Unearthing Vietnam: Archaeology and the making of a nation

Abstract

The H??ng Kings first appear in Vietnamese texts that date from the fourteenth century. During the colonial period, they and their kingdom of VA?n Lang were considered legends. However, in the post-independence period, archaeological artefacts from the Bronze Age, first unearthed during the colonial period and studied further by archaeologists in the Democratic Republic of Via>?t Nam, were used to demonstrate their historical reality. The H??ng Kings came to be considered the origins of the Vietnamese nation. Spanning the pre-colonial, colonial and post-independence periods, this thesis is a study of the role that archaeology has played in the making of that nation.