A Legend Of A Flood Spurring Chinese Civilization May Be A Little True

Dragons aside, we have a clear case for a one time monster flood.  Such a flood would overwhelm thousands of years of natural hydraulics producing new swamps and river beds. That all would demand a generation of hydraulic engineering as the tradition reports.


We really need to carefully investigate many of the great river basins for similar events as well.  This is no easy task and scant financial reward.  Yet the knowledge would outline general risks and allow them to be identified elsewhere.


Do note just how large the yellow river basin happens to be.

A Legend Of A Flood Spurring Chinese Civilization May Be A Little True

Researchers made a discovery that matches the myth.

By Ryan Biek, Steven Sparkman | August 4, 2016

 

http://www.newsy.com/videos/evidence-found-for-4-000-year-old-chinese-myth/

Scientists might have confirmed a 4,000-year-old legend: the story of the beginning of Chinese civilization.

As the legend goes, a huge flood from the Yellow River lasted a generation until a hero known as Yu the Great dredged and built canals.

For that, the rulers of the area were so grateful they made him emperor. His descendants became China's first great dynasty, taking the country into the bronze age.

Yu's story supposedly happened around 2,000 B.C., but the earliest written records about him come more than a thousand years later. So the tale of China's founding is seen as a myth.

 

But scientists recently discovered an area of the Yellow River with evidence of an earthquake, landslide, natural dam and a dam burst that consequently would have led to a massive flood –– all happening around 1,900 B.C.

Plus, the clues suggest the river would have taken a long time to adjust to that flooding, meaning that whole "lasting a generation" part could actually be true.

The researchers say the "flood shares the main characteristics of the Great Flood described in ancient texts."

Even if the flood happened, there are still parts of the legend that seem a little fanciful — like that part about Yu fighting a dragon.