Xia Nai

This project consists of 1760 index cards, with each including the registration number, provenance, date, use, reference, remarks, drawing and photograph number of the corresponding string of beads.

The significance of Xia's index cards was its clarity, straightforwardness and credibility granted by the inclusion of both an index and a bibliography.

Therefore, it was believed that these cards were intentionally made for future research purposes, as his notes allowed both himself and modern scholars to easily comprehend his findings.

Xia's research discussed the material, typology (including the technical peculiarities), use, arrangement and pictorial representation of the beads in relation to the nine divisions of the Ancient Egyptian dynasties.

Hence, his research illuminated the characteristics of each of the periods, the general development from dynasty to dynasty, and ancient Egypt's contact with foreign countries.

His assessment of the beads also corrected many mistakes regarding the dating and material by Petrie.

For instance, some beads were classified as being made out of the same material since they looked similar or some strings would be dated based on the dating of the tomb from which it was recovered instead of the actual dating of the beads themselves.

Xia also proposed a new method to categorize the beads thus coming up with the first-ever comprehensive bead corpus to have included ancient Egyptian beads from all periods dated before the Arab conquest of Egypt.

He came up with a classification method that is based on the 'group of material' which subdivided into two groups of 'decorated' and 'undecorated'.

Xia Nai (Wade–Giles: Shiah Nae; 1910–1985) was a pioneering Chinese archaeologist.

He was born in Wenzhou, southern Zhejiang province.

He was the second son of Xia Yuyi (夏禹彝) who was a wealthy farmer.

Xia was given the first name of Guodong (國棟) but later requested to be named Nai (鼐) and styled himself as Ming (铭) when he became an intellectual upon secondary education.

Despite being born during unstable times (Imperial Qing China was devastated and was overthrown by the Xinhai revolution in 1911), Xia's family was rather wealthy and Xia did not have to worry about basic needs unlike many of his contemporaries at the time.

He attended sishu (私塾), primary school and secondary school in his hometown of Wenzhou and went to Shanghai in 1927 to attend high school.

He attended Yenching University after his high school graduation in 1930 and transferred to Tsinghua University the following year.

He majored in Economic History at Tsinghua University in Beijing (BA, 1934), winning a scholarship to study abroad.

Xia studied economic history and was awarded the Bachelor of Arts in 1934 and earned a scholarship to study abroad.

According to local practices, students had to practice in an internship before studying abroad, so Xia joined Liang Siyong's (梁思永) excavation project of the northwestern royal mass grave of the Shang dynasty in 1935 Although Leung suggested Xia study archaeology under V. Gordon Childe at the University of Edinburgh, he believed that it would be better for Xia to learn the basics in London.

Xia left for his studies at University College London in June 1935 and arrived in the United Kingdom in September later that year.

By the time of his studies, Sir Flinders Petrie had already retired from the university and it was Sir Mortimer Wheeler who was heading the Institute of Archaeology and the archaeology course at University College London.

Xia learned Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics under professor Stephen Glanville.

While many of his professors were well established and knowledgeable, Xia criticized Walter Perceval Yetts, one of his professors in archeology for his incompetence in both Chinese and archaeology, and challenged his ironic role in heading the department of Chinese Art and Archaeology at London University.

He pointed out how Yetts could not read Chinese when a student raised a question during a lecture and how he struggled to comprehend dynastic jargon when analyzing the authenticity of an original record by the Qing imperial court kept in the British Museum.

Xia accumulated a handful of field experience in archaeology by participating in Wheeler's excavation at Maiden Castle in Dorset in July 1936 and returned to London in September later that year.

He also participated in the British's excavation project in Armant, Egypt and Tell Duweir, Palestine.

Xia visited Petrie during his time in Palestine as the latter was recovering in a hospital in Jerusalem.

Despite being far away from home, he always kept himself updated on China's ever-changing situation through reading the newspaper and having conversations with fellow Chinese students studying abroad.

Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, Xia left for home in 1939.

However, Xia spent a year conducting Egyptology research at the Cairo Museum for almost a year and only arrived at Kunming, China in 1941.

Sir William Flinders Petrie put together a collection of ancient Egyptian beads after his excavations in Egypt but was never able to fully assess the collection, yet he stated that 'beads with pottery constitute the alphabet of archaeological research', emphasizing the potential benefits of studying the beads.

Inspired by Petrie, Xia decided to conduct the organization and assessment of the ancient Egyptian beads collection (Petrie Collection) as his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Stephen Glanville.

In the meantime, he had returned to China joining the staff of the Central Museum and then in 1944 joining the Department of Archaeology of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica (1943–49), becoming acting director in 1948.

On advice from his mentor Li Ji, he went to University College London and studied Egyptology, earning a doctorate that was finally awarded to him in 1946.

When the Institute moved to Taiwan in 1949, Xia remained in the mainland, teaching at Zhejiang University for a year before joining the Chinese Academy of Sciences, eventually becoming director of its Institute of Archaeology (1962–82).

Before his death, he was First Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

When the Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966, Xia was persecuted and suffered public humiliation and hard labor.

In 1970, he was sent to May Seventh Cadre School along with other archaeologists, where they had "re-education."

Due to a commission, the Institute received from Albania, in 1972, Xia returned to Beijing with his colleagues and resurrected his scholarly career.

Thanks to his contributions to Chinese and world archaeology, Xia was one of the most honoured Chinese scholars in academe, receiving memberships from the British Academy, the German Archaeological Institute, the Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, the U.S. Academy of Sciences, the Third World Academy of Sciences, The International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies, etc., among others.