Shang dynasty resource guide (1)

The Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE) Teacher Resource Guide Georgetown University East Asia National Resource Center

By Kelly Hammond

Shang Dynasty 商代 The Shang dynasty is the first of China’s kingdoms whose existence is supported by archaeological evidence. It is also the earliest recorded civilization in East Asia. Until the end of the 19th century, we only had a few sources of information about the Shang Dynasty. Many people questioned whether it actually existed, or whether it was simply a mythological creation by scholars and philosophers.

However, in the past one hundred and twenty years or so, archaeologists and scholars have corroborated historical evidence with archaeological finds and are now able to state with certainty that the Shang Dynasty existed.

There is some debate about the dates of the Shang Dynasty, but most scholars agree that it lasted from somewhere around 1600 BCE to 1046 BCE.

Map of the Shang’s Capital City, Anyang

Sometimes when we think about history and archaeology, we imagine that it is all about facts, but looking at the Shang Dynasty and seeing how our ideas about the Shang have changed over time allows us to understand that history is always about different stories and competing narratives. This does not mean that we should disregard or discredit the ways that some people write or think about the Shang, but being aware that people have different political and social agendas when writing history allow us to think critically about what history means rather than simply seeing history as a factual account of the past. For

instance, why do you think some scholars would be interested in pushing the establishment of the Shang Dynasty as far back as 2200 BCE or even before that? Keep this question in mind as you learn about the Shang.

Land Under the Rule of the Shang

The Founding of the Shang Dynasty The Shang dynasty was supposedly founded by a rebel leader named Cheng Tang who overthrew the last Xia ruler, the legendary evil king of the Xia Dynasty. The story of the Shang lineage, however, starts with a foundation myth, where the wife of the Emperor Ku, a woman named Jiandi, swallowed an egg dropped by a black bird leading to the miraculous conception of the pre-dynastic leader of the Shang lineage, her son named Qi. These types of creation myths are common in many Bronze Age societies, and the miraculous conception myth gives power to the ruling family by legitimizing their rule.

White Jade carvings from the Shang

In reality, Shang people arose from diverse Neolithic cultures in north China and from around 1500 B.C., inhabited the area along the Yellow River in present-day Henan province. They belonged to a highly stratified society ruled by an aristocracy where kings were the political, military, and religious leaders. Although the Shang were an agricultural people who principally cultivated millet, they also built large cities, had a wellorganized government administration, and often engaged in warfare.

1. The Records of the Grand Historian and The Book of Songs Sima Qian was a court historian, who compiled and wrote an incredibly valuable book between 109 BCE and 91 BCE known as The Records of the Grand Historian. Sima’s family members were hereditary historians for the Han Dyansty (206 BCE – 220 CE), and so he had incredible access to the imperial archives and records. Sima Qian not only used archives to write his histories but travelled around China collecting oral histories and verifying information he found in the archives.

Most volumes of his work contain vivid descriptions of events and persons, giving us incredible biographical information of Shang emperors and events from the Shang. However, it was not until the discovery of oracle bones (see below) and the archaeological sites around Anyang that scholars could actually say with any certainty that Sima’s histories of the Shang were anything more than great fables.

Bronze figure, Shang (1600-1046 BCE)

The Shang Dynasty lasted for almost 600 years, but finally the last Shang king, Di Xin, committed suicide after the Zhou people defeated his army. Legends say that his army betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in a decisive battle. The Zhou consolidated their power and finally founded the next dynasty— the Zhou Dynasty, which lasted from 1046 BCE to 246 BCE.

Archeological Finds from the Shang There are four main sources of information that form the way we think historically about the Shang.

Fragment of Dagger Axe

The Book of Songs or the Shijing is a collection of literary records (poems), many of which offer up snapshots of Shang life. The book is an anthology compiled from various sources of anonymous authorship. It is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs, comprising of 305 poems dating from the 10th to 7th centuries BCE, but it is believed that one section contains ritual songs from the Shang Dynasty, handed down to scribes in the Zhou Dynasty by their descendants. In this way, songs and poems of the Shijing are an invaluable source of information regarding Shang custom and culture.

Oracle Bone

Bronze wine-serving vessel

The problem with these sources as historical records is that people wrote them long after the Shang Dynasty had fallen, so in many cases they might have been true but were based on hearsay. It was not until the discovery of oracle bones—which we will talk about in the next section—that historians had evidence from the Shang people themselves of their existence and culture.

2. Oracle Bones The Shang oracle bones are a fascinating part of Chinese history. Throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, mysterious “dragon bones” began appearing in medicine shops. These “dragon bones” were obviously very old and had writing on them. Medicine men would grind them up and use them in very expensive medicines to increase virility. It was believed that they came from dragons, which are seen as good creatures that bring fortune and good luck in Asian cultures. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, some people began to question the source and nature of these socalled dragon bones, leading them to the discovery of the archaeological site of Anyang, and to the discovery of thousands of bones that had been used by the Shang court for divination. They are now commonly called oracle bones.

