Episode 71: The Yellow River and the Birth of Han Culture.
Han era statue in the Gallery of New South Wales, Australia. Photo by author.
This episode we start our more in depth look at what is happening on the continent, breezing through the Qin and Han periods. We focus on the culture that grew up along the floodplains of the Yellow River, and how that really became the touchstone for Han culture, which then spread outwards in many directions—though our primary focus is on the Yangzi river system to the south.
Image showing Sinitic civilization around the time of the Qin dynasty. You can see how it is mostly concentrated in the north along the Yellow River, with some pockets along the Yangzi. That would extend farther south, especially in the later Han period. Image by User Yuninjie on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons.
This episode is fairly broad, only lightly touching on various subjects. Expect to dive into it again. In the meantime, here are some artifacts from the period that may be of interest:
More photos by the author from various museums can be found at the following links:
References
Lewis, Mark Edward. (2009). China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties. ISBN 978-0-674-02605-6
Kohn, Livia (ed.) (2004). Daoism Handbook: Volume I. ISBN 0-391-04237-8.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (ed.) (1993). Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. ISBN s0-02-908752-X.