Legend has it that Yuchuan is located in his son Qi, and since then, he has adhered to the tradition of private ownership and family ownership.

Four hundred years later, Tang Cheng destroyed Xia Jie, ending the history of Xia Dynasty. Although there is no specific archaeological proof, this historical process has long been memorized in everyone's heart in China; The first dynasty in China's history was Xia, and this view has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts.

However, in recent years, an article pointed out that a professor from the University of Science of China put forward the view that the Xia Dynasty was actually in Egypt, which was proved by the analysis of the river flow direction and bronze composition. What's going on here?

Professor Sun Weidong of the University of Science of China pointed out that there were two reasons for the Xia Dynasty in ancient Egypt: first, rivers flowed from south to north; The other is the composition ratio of lead and tin in bronzes of Yin and Shang Dynasties.

The debate about rivers was fully expressed in an article by a foreign scholar named Ricardo Lewis. He mentioned that in a public speech on 20 15, Professor Sun Weidong quoted Sima Qian's works and pointed out that there was a big river with nine tributaries from south to north in the territory of Xia Dynasty.

There is no river from south to north in China. Accordingly, only the Nile in Egypt is eligible. So the Xia dynasty can only be in Egypt.

The second reason, Professor Sun Weidong mentioned many times in his own article. From 65438 to 0994, during his doctoral studies at the University of Science of China, Professor Sun inspected hundreds of bronzes from the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

He found that the lead content in these vessels is very high, and the origin of this ore is only Africa and America except China-Yunnan Jinsha. After analyzing the smelting process of lead and the traffic trade at that time, he pointed out that these bronzes could only come from ancient Egypt.

As soon as this remark came out, it immediately caused public outcry.

Except for a few groups who doubted the existence of Xia Dynasty, most netizens refuted it.

Everyone refutes the view that "Xia Dynasty was in Egypt" from the perspectives of rivers, people and races, and points out that it is arbitrary and against strict academic norms to judge Xia Dynasty in Egypt only by the records in Historical Records and the report of lead.

On the one hand, Sima Qian's description of Xia Benji originally came from second-hand documents, and judging Xia Dynasty in ancient Egypt only by a river description is no different from relying on documents to admit Xia Dynasty in China.

Comparing the maps of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, we can find that although the Yellow River flows from west to east as a whole, some sections of it still keep the flow direction from south to north. In addition, until the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the rule of the Yellow River was limited to the middle and lower reaches.

There may be a misunderstanding in Xia Dynasty that the geographical survey is inaccurate and the river runs from south to north.

On the other hand, the description of bronzes only shows that some bronzes in the Yin and Shang Dynasties have unknown mineral sources. This can be reasonably explained in the early papers published by Professor Sun Weidong in cooperation with others.

Bronzes with high lead ratio only appear more in the early and middle period. According to the historical trend of Shang Dynasty's territory gradually expanding to the south, we can guess that the high content of early bronzes came from special mining areas in the north. With the development of southern Xinjiang and the discovery of new ore lead, the proportion of abnormal lead has gradually decreased.

Obviously, the reasons for rivers and minerals are somewhat arbitrary. Professor Sun's remarks only represent a possibility and cannot be used as conclusive evidence that the Xia Dynasty was in Egypt.

In fact, the textual research on the Xia Dynasty has long existed.

Since 1996, with the start of the China Zhou Dynasty Dating Project, the existence of Xia Dynasty has been gradually proved. The excavation of Erlitou culture also provided arguments for the existence of Xia Dynasty.

Scholars have investigated natural science, ancient books and unearthed cultural relics. Although there are contradictions and disputes between them, this rigorous method has really promoted our understanding of Xia culture.

From an academic point of view, Professor Sun Weidong's remarks about "Xia Dynasty was in Egypt" can only prove that Xia Dynasty was related to Egypt at the political level.

This conclusion is arbitrary, but it has nothing to do with China's historical civilization.

Even if we admit that the bronze wares of Xia Dynasty and Egypt are similar in composition, it does not mean that Xia Dynasty was in Egypt, let alone that China's civilization originated in Egypt. After all, there are great differences between China civilization and ancient Egyptian civilization.

However, in Ricardo Lewis's article, this conclusion evolved into "the innovation of Chinese civilization", and denying that "the Xia Dynasty was in Egypt" was tantamount to admitting that he was a blindly exclusive nationalist. He even suggested that China had an ideological understanding of the textual research of the Xia Dynasty to prove that Chinese civilization was a product without external influence.

That's ridiculous. Such remarks are really ideological implantation in the field of knowledge. I would like to ask, don't you need to refer to various historical materials for historical investigation and then draw a final conclusion? If so, how can an educated rebuttal and a reasonable guess become a distortion of history and a closed door?

To say the least, even if the Xia Dynasty really existed in Egypt, it only represented that the territory had changed, and it did not affect the history of our country. The United States originated from British colonization. Doesn't America have its own history? The history of western Europe is deeply influenced by ancient Greek civilization, but it does not prevent western countries from compiling their own history and proving that their culture is different from ancient Greek civilization.

French scientist Pasteur famously said, "Science has no national boundaries, so do scientists".

This sentence can also be used in reverse. Scientists' ideology should not be applied to scientific research, but should be used to speculate on scientific progress and conclusions.

Professor Sun Weidong's conclusion that the Xia Dynasty was in Egypt based on one-sided evidence is only a wrong scientific form, and the judgment of this conclusion can still stay in the scientific field.

However, Ricardo Lewis's remarks about raising science to the level of politics and civilization are really "unscientific".

In recent years, descriptions of "Exogenous Theory of Chinese Civilization" have emerged one after another, and some even pointed out that "China is Egyptian" with the help of Chinese characters.

The reason why these remarks were criticized by netizens is that on the one hand, they did not comply with the strict norms within the scientific scope, were too one-sided and even went through the motions; On the other hand, outside of science, they do not abide by scientific norms, kidnap science with ideology, and accuse opponents of sticking to "nationalism."

For real science, it is not a guess based on partial evidence, let alone an ideological guess, but a complete investigation of all the evidence. Only in this way can science truly live up to its name. what do you think?

References:

[1] Ricardo Luis's article recorded a lecture about Professor Sun Weidong.

[2] "Bronze wares began with lead parity"

[3] A preliminary study on the sources of Shang bronzes and some copper and lead minerals in Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.