The Shang people practiced divination by carving a series of characters and pits into either a tortoise plastron (the bottom part of the tortoise shell) or cattle and water buffalo scapula (shoulder bone). A hot bronze rod was applied, producing cracks, which were interpreted as answers to questions (often expressed as a pair of two possible outcomes) that the Shang king and/or his diviner had posed. The practice of divining on bones is quite common in this period, and it is sometimes called “pyro-scapulimancy”—“pyro” meaning “to burn” and scapulimancy coming from the word scapula. Through such divinations, the Shang hoped to discover the causes of events, the will of their ancestors and of their highest deity, Shang Di, and the correct course of action to take when faced with difficult decisions.

Oracle Bone- Engraved characters are the earliest known Chinese script

The inscriptions give us a highly selective record of some of the concerns and events that were relevant to the elite class of the Shang kingdom. However, the only such Shang dynasty oracle bones discovered have

been from the reigns of Wu Ding (r.1198-1189 BCE) and his successors. In other words, strictly speaking, China’s written history begins with these inscriptions around 1200 BCE. It is writing, nonetheless, that is at the heart of the Shang dynasty’s efficacy as a kingdom. Using standardized script, Shang kings were capable of unprecedented organizational feats. The great military campaigns, governmental and administrative hierarchies, and architectural accomplishments that defined this dynasty were all predicated on the invention of a standardized system of writing. They also show the incredible continuity of Chinese civilization and Chinese writing, and many of the characters found on the oracle bones are very similar to modern Chinese writing used today.

Oracle Bone

3. Archaeological Digs sites at and around Anyang, the Shang capital Shang history was radically changed with the appearance of the oracle bone inscriptions in two ways. First, these inscriptions for the first time provided a direct approach to Shang history through their own writings, and second, the oracle bones eventually led to the archeological site at Anyang and to its excavation. The sites, which continue to be excavated, have provided historians and archaeologists with innumerable sources of Shang material culture, which continue to provide us with clues into the lives of Shang aristocracy and lay people.

Archaeological Site at Anyang

Archaeological evidence about the Shang comes mainly from excavations at Zhengzhou and Anyang, both in Henan province. Zhengzhou (the type site of what is called Erligang culture) is assigned to the period 1500 to 1300 B.C.E and Anyang (the Shang capital) to the period of roughly 1200 to 1050 B.C.E Remains at Zhengzhou include the foundations of city walls, large buildings, bronze foundries, and bone and pottery workshops, as well as a number of burial sites.

By 1500 B.C.E, Shang burial traditions were becoming well defined. The deceased lay in a wooden coffin at the bottom of a shaft. Below the coffin chamber was a sacrificial pit containing the body of a sacrificed man or dog.

Surrounding the chamber was a platform that held grave goods and more human sacrifices.

Sacrifices of humans and animals were also placed beneath the foundations of buildings at this time. Bronze vessels included in burials were much larger than those created previously, and more varied in shape.

4. Bronze vessels—ritual bronze

The Bronze Age was the time when men learned how to mine and smelt copper and tin to make bronze weapons and tools. The era of the Shang and the Zhou dynasties is generally known as the Bronze Age of China, because bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, used to fashion weapons, parts of chariots, and ritual vessels, played an important role in the

material culture of the time. Smelting bronze required an organized labor force and skilled craftsmen. In Neolithic times, people made tools out of stone and hunted and gathered their food. However, in the Bronze Age, people learned how to farm and produce enough extra food to feed other workers — such as miners, bronze-smiths, weavers, potters and builders who lived in towns — and to feed the ruling class who organized and led society.

and jewelry, and finally some were simply decorative art. All of these types of bronze artifacts have been found at archaeological sites in and around Anyang and show us how sophisticated the Shang people were.

Bronze wine-serving vessel

Bronze four-legged food vessel

In what way can bronzes be studied to illuminate Shang history, culture and society? We can also look at inscriptions which gives us information about when the bronze was cast and who cast it. We can also do “typological classification,” which tells us what vessels were used for: some were for cooking food while others were for serving; some were drinking vessels for warming up wine and for serving wine; others were musical instruments, weapons, horse and chariot fittings, measurements and weights, farming and craft implements, garment

Common motifs for Shang ritual bronze vessels were dragons, birds, bovine creatures, and a variety of geometric patterns. This style of art is known as “animal style”, which is characterized by the emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and is used by art historians to describe an approach to decorative arts found from China to North Europe from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age. Look carefully at some of the pictures of the bronze vessels—what animals can you see?

land or providing military service for their lords. However, the Bronze Age Chinese held extraordinarily different ideas about kingship and religion from Medieval Europe. They believed the king's right to rule was based on his good relations with the spirits of his ancestors who controlled the destiny of the domain. The king continually posed questions to his ancestors about policy, which was the primary purpose of oracle bone divination.

Bronze Axe-head

Shang Society and Contributions to Chinese civilization The Shang made four particularly important contributions to Chinese civilization. We’ve already discussed two of them—the standardization and codification of Chinese characters and the development of bronze—and the other two are the development of a stratified society and the veneration of ancestors, or ancestor worship. Let’s take a look at Shang society and religion to see some of the important contributions they made to Chinese civilization.

Shang Society: Feudal, Urban, Hierarchical

A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighboring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes.

