Fitting the Puzzle Pieces together
To create an Image of a Lost People

By Alidė Kohlhaas

These days, frequent discovery of some new body in outer space explains the heavens to us in ever greater detail. Yet, here on the planet Earth, we still ponder the wonders of lost civilizations about which we know nothing except that they have produced some extra-ordinary works of art or artifacts. Their existence is as great a mystery as a far off galaxy that some stargazer found only recently. The difference between the two is that the origins of the lost civilization may never been fully known to us, while the origins of the heavenly objects become clearer and clearer with every passing day.

When we think of lost civilizations, the Americas or the Mediterranean regions usually come to mind. China, as it exists today, is not on the list. Yet this vast and varied culturally, ethnically and racially mixed society, whose rulers like to pass it off as a single, ancient land of homogeneous people, has been clearly identified as having within its borders a number of lost civilizations, some that are of non-Chinese origin.

Archaeological finds in western parts of this sprawling country clearly show that the Chinese culture developed not in isolation, as we have been taught. There is no doubt now that outside influences helped it to become a maker of fine bronze objects one thousand years after the Mesopotamians began to make three-dimensional bronze objects; indisputable contact with the outside world introduced the horse-drawn vehicle with two multiple-spoked wheels that was used as far west as Egypt long before it arrived in China during the Shang dynasty (ca.1300-1050 B.C.). These are just two of the foreign influences that helped the Chinese to forge their own culture, although who these foreign influences were, is unknown.