Ancient World Review

China Orders Erasure Of Genghis Khan From Chinese History

Video from Oct. 16, 2020. Closed-captions helpful.

"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is attempting to erase the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan from Chinese history according to a report this weekend by human rights magazine Bitter Winter." Source: Breitbart (Nov. 10, 2020).

"'...During the past month, fourteen stone tablets summarizing the life story of Genghis Khan and his achievements were painted over or destroyed in Genghis Khan Square in the Hailar district of Hulun Buir prefecture-level city, in Inner Mongolia. Protests of the local population were ignored,' Bitter Winter revealed on Nov. 7.

"'In a middle school in Hexigten Banner under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Chifen, also in Inner Mongolia, portraits of Genghis Khan and slogans promoting Mongolian culture have been replaced with the portraits of characters of Han Chinese history and slogans promoting Han culture,' the magazine reported.

"The History Museum of Nantes, France abruptly canceled a long-planned Genghis Khan exhibit on October 13 after the Chinese Cultural Affairs Bureau demanded that the museum alter the exhibition’s title, removing the words 'Genghis Khan,' 'empire,' and 'Mongol.'" [see top video]

Note: According to RFI, "Bertrand Guillet, Director of the museum, said in a statement that the Chinese also wanted 'control over all our productions, texts, maps, the catalogue, press releases.'"

How long will it be before the Chinese pull this statue down?

Comment: The censorship of history is all too familiar in the United States and Europe (and to anyone who's ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four). The US federal government hasn't been quite so blatant as China in its attempts to erase "problematic" history, but members of congress have already called for the removal of Confederate statues in Washington D.C. and if the far left gets into power it won't be long before the Taliban-like destruction of statues, monuments and the censorship of textbooks and museum displays becomes national policy. It's already happening on the state and local level, of course. This is an incredibly dangerous trend because the intent isn't just to erase history but to erase the people who made it.

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." -- George Orwell

The Mysterious Longyou Caves In China

Video from 2019.

"Longyou Caves is a complex of 24 artificial caves, constructed into the sandstone geology of Fenghuang Hill in the Zhejiang province of China." Source: Heritage Daily.

"The caves were discovered by accident in 1992, when local farmers drained several ponds revealing five large manmade caverns and 19 smaller caves.

"The five caverns, independent from each other measure between 18-34 metres [59-111 ft], reaching heights of up to 20 metres [65 ft] with supporting pillars and distinctive shapes remarkably curved with shaking imprints across the cavern walls and ceilings."

These chambers are really gigantic. According to Wikipedia, their average floor area is over 11,000 square feet and some of the caves are almost a hundred feet high in places.

Views of caves start at around 4:29.

"First discovered in 1992 by a local villager, 36 grottoes have now been discovered covering a massive 30,000 square metres. Carved into solid siltstone, each grotto descends around 30 metres [app. 98 ft] underground and contains stone rooms, bridges, gutters and pools. There are pillars evenly distributed throughout the caves which are supporting the ceiling, and the walls, ceiling and stone columns are uniformly decorated with chisel marks in a series of parallel lines. Only one of the caves has been opened for tourism, chosen because of the stone carvings found inside which depict a horse, fish and bird." (Ancient Origins)

These chambers date back to at least 200 BC and nobody knows how they were constructed. No tools have been discovered at the site. There are no signs of the huge amount of material that must have been excavated and the amount of manual labor required is mind-boggling:

"Taking into account the average digging rate per day per person, scientists have calculated that it would take 1,000 people working day and night for six years to complete. These calculations are based purely on hard labour, but what they haven’t taken into account is the incredible care and precision of the sculptors, meaning that the actual workload would far surpass the theoretical estimation. As for how they were constructed and what tools were used, it is still unknown." (Ancient Origins)

Related: The Ancient Man-made Longyou Caves Surrounded In Mystery (Interesting Engineering).

