Shang dynasty

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Shang dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: Shng cho) or

Yin dynasty (; Yn di), according to traditional Shang
historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second
millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by
the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from Kingdom
texts such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals and
Records of the Grand Historian. According to the traditional c. 1600 BCc.
1046 BC
chronology based on calculations made approximately 2,000
years ago by Liu Xin, the Shang ruled from 1766 to 1122 BC,
but according to the chronology based upon the "current text" of
Bamboo Annals, they ruled from 1556 to 1046 BC. The Xia
ShangZhou Chronology Project dated them from c. 1600 to
1046 BC.

The Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese

history supported by archaeological evidence. Excavation at the
Ruins of Yin (near modern-day Anyang), which has been
identified as the last Shang capital, uncovered eleven major
royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites,
containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and
human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, Remnants of advanced, stratified societies
bone, and ceramic artifacts have been found. dating back to the Shang period have been found
in the Yellow River Valley.
The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese
writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones turtle Capital Yin (modern Anyang)
shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were Languages Old Chinese
discovered in the initial scientific excavations during the 1920s
and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. Religion Chinese folk religion
The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from Government Monarchy
the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and
Historical era Bronze Age
medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization.[2]
Established c. 1600 BC
Zhou conquest c. 1046 BC
Area
Contents
1122 BC est.[1] 1,250,000 km2
1 Traditional accounts (480,000 sq mi)
1.1 Course of the dynasty
2 Early Bronze Age archaeology Preceded by Succeeded by
2.1 Yellow River valley Xia dynasty Zhou dynasty
2.1.1 Yinxu site
2.1.2 Huanbei site Today part of China
2.1.3 Zhengzhou Shang City
2.1.4 Yanshi
2.2 Panlongcheng site Shang
2.3 Background
2.4 Related and contemporary sites
3 Late Shang at Anyang
3.1 Court life
3.2 Religion
3.3 Bronze working
3.4 Military
 4 Kings
5 Descendants of the Shang royal family
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

"Shang" in oracle bone script (top left), bronze script

Traditional accounts (top right), seal script (bottom left), and regular
(bottom right) Chinese characters
Many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in
various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents,
Chinese
the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the Transcriptions
available documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian Standard Mandarin
assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part
of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes Hanyu Pinyin Shng
some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a WadeGiles Shang1
king is given.[3] A closely related, but slightly different,
account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were IPA []
interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history and Wu
the authenticity of the surviving versions is controversial.[4] Suzhounese Saon
The name Yn () is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and Yue: Cantonese
in the "current text" version of the Bamboo Annals for both Yale Romanization Sung
the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a popular name
for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of IPA [s]
Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi (3rd century AD), it has Jyutping Soeng1
often been used specifically to describe the later half of the Southern Min
Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still
referred to almost exclusively as the Yin (In) dynasty. Hokkien POJ Siong
However it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier Old Chinese
dynasty. The word does not appear in the oracle bones,
BaxterSagart (2014) *s-tang
which refer to the state as Shng (), and the capital as Dy
Shng ( "Great Settlement Shang").[5] It also does not Alternative Chinese name
appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze Chinese
inscriptions.[6]
Literal meaning Yin era

Course of the dynasty Transcriptions

Standard Mandarin
Sima Qian's Annals of the Yin begins by describing the
Hanyu Pinyin Yn di
predynastic founder of the Shang lineage, Xie () also
appearing as Qi () as having been miraculously WadeGiles Yin tai
conceived when Jiandi, a wife of Emperor Ku, swallowed an Wu
egg dropped by a black bird. Xie is said to have helped Yu
the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to Romanization In de
have been granted a place called Shang as a fief.[7] Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization Yn doih
Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13
generations later, when Xie's descendant Tang overthrew the Jyutping Jan1 doi6
impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. Southern Min
The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia,
Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the depraved final Hokkien POJ n ti
king Di Xin, but the rest of the Shang rulers are merely Old Chinese
BaxterSagart (2014) *r m-traw
mentioned by name. According to the Records, the Shang
moved their capital five times, with the final move to Yin in the reign of Pan Geng inaugurating the golden age
of the dynasty.[8]

Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou.
Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive
Battle of Muye. According to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody. The classic, Ming-era
novel Fengshen Yanyi retells the story of the war between Shang and Zhou as a conflict where rival factions of
gods supported different sides in the war.

