The Jishi Gorge, on the course of the Yellow River, in Qinghai Province, where the evidence of a flood 1900 BCE. YELLOW RIVER. According to tradition, 4000 years ago, a catastrophic flood in the Huang He valley (Yellow River), would have been at the origin of the establishment of the Xia dynasty (2200 BC to 1766 BC) , the first of Chinese civilization. However, a team of geologists and archaeologists led by Qinglong Wu, from the geography department of the Normal University of Nanjing (Jiangsu), would have found clues... in the province of Qinghai, at the level of the gorges of Jishi, as well as in the Guanting Basin further east. Following a devastating rainy episode, the impetuous waters of this river suddenly rose several tens of meters, ravaging everything in their path. The discovery of human remains linked to this major catastrophe and their radiocarbon dates 14 C, associated with the stratigraphic data have made it possible to fix the date at 1920 BC, thus reconciling historical and archaeological chronologies.
Human remains discovered at the site of Lajia, in the Guanting Basin, on the course of the Yellow River, remnants of the destruction of the catastrophic flood of 1900 BCE (©Cai Linhai).
A Chinese "Flood", which would start this mythical dynasty, and the reign of Emperor Yu, two to three centuries before the traditionally held date of 2200 BCE. "If this great flood really happened, it is likely that the Xia dynasty really existed said in an interview David Cohen, of the Department of Anthropology at National Taiwan University, Taipei, one of the co-authors of the article published in Science . In Chinese historiography, the fame of Emperor Yu the Great came from his ability to control the waters. The ShiJi , the "Historical Memoirs" of Sima Qian (the Chinese Herodotus), indeed relate the hydraulic development works of this sovereign (read box ). The first Chinese dynasty, therefore, may well have been rooted in a historical natural event.
The share of things
However, it is useful to remember that in Chinese history, the theme of the flood appears in different legends, whether those of the foundations of the Xia dynasty as much as their successors Shang (1570-1045 BC). For many historians, they are related to the cult of the Yellow River located in the heart of ancient China. Where heroic rulers manage to overcome the waves. Leaders presented as possessing a regulating power over things and men, and whose virtue is the guarantor of the order of the world. All Confucian virtues, ferments of the great dynastic principles such as the "Heavenly Mandate", the Tian Ming , the origin of the title "Son of Heaven" attributed to the emperors of China.
Excerpt from "Historical Memoirs" by Sima Qian (145 BC - 86 BC)
Yu said, "The overflowing waters rose up to the sky; the huge sheet surrounded the mountains and submerged the hills, all the people of the plain were overwhelmed by the waters; [...] I deepen the canals one foot*, and the canals sixteen feet*, and I brought them to the river ".
* ancient Chinese unit of measurement