The Xia Dynasty (Chinese: 夏朝; pinyin: Xià Cháo; Wade–Giles: Hsia-Ch'ao; ; c. 2070 – c. 1600 BCE) is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him. The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BCE).
According to the traditional chronology based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BCE; according to the chronology based upon the Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BCE. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BCE. The tradition of tracing Chinese political history from heroic early emperors to the Xia to succeeding dynasties comes from the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, in which only one legitimate dynasty can exist at any given time, and was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period, later becoming the basic position of imperial historiography and ideology. Although the Xia is an important element in early Chinese history, reliable information on the history of China before 13th century BCE can only come from archaeological evidence since China's first established written system on a durable medium, the oracle bone script, did not exist until then. Thus the concrete existence of the Xia is yet to be proven, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link Xia with Bronze Age Erlitou archaeological sites.
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