken language (dialect) in the Three Kingdoms period?
Mandarin is the standard spoken language (dialect) in today's China, meaning distinct regions may have their own dialect, but they can all use Mandarin to communicate with each other.
Since all ...
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Did Chinese Hundred Schools of Thought influence Ancient Greek Philosophy?
As a beginning student of Chinese I am also learning a bit more about Chinese history. As such I am more and more impressed by the quality of thought that has been left behind by Chinese philosophers ...
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Are any archeological remains found from the Yellow Sea, China
During the last ice age when the sea level was lower, much of the continental shelf was exposed. For example, the North Sea was previously a low-lying region which is called "Doggerland".
There are ...
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What is the historical evidence for asserting Huns were one and the same as Xiongnu?
This question is very close to a previous question, Who were the Huns and/or Xiongnu?, but I hope it is clear that I'm not asking the same point.
In fact, I'm asking about the common assumption such ...
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Who was 'Viscount Yi' and what did he do to survive in the court of a madman?
There is an interesting answer by Valorum over on Scifi, which includes a quote from source material about a 'Viscount Yi':
“I combined that notion with the kind of imagistic shorthand sometimes used ...
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Battle of Xiaoting: was Shu's invasion doomed from the start?
The Battle of Xiaoting was one of the three major battles of China's Three Kingdoms period; after the kingdom of Wu invaded Jing province a few years earlier, the state of Shu amassed an army to ...
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What is the earliest recorded example of an extradition treaty or law?
While reading a news article on someone being extradited from overseas to face justice in the U.S. it started me thinking about the history of the extradition process. Wikipedia and The History Vault ...
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How big were Ancient China military forces?
When reading about warfare records in ancient China, I see a lot of references to "# of chariots" instead of "#k soldiers" or something like that. Do we know how big these armies actually were? As in, ...
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Did Ancient China use lead in their food/water industry as much as the Romans?
The Romans used lead a lot. Water pipes might be the most famous, but there were lead plates and lead vessels to prepare food or drink too.
Apparently lead was an inevitable byproduct of silver ...
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Who was the earliest historian of the Greco-Roman world to write something substantial about China?
I recently came across an article about the Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocattis and learned that he wrote about the reunification of China by Emperor Wen.
I also know that Cosmas ...
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Did the Great Wall of China help cause the fall of the Roman Empire?
I recently came across a saying that "Rome fell essentially because China built the Great Wall" (to protect itself against the Xiongnu people, if I remember correctly) in a lecture series on peoples ...
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How historical are early Chinese (Shang dynasty and earlier) dynastic records?
Early Chinese dynastic records look like actual history in some places (in particular the exact dating of reigns, back to and including the Yellow Emperor). Elsewhere, there is clearly a lot of myth ...
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What was the de facto rule by which the imperial title was transmitted in various Chinese dynasties?
I seek to find information about which rules or trends - if any - applied in Chinese imperial succession during different dynasties.
I found this source, but I can’t get access and what I see in the ...
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Help on finding out about a sword
After my mother passed away, I found this sword. I'm trying to get any information on it. It's one-piece, and appears to be brass under all the erosion but I could be wrong about the metal. I think it'...
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Why was the Records of the Three Kingdoms composed before that of the Later Han?
Our professor taught that the Chinese historiographic tradition demanded each dynasty compose the history of the previous one, using the 'veritible records' (實錄) or court diaries (起居注) provided by ...
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How has Chinese GDP as a percentage of world GDP changed over time and why?
I've heard it's 33% during the Qing dinasty. 4% during cultural revolution. Now it's climbing up steadily to 11%.
Where can I see the table of those actually tracking those numbers?
What were the ...
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Are fiefdoms near the Capital assigned to trusted allies or the opposite, and why?
Our professor of Chinese History (in a document you can't access without a university account) when talking about feudal age China (before 221 BCE) makes a passing remark. She says in Ancient China ...
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What was the order of precedence for ancient China nobility ranks?
I would like to ask a question about ancient Chinese nobility. I was researching some background on Confucius, and I found a weird discrepancy on Wikipedia about his homeland, Lu. About its ruler, the ...
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What are the best resources for studying oracle bone inscriptions?
Can someone please recommend the best resources for studying Chinese oracle bone inscriptions?
Rather than general or specific information about oracle bones, I'm looking for collections or catalogs ...
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What is the oldest excavated/discovered piece of silk textile made for clothing or writing?
Chu manuscript dating back to circa 300 B.C., middle of the Warring States era.
Mawangdui robe's dating back to ~ 200..150 B.C., beginning of the Western Han.
Do you know any older examples of silk ...
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What was the Tang Dynasty definition of imperial 嫡子?
The distinction between 嫡子 and 庶子 was supposedly crucial in struggles for the Chinese imperial throne. It is often repeated (example) that only sons of the Empress were considered 嫡子。
Here it is ...
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How did Shang & Zhou Dynasty China use incense?
According to Wikipedia's Incense and Incense in China articles "At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese ...
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Did generals really fight in ancient China?
When we think of generals, we usually think of someone that leads. We don't see General MacArthur charge in front of his soldiers to personally slaughter thousands of regular troops. In fact, even one ...
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Is there any idea of why Cao Cao's parents would give him a nearly identical name to the family name?
I've been doing a lot of reading up about the Three Kingdoms era of China, and Cao Cao stuck out to me as an interesting name. After some research I found that the words in Chinese are different, and ...
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What does this sentence from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms mean?
The third paragraph of the first chapter in Romance of the Three Kingdoms (translation by R. Moss), states:
On the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the second year
of the reign Established Calm [...
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Did Emperor Gaozu of Han allow people he conquered to keep their cultural identities?
Did he force them to assimilate with his people or did he allow open practice of the conqueree's culture?
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How was the term "Mandate of Heaven" used during the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties?
The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese: 天命; pinyin: Tiānmìng; Wade–Giles: T'ien-ming; lit. 'Heaven's will') is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to justify the rule of ...
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What literature explains life in Han dynasty tomb towns?
I've read in the book, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han by Mark Edward Lewis, that ancient Chinese Emperors, upon their death, would have massive tomb hills/temples erected for their bodies to ...
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Scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant social ordering in ancient/medieval China
The phrase scholar-farmer-artisan-merchant (士農工商, shi-nong-gong-shang) is well-known in China and other Confucian countries. These were the four broad classes of people in ancient/medieval China.
The ...
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Did the first emperor of China die of mercury poisoning?
Did the first emperor Qin Shi Huang die of mercury poisoning? If so, how do we know? I've seen lots of claims that he did (and claims that he didn't), but no citation explaining what primary source ...
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What are the oldest primary sources of recorded history in China?
There is for instance Sima Qian, according to Wikipedia the first Chinese historian, who wrote the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) in 109 BCE.
But does this primary source still exist, or do ...
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Where is an image of the oracle bone that describes the nova?
(Related to my previous question)
Does anyone have a link to an image of the oracle bone that has this specific inscription:
The inscriptions include the oldest observation of a nova (1300BCE) ‘A ...
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How did the Chinese crossbows that shot bullets work?
It's commonly accepted that East Asian people invented the crossbow. However, it seems they had crossbows that shoot bullets as well. As an example, Jing Fang uses this description when explaining his ...
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