But even if an occasional monster in the Chinese classic can be overlooked, there are other problems.
The date of the Shan Hai King is hard to estimate, even more so the stories it collects. Furthermore, no certain author is known. Such things worry historians.
Early Chinese writers ascribed the collection to Yu, Minister of Public Works under Emperor Shun, in 2205 B.C.E. (6) The date is regarded by most later historians as being too early—much too early—in the near-legendary Hsia Dynasty. (7) Yet, since the turn of the present century, archaeologists in China have steadily pushed back the dates of known cultural achievements. (
Dynasties mentioned in earlier classics, once considered legend, have been documented through recent field work.
It appears more and more likely that China’s civilization has all the antiquity claimed by the oldest stories. The Shan Hai King is certainly well over 2,500 years old and quotes much earlier stories.
But still other problems stand in the way of accepting the document as true. Could the Chinese have carried out such a journey, to present-day North America, some thirty-five centuries ago?
For generations historians considered that the Chinese were not an ocean-going people. This opinion has largely changed. (9) The Chinese are now known to have sailed open-ocean vessels since the eleventh century B.C.E. and probably earlier. Stones, similar to anchors carried by early Chinese vessels, have been found off the California coast, but their authenticity as anchors has been refuted. (10) No Chinese shipwrecks of three millennia ago have been found conveniently off the California coast. In fact, no remains of Chinese ocean-going ships can be dated to the time of the Shan Hai King, but descriptions of Chinese ships of a somewhat later time, capable of making an ocean voyage west to Africa, indicate previous ship development.
A Chinese warship, c. 1520
Institute of Texan Cultures, 74-1323
The Shang Dynasty