After the Shang were defeated, King Wu allowed Di Xin's son Wu Geng to rule the Shang as a vassal kingdom.
However, Zhou Wu sent three of his brothers and an army to ensure that Wu Geng would not rebel.[9][10][11]
After Zhou Wu's death, the Shang joined the Rebellion of the Three Guards against the Duke of Zhou, but the
rebellion collapsed after three years, leaving Zhou in control of Shang territory.

Early Bronze Age archaeology

Before the 20th century, the Zhou dynasty (1046256 BC) was the
earliest Chinese dynasty that could be verified from its own records.
However, during the Song dynasty (9601279 AD), antiquarians
collected bronze ritual vessels attributed to the Shang era, some of
which bore inscriptions.[12] These types of early inscriptions were later
traced to the Yinxu site in the Yellow River valley.
Fragments; shards Wheel-thrown
Yellow River valley earthenware with carved designs China,
Shang dynasty, about 1700-1023 B.C.
There are several important Shang sites in the Yellow River valley.

Yinxu site

In 1899, it was found that Chinese pharmacists were selling "dragon bones" marked with curious and archaic
characters.[12] These were finally traced back in 1928 to a site (now called Yinxu) near Anyang, north of the
Yellow River in modern Henan province, where the Academia Sinica undertook archeological excavation until
the Japanese invasion in 1937.[12]

Archaeologists focused on the Yellow River valley in Henan as the most likely site of the states described in the
traditional histories.

Huanbei site

The remains of a walled city of about 470 hectares (1,200 acres) were discovered in 1999 across the Huan
River from the well explored Yinxu site. The city, now known as Huanbei, was apparently occupied for less
than a century and destroyed shortly before the construction of the Yinxu complex.[13][14]

Zhengzhou Shang City

After 1950, the remnants of the earlier walled settlement of Shang City were discovered near Zhengzhou.[12] It
has been determined that the earth walls at Zhengzhou, erected in the 15th century BC, would have been 20 m
(66 ft) wide at the base, rising to a height of 8 m (26 ft), and formed a roughly rectangular wall 7 km (4 mi)
around the ancient city.[15][16] The rammed earth construction of these walls was an inherited tradition, since
much older fortifications of this type have been found at Chinese Neolithic sites of the Longshan culture
(c. 30002000 BC).[15]

Yanshi
There are two important archaeological sites near the modern city of Yanshi: Erlitou site, and Yanshi Shang
City. Yanshi lies on the Luo River, which is a tributary of the Yellow River.

In 1959, the site of the Erlitou culture was found in Yanshi, south of the Yellow River near Luoyang.[15]
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the Erlitou culture flourished ca. 2100 BC to 1800 BC. They built large
palaces, suggesting the existence of an organized state.[17]

In 1983, Yanshi Shang City was discovered 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north-east of the Erlitou site in Yanshi's
Shixianggou Township. This was a large walled city dating from 1600 BC. It had an area of nearly 200 hectares
(490 acres) and featured pottery characteristic of the Erligang culture.

Panlongcheng site

The Panlongcheng site in the middle Yangtze valley was an important regional center of the Erligang
culture.[18]

Background

Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, and
readily identified the Erligang and Erlitou sites with the early Shang and Xia dynasty of traditional histories.

The actual political situation in early China may have been more complicated, with the Xia and Shang being
political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou, who established the successor state of the
Shang, are known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.[19] It has also been suggested the Xia legend
originated during the Shang dynasty, the Shang having a myth of a people preceding them who were their
inverse.[20]

Related and contemporary sites

The Erligang culture represented by the Yellow River sites is found

across a wide area of China, even as far northeast as the area of
modern Beijing, where at least one burial in this region during this
period contained both Erligang-style bronzes and local-style gold
jewelry.[19] The discovery of a Chenggu-style ge dagger-axe at
Xiaohenan demonstrates that even at this early stage of Chinese Anyang
history, there were some ties between the distant areas of north Erlitou Zhengzhou
China.[19]

Accidental finds elsewhere in China have revealed advanced Sanxingdui Panlongcheng

civilizations contemporaneous with but culturally unlike the
settlement at Anyang, such as the walled city of Sanxingdui in Wucheng
Sichuan. Western scholars are hesitant to designate such Major archaeological sites of the second
settlements as belonging to the Shang dynasty.[21] Also unlike the millennium BC in north and central China
Shang, there is no known evidence that the Sanxingdui culture had
a system of writing.

