It is very difficult to find some direct evidence for the existence of this problem in the Xia Dynasty. After all, the writing started from the oracle bone inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty. That is to say, if the Xia Dynasty existed, it did not have the written records at that time. So, if we look for it from the nearest oracle bone inscriptions, we can't find it in the oracle bone inscriptions that have been translated now Does the word Xia really mean that the Xia Dynasty does not exist? But why do many people still believe in the existence of the Xia Dynasty? How should we explain it?
Oracle bone inscriptions are characters engraved or written on the abdomen or back of tortoises and animal bones. The ancients are good at divination. Most of the oracle bone inscriptions discovered are the contents and results of divination by the rulers. The discovery point is the capital city of the ancient Shang Dynasty. Therefore, oracle bone inscriptions are also known as "Yin Ruins oracle inscriptions" or "oracle bone inscriptions". At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Yirong was the first person in China to discover and confirm the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Dynasty. The oracle bone inscriptions discovered at that time were used as the "keel" of traditional Chinese medicine. However, according to records, Wang Yirong was not the first person to discover oracle bone inscriptions, but he was the first to confirm them.
By 2012, there are about 150000 pieces of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the world, with 5000 characters and about 2000 characters cracked. Oracle bone inscriptions are the earliest systematic characters found in China. The preface of Guo Moruo's Yin qicui Bian once wrote: "the oracle inscriptions are based on the tortoise bones. The essence of the oracle inscriptions and the beauty of the characters fascinate our descendants for thousands of years. The style of writing varies from person to person and from world to world. In the age of Wuding, most of the characters are vigorous, while in the age of emperor B, the writing is salty and beautiful. And the density of the line, the structure of the word, the echo, in good order It is well known that the existing Qiwen is actually a generation of Dharma script, and the one who wrote the Qiwen is the Zhong of the Yin Dynasty, Wang Yanliu. "
Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, such mature characters can't appear suddenly. It can be inferred that there were dynasties before the Shang Dynasty.
This involves another problem: the existence of Xia Dynasty.
Many foreign historians exclude the Xia Dynasty and think it is a time of fabrication. Why? The main reason is that there is no clear written data. On the Xia Dynasty sites, there are stone tools and bronze horns, but there are no oracle bone inscriptions or other writing carriers. Moreover, although these sites are in accordance with the time of Xia Dynasty in historical documents, they are also very close to the Shang Dynasty sites, and some people think that they belong to the Shang Dynasty. And the unearthed oracle bone inscriptions have recorded almost every aspect of the Shang Dynasty, even the Shang Tang which destroyed the Xia Dynasty has many records, but there is no written information about the Xia Dynasty. The earliest records of Xia Dynasty appeared in Zhou Dynasty. Some historians believe that Zhou Dynasty invented the history of Xia Dynasty in order to deny the orthodoxy of Shang Dynasty.
I believe in the existence of the Xia Dynasty, not to mention the documentary evidence, single character, after all, the unearthed oracle bone inscriptions have been very mature. There are tens of thousands of Chinese characters. However, according to statistics, more than 1000 characters are enough to cover more than 90% of the text data in daily life, while more than 2000 characters have been cracked in oracle bone inscriptions. Before a dynasty with such mature writing, there must have been a dynasty with a little lack of writing.
The reason why the oracle bone inscriptions of the Xia Dynasty have not been found is probably because the excavation of the site is not enough and there is no time to see the light again. Or the text carrier is not something that can be preserved for a long time, such as tortoise shells or animal bones. Or maybe the characters at that time were relatively hieroglyphic and not systematic, just like the oracle bone inscriptions, which were used as medicinal materials at the first time, were unearthed but not interpreted as characters.
According to the history of that time, there were a large number of tribes and human gathering places in the Central Plains during the Shang Dynasty. The Shang Dynasty had been conquering hostile countries for many times, and its strength was based on the annihilation of various forces around it by force. Xia, which was earlier than Shang Dynasty, was probably just a relatively large human settlement in the Central Plains. It was not particularly prominent, but in the period of Zhou's extermination of Shang Dynasty, in order to highlight the legitimacy of Zhou's extermination of Shang by force, Zhou elevated the status of Shang's extermination of Xia.
Another point is that Shang moved the capital many times. Judging from the level of productivity at that time, from the level of agriculture to the level of transportation, it did not have the conditions to support a large-scale city. Once there was a natural or man-made disaster, it could only move the capital. Xia records the loss of Taikang and the resurgence of Shaokang. It can be seen that Xia was not a country that could suppress the surrounding countries by force and was directly destroyed by the surrounding hostile forces It's in historical records.
What's more, how can we know that the name Xia was not given after the Zhou Dynasty, just as Yao, Shun and Yu were not their original names. If Xia was only the name after the Zhou Dynasty, there would be no record of Xia in the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty. Further, it would be impossible to dig out fragments of pottery with Xia's name in Erlitou.
