Xia Nai
Xia Nai was a pioneering Chinese archaeologist. He was born in Wenzhou, southern Zhejiang province, and majored in economic history at Tsinghua University in Beijing, winning a scholarship to study abroad. 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. 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, becoming acting director in 1948. 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. Before his death, he was First Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
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 Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities, and the U.S. Academy of Sciences, among others.