In contrast, the earliest layers of the Wucheng site, pre-dating Anyang, have yielded pottery fragments
containing short sequences of symbols, suggesting that they may be a form of writing quite different in form
from oracle bone characters, but the sample is too small for decipherment.[22][23][24]

Late Shang at Anyang

The oldest extant direct records date from around 1200 BC at Anyang,
covering the reigns of the last nine Shang kings. The Shang had a fully
developed system of writing, preserved on bronze inscriptions and a
small number of other writings on pottery, jade and other stones, horn,
etc., but most prolifically on oracle bones.[25] The complexity and
sophistication of this writing system indicates an earlier period of
development, but direct evidence of that development is still lacking.
Other advances included the invention of many musical instruments and
observations of Mars and various comets by Shang astronomers.[26]

Their civilization was based on agriculture and augmented by hunting Oracle bones pit at Yin
and animal husbandry.[27] In addition to war, the Shang also practiced
human sacrifice.[28] Crania of sacrificial victims have been found to be
similar to modern Chinese ones (based on comparisons with remains from Hainan and Taiwan).[29][30] Cowry
shells were also excavated at Anyang, suggesting trade with coast-dwellers, but there was very limited sea trade
in ancient China since China was isolated from other large civilizations during the Shang period.[31] Trade
relations and diplomatic ties with other formidable powers via the Silk Road and Chinese voyages to the Indian
Ocean did not exist until the reign of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty (206 BC221 AD).[32][33]

Court life

At the excavated royal palace of Yinxu,

large stone pillar bases were found along
with rammed earth foundations and
platforms, which according to Fairbank,
were "as hard as cement."[12] These
foundations in turn originally supported 53
buildings of wooden post-and-beam
construction.[12] In close proximity to the
main palatial complex, there were
underground pits used for storage, servants'
Bronzewares from the excavatedtomb of
quarters, and housing quarters.[12] Fu Hao

Many Shang royal tombs had been

tunneled into and ravaged by grave robbers
Oracle shell with in ancient times,[34] but in the spring of 1976, the discovery of Tomb 5 at Yinxu
inscriptions. revealed a tomb that was not only undisturbed, but one of the most richly
furnished Shang tombs that archaeologists had yet come across.[35] With over 200
bronze ritual vessels and 109 inscriptions of Lady Fu Hao's name, Zheng
Zhenxiang and other archaeologists realized they had stumbled across the tomb of King Wu Ding's most
famous consort, Fu Hao, who is mentioned in 170 to 180 Shang oracle bone inscriptions, and who was also
renowned as a military general.[36] Along with bronze vessels, stoneware and pottery vessels, bronze weapons,
jade figures and hair combs, and bone hairpins were found.[37][38][39] Historian Robert L. Thorp states that the
large assortment of weapons and ritual vessels in her tomb correlate with the oracle bone accounts of her
military career and involvement in Wu Ding's ritual ancestral sacrifices.[40]

The capital was the center of court life. Over time, court rituals to appease spirits developed, and in addition to
his secular duties, the king would serve as the head of the ancestor worship cult. Often, the king would even
perform oracle bone divinations himself, especially near the end of the dynasty. Evidence from excavations of
the royal tombs indicates that royalty 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.
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. The Shang king, in his
oracular divinations, repeatedly shows concern about the fang groups, the barbarians living outside of the
civilized tu regions, which made up the center of Shang territory. In particular, the tufang group of the Yanshan
region were regularly mentioned as hostile to the Shang.[19]

Apart from their role as the head military commanders, Shang kings also asserted their social supremacy by
acting as the high priests of society and leading the divination ceremonies.[41] As the oracle bone texts reveal,
the Shang kings were viewed as the best qualified members of society to offer sacrifices to their royal ancestors
and to the high god Di, who in their beliefs was responsible for the rain, wind, and thunder.[41]

Religion

Shang religious rituals featured divination and sacrifice. The degree to

which shamanism was a central aspect of Shang religion is a subject of
debate.[42][43]

There were six main recipients of sacrifice: (1) Di, the High God, (2)
nature powers like the sun and mountain powers, (3) former lords,
deceased humans who had been added to the dynastic pantheon, (4)
predynastic ancestors, (5) dynastic ancestors, and (6) dynastic
ancestresses such as the concubines of a past emperor.[44]
Chinese Shang dynasty bronze face
The Shang believed that their ancestors held power over them and masks, 16th14th century BC
performed divination rituals to secure their approval for planned
actions.[44] Divination involved cracking a turtle carapace or ox scapula
to answer a question, and to then record the response to that question on the bone itself.[42] It is unknown what
criteria the diviners used to determine the response, but it is believed to be the sound or pattern of the cracks on
the bone.