Next video (2017) discusses the possibility that the caves were built to serve as water reservoirs.

Everything about these caves is a mystery. We don't know who built them or why or how they worked in the dark. No one knows what the symbols carved on the walls and pillars mean. And it's unclear how the caves could be so well-preserved after thousands of years of submersion:

"One of the most interesting and challenging questions is how the caves have been able to keep their structural integrity for more than 2000 years. There are no signs of collapse, no piles of rubble, and no damage despite the fact that in some areas the walls are only 50 centimetres thick. Over the centuries, the area has gone through numerous floods, calamities and wars, the mountains have changed their appearance and exposed stones have been weathered, but inside the caves, the form, patterns and markings are still clear and precise – it is as though they were built yesterday. " (Ancient Origins)

Alternate-history researchers, naturally, point to the Longyou caves as evidence of ancient high technology and the extreme age of the human race.

Video from 2020. Closed-captions helpful.

Related: Still Unknown: The Strange Story of China's Longyou Caves.

Stone Circles In China's Gobi Desert May Have Been Used For Sacrifice

Video from 2015.

"Mysterious stone formations found in China's Gobi Desert may have been built thousands of years ago by sun-worshipping nomads who used them for sacrifice, a local expert has announced." Source: Archaeology News Network (2015).

"About 200 of the circular formations have been found near Turpan City in the northwestern part of the country, China Daily reported."

The Eastern Jesus

Video from 2018.

"Over the past few years, the authorities in Beijing have given churches across the country orders to 'Sinicize' their faith. According to detailed five-year plans formulated by both Catholic and Protestant organizations, much of this process involves the predictable palaver of state control: 'to actively practice core values of socialism, love the motherland passionately, support the leadership of the Communist Party, obey the law and serve society.'" Source: New York Review Of Books.

"But the authorities want more than just political control; they want a say over Christianity’s spirit, too. According to one document, 'Chinese styles' are to be promoted in the religion’s 'building, painting, music, and art,' and also in Christian liturgy and theology. Other documents speak of reflecting Chinese traditions, but what this means isn’t exactly clear — perhaps filial piety, ancestor worship, and explicitly rejecting foreign influence."

Evidence Of Human Sacrifice Discovered At The Neolithic Site Of Shimao In China

Video from Aug. 10, 2020.

"Shimao ... is a Neolithic site in Shenmu County, Shaanxi, China. The site is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, on the southern edge of the Ordos Desert. It is dated to around 2000 BC, near the end of the Longshan period [next video], and is the largest known walled site of that period in China, at 400 ha [app. 988 acres]. The fortifications [double stone walls] of Shimao were originally believed by to be a section of the Great Wall of China, but the discovery of jade pieces prompted an archaeological investigation." (Wikipedia)

This is a spectacular Stone-Age site. According to Archaeology World, "The digging had revealed a 230 feet high pyramid surrounded by more than six miles of protective walls and an inner sanctum containing jade artifacts, painted murals, and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice." Around 80 human skulls, mainly of young girls, were discovered buried in six pits beneath the city's eastern wall.

This isn't a recent find. According to a 2013 AFP report, the sacrifices may have been conducted as part of religious or foundation ceremonies related to the construction of the city walls:

"There may have been an outbreak of mass violence or ethnic conflict in the region at the time since 'ancient people were prone to use their enemies or captives as sacrifices...'"

Video from 2018. Shimao was discovered in 1976.

"Shimao now is the largest known Neolithic settlement in China and none of the ancient Chinese texts mentions a city residing so far north of the 'cradle of Chinese Civilization'. It had an expanse of [approximately] 1000 acres and is larger than the Central Park of New York City.  Its art and technology had influenced the northern regions and the future dynasties of China." (Archaeology World)

"Along with other discoveries at prehistoric sites, Shimao is forcing historians to rethink the origin of the Chinese civilization.

"According to the leader of the dig at Shimao, 'Shimao is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of this century.'"

