Ancient China

The Shang Dynasty is the earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded history, though other dynasties predated it. The Shang ruled from 1600 to 1046 B.C. and heralded the Bronze Age in China. They were known for their advances in math, astronomy, artwork and ...read more

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes connecting China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe. Established when the Han Dynasty in China officially opened trade with the West in 130 B.C., the Silk Road routes remained in use until 1453 A.D., when the Ottoman ...read more

1. Few civilizations knew how to tie one on better than the Egyptians. According to archaeological research at the Temple of Mut in Luxor, the ancient inhabitants of the Nile River Valley had a raucous “Festival of Drunkenness” that occurred at least once per year during the ...read more

Though the 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo may have been the first Western European to leave a detailed chronicle of his travels to Asia, he was certainly not the first to make the trip. Chinese historians recorded earlier visits by people thought to be emissaries from ...read more

When European scientists first encountered the fossilized teeth of Gigantopithecus in the 1930s, Chinese pharmacies were marketing the enormous dental specimens as “dragon’s teeth.” First identified as a species in 1935, Gigantopithecus immediately earned comparisons to King ...read more

A new study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature could rewrite the conventional timeline of early human migration. The study’s authors reported that they discovered a set of 47 fossilized human teeth embedded in the floor of a massive limestone cave system in the ...read more

After workers discovered the brick tomb by chance at a construction site in Nanjing, China, archaeologists from Nanjing Museum and the Jiangning District Museum of Nanjing City excavated it back in 2008. Their findings, originally published in Chinese in the journal Wenwu, have ...read more

1. Lascaux Cave In September 1940, four French teenagers were roaming the forests near Montignac when their dog began sniffing around a mysterious hole in the ground. After shimmying down a stone shaft, the boys encountered a vast underground cavern whose walls were adorned with ...read more

Though it was long thought that Chinese civilization began in the Yellow River Valley region, historians now know that earlier cultures existed in other regions of China. One of the earliest known of these was the Neolithic Era’s Hongshan culture, whose members inhabited the ...read more

1. The dynasty’s founder grew up in poverty. Born Zhu Yuanzhang in 1328 and orphaned at age 16, the man who would found the Ming dynasty survived by begging before becoming a novice at a Buddhist monastery. When his monastery was burned down a few years later during a conflict ...read more

1. Qin Shi Huang’s burial complex was the largest in the world—and it was probably never completed. Farmers digging a well in a field approximately 20 miles east of Xi’an stumbled upon a pit containing 6,000 life-size terra cotta statues in March 1974. The site was soon ...read more

The Jehol Biota fossil beds, located in Liaoning province in northeast China, contain thousands of fossil deposits ranging from fish to the first-known feathered dinosaurs, and from early mammals to birds and insects. Paleontologists, who have mined the beds for a wealth of ...read more

The Year of the Horse is almost upon us! Chinese New Year festivities begin this weekend, and preparations are underway from Shanghai to San Francisco. For many Chinese, this holiday is all about the food. From potstickers to noodles to citrus fruit, the foods eaten hold meaning ...read more

1. Catherine I The life of Empress Catherine I of Russia could easily be confused with something out of a fairy tale. The future queen was born in 1684 into a family of Lithuanian peasants, and was orphaned at the age of 3 after both her parents died from the plague. Taken in by ...read more

Prior to the release of the study, published in the journal PLoS ONE this month, little had been known about the ancient diet of the Xincun region along the southern coast of China, thanks in part to the destruction of plant remains in the humid, subtropical weather. What ...read more

1. Qin Shi Huang (221-210 B.C.) China was unified in 221 B.C. when the Qin people came out of the west to prevail militarily over a number of rival states. Their leader, who declared himself Qin Shi Huang (First Emperor of Qin), established a strong centralized government, in ...read more

Many historians believe that Independence Day’s most explosive form of entertainment originated in China, which continues to produce and export more fireworks than any other country in the world. (Others trace their roots to the Middle East or India.) It is thought that, as early ...read more

“The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.” So begins The Art of War, a meditation on the rules of war that was first published ...read more