Hsia

Hsia (shēä), semilegendary first dynasty of China, which ruled, according to traditional dates, from c.2205 B.C. to c.1766 B.C. or, according to some modern scholars, from c.1994 B.C. to c.1523 B.C. This dynasty is said to have been founded by Yu, the culture hero of China who built canals to control floods and then divided the reclaimed land. Scanty archaeological remains suggest that the people had domestic animals, wheat and millet, the potter's wheel, bronze weapons, and war chariots. The Hsia dynasty was succeeded by the Shang, the first historic dynasty of China.

Bibliography

See L. Chi, Beginnings of Chinese Civilization (1957); Chang Kwang-chi, Archaeology of Ancient China (rev. and enl. ed. 1968).

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Hsia 

a proto-Chinese tribe that headed a union of tribes from the end of the third to the beginning of the second millennium B.C. in the region of the middle Huang Ho. The most complete and systematic information about the Hsia epoch is in Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s Historical Records. Ethnically, the Hsia tribe became part of the ancient Chinese people; the ancient Chinese referred to themselves as Hsia.