Advertisement
Archaeology and palaeontology
People & Culture

Archaeologists discover centre for greatest Chinese philosophers during Warring States period from over 2,000 years ago

  • The Jixia Academy housed important architects of Chinese philosophy, with the most notable being the Confucian leader Mencius
  • The institution was probably more like a think tank, aimed at helping the kings guide their policies

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
10
Chinese archaeologists say they have found the legendary Jixia Academy from the Warring States period. Photo: Sina
Kevin McSpadden

As chaos reigned during the Warring States period (475-221BC), rulers across ancient China turned to intellectuals to find a way out of perpetual war, and the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi stood out for its power to attract the greatest Chinese thinkers of the time.

Advertisement
The institute used to be a place relegated to the historical record; experts believed it probably existed, but little was known about Jixia and there was no definitive proof that it was a real place.
That was until late February this year, when archaeologists in Shandong province in eastern China announced that they had found the ruins of the institute, a potential breakthrough that came amid a five-year-long excavation push. The scientists used historical records and carbon dating to identify the site as the Jixia Academy.

Little is known about Jixia, and some historians doubt the place should even be called an “academy”.

“Academy makes me think of a place where there is systematic training of students, maybe granting of degrees. To me it makes a little more sense to imagine it as a think tank,” said Paul Goldin, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the US and an expert in Chinese thought.

Advertisement

Jixia was set up by the ruling government of Qi (323–221BC), one of the more powerful of the warring states whose borders were similar to those of modern-day Shandong. Goldin said it was plausible that the institute was launched during the reign of King Xuan of Qi (319-301 BC), and it probably operated for about 150 years.

Advertisement