Chinese dynasties: Did you mean...?

Oracle bones or dragon bones were the shoulder blades of oxen or the flat underside of a turtle shell known as a plastron that were used for divination during the Shang Dynasty of China which dates between c. 1600 and 1046 BCE. The bones...

Zheng Yi (also Cheng I, Ching Yih, Cheng Yao-I, Cheng Wen-Hsien, or Cheng Yud) was a Chinese pirate who lived from 1765 to 1807. Operating in the South China Sea, Zheng Yi famously led a 600-ship pirate confederation. This force of more than...

The Sui Dynasty (581-618 CE) was a brief one with only two reigning emperors but it managed to unify China following the split of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period. As had happened previously in Chinese history, a short-lived dynasty...

In this interview, James Blake Wiener, Co-Founder and Communications Director at Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE), speaks to Emeritus Professor James H. Grayson, Professor of Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield, about the historical...

Emperor Taizu (960-976 CE), formerly known as Zhao Kuangyin, was the founder of the Song (aka Sung) dynasty which ruled China from 960 to 1279 CE. Taizu settled for a territorially smaller but more unified and prosperous China than was seen...

Luoyang (aka Loyang) was the capital city of many ancient Chinese dynasties, a position it frequently swapped with Chang'an, usually whenever there was a change of dynasty. Located in the Henan province in the eastern part of China's central...

The civil service examinations of Imperial China allowed the state to find the best candidates to staff the vast bureaucracy that governed China from the Han Dynasty onwards (206 BCE - 220 CE). The exams were a means for a young male of any...

Emperor Gaozu (also Kao-tsu, formerly Li Yuan, r. 618-626 CE) was a Sui military commander who led a rebellion against his former masters, seized control of the state, and founded the Tang Dynasty (618-906 CE). Overshadowed in the ancient...

The Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) was the first dynasty of Imperial China (defined as the era of centralized, dynastic government in China between 221 BCE and 1912 CE) which united the separate states following the Warring States Period (c. 481-221...

The First Intermediate Period of Egypt (2181-2040 BCE) is the era which followed the Old Kingdom (c. 2613-2181 BCE) and preceded the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) periods of Egyptian history. The name was given to the era by 19th-century...