Human Sacrifice Victims In Ancient China Faced Slavery Before Death

Video from 2015?

"At an ancient site of human sacrifice in China, war captives may have been kept as slaves for years before they were killed, a new study finds." Source: Live Science (2017).

Archaeological excavations in China have revealed "that an extraordinary number of ritual human sacrifices were conducted during the Shang dynasty, which spanned from the 16th century B.C. to the 11th century B.C. It is the earliest dynasty in China for which archaeologists have evidence. For instance, sacrificial pits are common across the entire site of the last Shang capital, Yinxu, which researchers discovered in 1928 in central China's Henan Province. Scientists have estimated that over the course of about 200 years, more than 13,000 people were sacrificed in Yinxu, usually males ages 15 to 35, and that on average, each sacrificial ritual there likely claimed at least 50 human victims. The biggest sacrifice found so far killed at least 339 people."

Related: China's Bronze Age (BBC).

Ancient Chinese Manuscripts

American Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, April 2017.

"The history of China before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912 and the People’s Republic of China in 1949 generally is thought of in terms of a succession of dynasties, beginning with the legendary Xia dynasty (circa 2100 BCE - circa 1600 BCE) and the Shang dynasty (circa 1600 BCE - 1046 BCE), and ending with the Qing dynasty of 1644 - 1911. The oldest records of Chinese history date from around 1600 BCE. Presented on this timeline are manuscripts, books, and maps made in China and for the most part written in Chinese between circa 1199 BCE and 1931. These documents show the complexity and richness of Chinese civilization over a period of more than three millennia." Source: "Chinese Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Prints," World Digital Library (lots of images from ancient Chinese manuscripts can be found here).

Chinese Historian Describes The Byzantine Empire

This reading is from the great Voices of the Past channel. The excerpt is from the medieval Book of Tang, but I'm not sure if this is the old book or the new:

"The Old Book of Tang, or simply the Book of Tang, is the first classic historical work about the Tang dynasty, comprising 200 chapters, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories. Originally compiled during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, it was superseded by the New Book of Tang which was compiled in the Song dynasty, but later regained acceptance." (Wikipedia)

 

Ancient Chinese Anatomical Atlas Changes What We Know About Acupuncture & Medical History

"The standard history of anatomy traces its roots back to classical Greece, but a new reading of a recently discovered Chinese text argues that the Chinese were also among the earliest anatomists." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"Writing in The Anatomical Record, Vivien Shaw and Isabelle Winder of Bangor University, UK and Rui Diogo of Howard University, U.S., interpret the Mawangdui medical manuscripts found in a Chinese tomb in the early 1970s, as the earliest surviving anatomical description of the human body."

Note: Mawangdui, an archaeological site in Changsa, China, contains the tombs of three people from the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 9 AD). These medical manuscripts were discovered in Tomb 3 along with "a wealth of classical texts," according to Wikipedia.

In The Footsteps Of Zuanzang In Kyrgyzstan

The rest of this 12-part series can be found here.

"At the start of the Tang dynasty, in the early 7th century, a young wandering monk embarked on a 16-year long voyage from the imperial capital Chang’an (today’s Xian) to India to collect Buddhist manuscripts. At the time Chang’an was six times bigger than Rome at its height, with a population of over one million – the epicenter of Asian civilization." Source: UNZ Review (2019).

3D animation of ancient Chang'an.

"History ended up converting Xuanzang into a legend and a national hero in China – although in the West he would never reach Marco Polo levels of popularity.

"Xuanzang had embarked on a quest that still resonates today. He wanted to know whether all men – or just an enlightened few – could attain Buddhahood. There was only one way to find out: ride all the way to India and bring back Sanskrit texts to China, especially from the Yogacara school of Buddhism, which professed that the outside world did not exist: it was merely a projection of one’s consciousness."

Related: The China History Podcast: Buddhism Zuanzang and the Silk Road (2014).