China's Ancient Roots

On her return from a visit to China Pippen remained surprised to learn that the common belief in the first civilization being at Sumer is now being challenged by the Chinese.

"Chinese scholars are encouraging the population to see themselves as unique, with a civilization going back far beyond the traditional period of five thousand years,” says Pippen, “which means that it supplants Sumer as the first civilization.”

"Actually, they assert cultural roots of more than a million years but a civilization of at least ten thousand years," says Pippen. "The traditional five thousand year old civilization pre-dates a single Chinese entity -- descendents of Yan and Huang -- which has lasted for two thousand years."

"Researchers in archeology, ethnic and regional cultures believe that the Hongshan people of the Northeast, the Liangzhu people of Zhejiang, the Jinsha ruins of Sichuan and the Yongzhou Shun Emperor site of Hunan are evidence of early Chinese civilizations,” says Pippen, “and this proves that China’s rice-growing agricultural history alone can be traced back as far as 8,000 to 10,000 years."


Read more by Pippen on China:

Old and New China

the miraculous Chinese

three races, one perfect?

America first settled by Chinese

the wealthy Chinese exodus

fat figures of fun in China

alienated in China

970-989 Chinese Invent Paper Money, Norsemen Discover Greenland

This twenty year period covers the reign of the King Edgar the Peacemaker of England and, at a time when the Chinese had invented paper money, the Norsemen had discovered Greenland and the Arabic civilization was flourishing, petty rivalry and murder continued to characterise ‘western’ civilization in Rome and Germany.

Edgar died in 975 and was succeeded by his son Edward the Martyr who died in 978 and was succeeded by his half-brother Ethelred.

In this twenty year period the Norsemen had discovered Greenland in 981, the Arabic civilization was flourishing and in 980 Avicenna, an Arab, had revived Aristotle and Neo-Platonism.

Otto I was the German king and Holy Roman Emperor, and John XIII was the Roman Pope.

Seen as an imperial puppet of Otto, Pope John XIII was driven into exile by the Romans but returned with Otto's assistance. His successor in 973, Benedict VI, was also Otto's puppet and when the emperor died in 973 the Romans rebelled against him.

The new emperor, Otto II, was too preoccupied with German problems to help, and Pope Benedict suffered being arrested, imprisoned and then strangled by order of the antipope Boniface.

Benedict VII became the new pope in 974 -- amid chaos -- and managed to survive until 983. His successor, John XIV, was without friends when Emperor Otto II died and became an easy victim of the antipope Boniface who arrested him, threw him in prison and allowed him to starve to death.

Bonifice the antipope ruled in Rome until he died in 985 and his body was flayed, pierced with lances and dragged naked through the streets.

The new pope, John XV, was nominated by powerful Roman families.

the religions of india, china and japan

The years between 600BC to 551BC represented a golden period for the birth of great thinkers in the eastern as well as the western lands.

In 600BC, the founder of Taoism, Lao-tzu was born in China.

In 580 BC, Pythagoras, a great mathematician as well as the founder of the dualism of the body and soul, was born in Greece.

In 563BC, Siddhartha Guatama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism (and, by influence, Japanese Shinto), was born in India.

In 551BC, Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, was born in China.

Unlike the bloodthirsty polytheistic and monotheistic religions - demanding a blood sacrifice of one sort or another in order to placate a god and gain whatever it was that worshippers wanted - the major religions that developed in India and China after the 6th Century BC were a lot more civilized and centered more on ethics, social behavior and personal enlightenment than organized worship of a god.

In India, Hinduism - encapsulating karma and the rigid caste system, without which man has no place - derived from the fears and ignorance of the early Indic civilization before 3000 BC and continues to the present day. Ancient Hinduism was, of course, an influencing force in the rise of the new thinkers of the 6th century BC, particularly Buddha, an Indian prince, whose four Noble Truths and the eight-fold path makes no provision for a god.

In China, Confucianism - advocating reverence of ancestors - differed from Buddhism and Taoism in that there were no temples or priests. Taoism, as represented by the magnificent White Cloud Temple in Peking, differs from Buddhism and Confucianism in that it has many gods - all for mundane purposes, such as the kitchen god that still exists in superstitious Chinese households - but it, too, is concerned wholly with man's benevolence.

In Japan, Shinto was developed as a particular form of Japanese Buddhism - worshipping Nature in the form of mountain and forest gods - and, like all of the far-eastern religions, it is particularly strong on truthfulness. In 1871, Shinto was proclaimed the Japanese national religion.