In some ways, Shang society was much like European society where hereditary lords served a King who legitimized his power through ritual. The lords had large estates where people worked, tilling the

Ritual ‘kuang’ wine mixer in the shape of a monster, Shang Dynasty

Shang society was also a warrior society: the Shang rulers had ample forces at their command. The Shang kings spent most of their time riding forth from their walled cities with their nobles and knights to hunt and fight wars. In this way, we should not think that the Shang operated or developed in a vacuum. They were constantly interacting and warring with their neighbors. The oracle bones and other artifacts reveal this and the Shang kings were constantly sending out armies, who would return with prisoners of war.

The prisoners either became laborers for the Shang state or sometimes were offered to the gods as human sacrifices.

Shang also worshiped their ancestors because they believed that although their ancestors lived in heaven after their death, they were still involved in their families’ life. Shang ancestor veneration is one their important contributions to Chinese civilization and cultures.

Ritual ‘Yeou’ vase known as Tigress

The reason that the Shang state was able mount armies of thousands of men had to do with two changes between the Neolithic Era and the Bronze Age. One was the development of horse chariots used in warfare and the other was the more successful cultivation of crops, owing in part to the development of bronze farming implements. Farming was the main industry in the Shang, but as farming became more productive, Shang kings were able to accumulate wealth and grain surpluses which they could then use to feed artisans who made their bronze vessels, contractors who built their city walls, armies who defended them, and shamans who divinized for them. This accumulation of wealth and goods allowed the Shang to build walled cities, and especially urban centers became very opulent places.

Shang Religion

The Shang worshipped a god named “Shang Di”—which literally means “the above emperor”—who was the supreme god that ruled over the lesser gods of the sun, the moon, the wind, the rain, and other natural forces and places. The

Ceremonial Implement (jade)

Shang religion was inextricably involved in the genesis and legitimation of the Shang state. The king’s ability to determine through divination, and influence through prayer and sacrifice, the will of the ancestral spirits legitimized the concentration in his person. And, because the Shang believed in the afterlife and ancestor worship, they thought very seriously about burial and what was to accompany the deceased to his or her grave. Evidence from the royal tombs indicates that royal personages were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in the afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse.

Additional Resources The Great Bronze Age of China—An Exhibition from the People’s Republic of China at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Explanation of the importance of the Bronze age hosted by Columbia University Asia for Educators Website. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_4 000bce_bronze.htm The Freer and the Sackler Museums—The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art. Incredible online source guide for images of Chinese Bronzes and Jades. If you are in the DC area and doing a module on China, a trip to the Freer and the Sackler is a must! http://www.asia.si.edu/explore/listByArea.asp ?browseTopic=5 The Asia Society—The Collection in Context.

Images and information about their collection. http://www.asiasocietymuseum.org/region_re sults.asp?RegionID=4&CountryID=12&Chapte rID=22 Stanford University SPICE Digest short insert about the Shang Dynasty http://iisdb.stanford.edu/docs/117/ShangDynasty.pdf The Metropolitan Museum of Art—Shang and Zhou Dynasties: The Bronze Age of China Collections http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shzh/h d_shzh.htm The Golden Age of Chinese Archeology http://www.nga.gov/education/chinatp_pt2.s htm

The Art of Asia in the Shang—includes a short video about bronze http://www.artsmia.org/art-ofasia/history/dynasty-shang.cfm The Princeton University Art Museum Asian Art Collection—the Shang and the Zhou Dynasties http://etcweb.princeton.edu/asianart/timeperi od_china.jsp?ctry=China&pd=Shang|Zhou Chinese Studies: Video Lectures with Harvard Faculty—Bronze, Oracle Bones, and the Legitimation of Power (third video in this incredible series—all of them are highly recommended) http://www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning-initiative/china-history Create your own bronze vessel—an interactive site hosted by Princeton explaining the processes involved in creating a bronze vessel. http://etcweb.princeton.edu/asianart/interacti ves/bronze/bronze.html Encyclopedia Britannica entry about the Shang http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/ 538446/Shang-dynasty

Sources for further reading: Allan, Sarah. The shape of the turtle: myth, art, and cosmos in early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang history: the oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Hessler, Peter. Oracle Bones: a journey between China’s past and present. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.

Lefebvre, RenĂŠ Yvon. Ancient Chinese bronzes in the Avery Brundage Collection: a selection of vessels, weapons, bells, etc.

Berkeley: Diablo Press for the DeYoung Museum Society, 1966.

Lin, Handa and Cao Yuzhang. Tales from 5000 years of Chinese history. New York: Shanghai Press, and Publication Development Company, 2010.

Liu, Li. State formation in early China.

London: Duckworth, 2003.

Chang, Kwang-Chih. Shang Civilization. New Haven: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Studies of Shang archaeology: selected papers from the International Conference on Shang Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Tanner, Harold Miles. China: a history.

Indianapolis: Hackett Publishers Company, 2009.

Taylor, Mark. Mystic Bones. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Thorp, Robert L. China in the Early Bronze Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Xu Jingxiong. Oracle bones from the White and other collections. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1979.