The Bamboo Annals and the Chronology of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties

Author: Zhang Fuxiang

Publisher: Zhonghua Book Company

 

Unprecedented in magnitude, the Xia- Shang-Zhou chronology project carried out at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries triggered a wave of research on ancient chronology that will doubtlessly leave an impression on the development of Chinese academe. Zhang Fuxiang’s The Bamboo Annals and the Chronology of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties marks one of the recent achievements in this field.

 

The project team has adopted an impres­sive array of new multi-disciplinary research approaches. To trace dates and integrate information about the three dynasties be­fore 841 BCE, for example, researchers are combining information from chronologies recorded in bronze inscriptions, archaeo­logical dating methods, astronomical calcu­lations, and scattered records from ancient literature. Zhang Fuxiang, however, is cau­tious about this new method, advising that the team should still base their approach on the extant ancient literature instead of disre­garding the old data to produce a completely new set of data. Zhang therefore focused on the Bamboo Annals , currently known as the oldest text for studying chronology, although it is not completely intact. He also referred to the relatively reliable records of the West­ern Zhou Dynasty and the Kingdom of Lu in Records of the Grand Historian and used as much other literature and bronze inscrip­tions as possible in an effort to restore the original records of the three dynasties in the Bamboo Annals.

 

The first two chapters of the book mainly provided a detailed examination of how dif­ferent versions of the Bamboo Annals came into being. The author, after referring to research conducted both within and outside of China and comparing the contemporary and ancient editions, came to the conclusion that today’s edition of the Bamboo Annals was compiled by early Tang scholar-officials who collated, adapted and added to the an­cient edition. Although far from the original edition, it still retains a good deal of reliable information. The contemporary edition is not a pseudo-record like that compiled by later generations.

 

On the basis of the above work, the book examined the three dynasties in the Bam­boo Annals in separate chapters, making a complete chronology of the 17 Xia kings, the 30 Shang kings and the 12 Western Zhou kings in one table. To the best of reviewer’s knowledge, Zhang’s is the first attempt ever at a complete and orderly imperial chronol­ogy of the three dynasties.

 

Part of Zhang’s mission is to remind the readers to value and make use of the extant records in the Bamboo Annals. He maintains that “while historical materials on the three dynasties are scattered and incomplete, we can still work out a general chronology after careful research”.

 

Chinese link: http://epaper.gmw.cn/zhdsb/html/2014-04/09/nw.D110000zhdsb_20140409_5-10.htm

Translated by Jiang Hong

Revised by Charles Horne