Exploring Historical Theories of Chinese Origins

In the previous episode we discussed the many wars that Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty fought against the Xiongnu, or the Hun, a nomadic people who occupied China's northern borderlands for centuries.

But were the "Xiongnu" described in Chinese sources truly the same people as the "Hun" that Roman sources later reported as ravaging Europe? French scholar Joseph de Guignes proposed this identification in 1757, and Edward Gibbon adopted it in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," making it into the mainstream view. But in fact, scholars continue to debate whether de Guignes was correct.

And what else did de Guignes suggest? That the founders of Chinese civilization were colonists from ancient Egypt, of course...

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