The Shang also seem to have believed in an afterlife, as evidenced by the elaborate burial tombs built for
deceased rulers. Often "carriages, utensils, sacrificial vessels, [and] weapons" would be included in the
tomb.[45] A king's burial involved the burial of up to several hundred humans and horses as well to accompany
the king into the afterlife, in some cases even numbering four hundred.[45] Finally, tombs included ornaments
such as jade, which the Shang may have believed to protect against decay or confer immortality.

The Shang religion was highly bureaucratic and meticulously ordered. Oracle bones contained descriptions of
the date, ritual, person, ancestor, and questions associated with the divination.[42] Tombs displayed highly
ordered arrangements of bones, with groups of skeletons laid out facing the same direction.

Bronze working

Chinese bronze casting and pottery advanced during the Shang dynasty, with bronze typically being used for
ritually significant, rather than primarily utilitarian, items. As far back as c. 1500 BC, the early Shang dynasty
engaged in large-scale production of bronze-ware vessels and weapons.[46] This production required a large
labor force that could handle the mining, refining, and transportation of the necessary copper, tin, and lead ores.
This in turn created a need for official managers that could oversee both hard-laborers and skilled artisans and
craftsmen.[46] The Shang royal court and aristocrats required a vast number of different bronze vessels for
various ceremonial purposes and events of religious divination.[46] Ceremonial rules even decreed how many
bronze containers of each type a nobleman or noblewoman of a certain rank could own. With the increased
amount of bronze available, the army could also better equip itself with an assortment of bronze weaponry.
Bronze was also used for the fittings of spoke-wheeled chariots, which appeared in China around 1200 BC.[41]
 A Shang The Shang A late Shang Bronze g
dynasty dynasty dynasty bronze ritual wine
bronze ding Houmuwu ding vessel with vessel
vessel Ding is the taotie motif
heaviest
piece of
bronze work
found in
China so far.

Military

Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society.[47] Shang

infantry were armed with a variety of stone and bronze weaponry,
including mo () spears, yu () pole-axes, g () pole-based
dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets.[48][49]

The chariot first appeared in China around 1200 BC, during the reign of
Wu Ding. There is little doubt that the chariot entered China through
the Central Asia and the Northern Steppe, possibly indicating some
form of contact with the Indo-Europeans.[50] Recent archaeological
finds have shown that the late Shang used horses, chariots, bows and
practiced horse burials that are similar to the steppe peoples to the
west.[51] These influences led Christopher I. Beckwith to speculate that A bronze axe of the Shang dynasty
Indo-Europeans "may even have been responsible for the foundation of
the Shang Dynasty," though he admits there is no direct evidence.[52]
Oracle bone inscriptions suggest that the Shang used chariots in royal hunts and in battle only as mobile
command vehicles.[53] In contrast, the western enemies of the Shang, such as the Zhou, began to use limited
numbers of chariots in battle towards the end of the Shang period.[54]

Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilize the masses
of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript laborers and soldiers for both campaigns of defense and
conquest.[55] Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary
equipment, armor, and armaments. The Shang king maintained a force of about a thousand troops at his capital
and would personally lead this force into battle.[56] A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in
order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand
troops for suppressing rebellions against the Shang dynasty.

