A Chinese researcher has written a paper in which it is suggested that the Yellow Emperor of Ancient China and the Scorpion King of Ancient Egypt are the same person.
In the new paper, not yet peer-reviewed, the researcher Guang Bao Liu argues that the king of upper Egypt during the predynastic period, known as Scorpion I, was the figure recorded as the Yellow Emperor in Chinese inscriptions.
The claim is considered to be slightly outlandish because Egyptologists are still in dispute over the true identity of the Scorpion King, and besides that, historians are not certain whether the story of the Yellow Emperor is grounded in reality of mythology.
The researcher has put forward the new theory based on several pieces of evidence.
According to some scholars, the Scorpion King unified upper and lower Egypt by claiming victory over a king wearing a bull hat, while Chinese records state that the Yellow Emperor defeated the Yan Emperor who wore a cow-headed hat, unifying the two tribes of Yan and Huang.
Liu also claims it makes sense chronologically, being that the Scorpion king supposedly ruled Ancient Egypt roughly 5,200 years ago, loosely fitting with the Chinese legend of the Yellow Emperor’s 5,000 years of civilization.
There are also some interesting similarities between Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese script, as noted by Liu. In the paper it is argued that the scorpion symbol found in the tomb of King Scorpion I is linked to the prototype of the character Huang, which translates to ‘yellow’. It is further highlighted that many scorpions found in the Nile valley are yellow in colour, which the researcher claims strengthens the connection.
Were the Scorpion King and Yellow Emperor Real People?
It is not absolutely certain that the Scorpion King existed, but some historians have suggested the king was a real historical figure in the predynastic period. This era in Egyptian history is relatively unknown, with mostly scattered bits of archaeological evidence and records.
Other researchers claim that Narmer, a pharaoh of the Early Dynastic Period, was the real unifier of Egypt and the founder of the First Dynasty. Scholars are still in debate as to whether Narmer and the Scorpion King were the same figure. There are even some theories that Narmer may have been the ruler known as Scorpion II, and some suggesting he was the successor to this ruler.
The new paper takes its hypothesis a step further, suggesting that Narmer was in fact Yu the Great, another legendary Chinese king who established the Xia Dynasty. It is said that Yu the Great is the descendant of the Yellow Emperor, as Narmer was a successor to one of the scorpion kings.
The Yellow Emperor is also shrouded in mystery, with legend dictating that he became the first ruler of lands that would later become China in 2697 BC, after he brought together the clans of the Yellow River Plain under a single government.
But the tale of the Yellow Emperor is a mixture of myth and history, and most historians are unsure where one begins and the other ends.
The paper was recently posted on the Elsevier pre-print server SSRN.
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