Kings
The earliest records are the oracle bones inscribed during the reigns of the Shang kings from Wu Ding.[57] The
oracle bones do not contain king lists, but they do record the sacrifices to previous kings and the ancestors of
the current king, which follow a standard schedule that scholars have reconstructed. From this evidence,
scholars have assembled the implied king list and genealogy, finding that it is in substantial agreement with the
later accounts, especially for later kings.[58]
The Shang kings were referred to in the oracle bones by posthumous names. The last character of each name is
one of the 10 celestial stems, which also denoted the day of the 10-day Shang week on which sacrifices would
be offered to that ancestor within the ritual schedule. There were more kings than stems, so the names have
distinguishing prefixes such as D (greater), Zhng (middle), Xio (lesser), B (outer), Z
(ancestor) and a few more obscure names.[59]

The kings, in the order of succession derived from the oracle bones, are here grouped by generation. Later
reigns were assigned to oracle bone diviner groups by Dong Zuobin:[60]

Younger Diviner
Generation Older brothers Main line of descent
brothers group

1 D Y[i]

2 D Dng[iii]

3 D Ji B Bng[iv]

4 [v] D Gng Xio Ji[vi]

5 D W L J[vii]
[ii]
6 Zhng Dng[viii] B Rn

7 Jin Ji Z Y

8 Z Xn Qing Ji[ix]

9 Z Dng Nn Gng[x]

Xing Pn
10 Xio Xn Xio Y
Ji Gng

11 W Dng I

12 [xi] Z Gng Z Ji II

Ln
13 Gng Dng III
Xn[xii]

14 W Y
IV
Wn W
15
Dng

16 D Y[xiii]
V
17 D Xn[xiv]

Notes

i. The first king is known as Tang in the Historical Records. The oracle bones also identify six pre-dynastic
ancestors: Shng Ji, Bo Y, Bo Bng, Bo Dng, Sh Rn and Sh
Gu.
ii. There is no firm evidence of oracle bone inscriptions before the reign of Wu Ding.
iii. According to the Historical Records and the Mencius, Da Ding (there called Tai Ding) died before he
could ascend to the throne. However in the oracle bones he receives rituals like any other king.
iv. According to the Historical Records, Bu Bing (there called Wai Bing) and Zhong Ren (not
mentioned in the oracle bones) were younger brothers of Dai Ting and preceded Da Jia (also known as
Dai Jia). However the Mencius, the Commentary of Zuo and the Book of History state that he reigned
after Da Jia, as also implied by the oracle bones.
v. The Historical Records include a king Wo Ding not mentioned in the oracle bones.
 vi. The Historical Records have Xiao Jia as the son of Da Geng (known as Tai Geng) in the "Annals of Yin",
but as a younger brother (as implied by the oracle bones) in the "Genealogical Table of the Three Ages".
vii. According to the Historical Records, L Ji (there called Yong Ji) reigned before Da Wu (there called Tai
Wu).
viii. The kings from Zhong Ding to Nan Geng are placed in the same order by the Historical Records and the
oracle bones, but there are some differences in genealogy, as described in the articles on individual kings.
ix. The status of Qiang Jia varies over the history of the oracle bones. During the reigns of Wu Ding, Di Yi
and Di Xin, he was not included in the main line of descent, a position also held by the Historical
Records, but in the intervening reigns he was included as a direct ancestor.
x. According to the Historical Records, Nan Geng was the son of Qiang Jia (there called Wo Jia).
xi. The oracle bones and the Historical Records include an older brother Z J who did not reign.
xii. Lin Xin is named as a king in the Historical Records and oracle bones of succeeding reigns, but not those
of the last two kings.[61]
xiii. There are no ancestral sacrifices to the last two kings on the oracles bones, due to the fall of Shang. Their
names, including the character D "emperor", come from the much later Bamboo Annals and
Historical Records.[62]
xiv. also referred to as Zhu (), Zhu Xn () or Zhu Wng () or by adding "Shng" () in front
of any of these names.

Descendants of the Shang royal family

After Shang's collapse, Zhou's rulers forcibly relocated "Yin diehards" () and scattered them throughout
Zhou territory.[63] Some surviving members of the Shang royal family collectively changed their surname from
the ancestral name Zi () to the name of their fallen dynasty, Yin. The family retained an aristocratic standing
and often provided needed administrative services to the succeeding Zhou dynasty. The Records of the Grand
Historian states that King Cheng of Zhou, with the support of his regent and uncle, the Duke of Zhou,
enfeoffed Weiziqi (), a brother of Di Xin, as the Duke of Song, with its capital at Shangqiu. This
practice was referred to as . The Dukes of Song would maintain rites honoring the Shang kings until
Qi conquered Song in 286 BC. Confucius was a descendant of the Shang Kings through the Dukes of
Song.[64][65][66]

The Eastern Han dynasty bestowed the title of Duke of Song and "Duke Who Continues and Honours the Yin"
() upon Kong An ( () because he was part of the Shang dynasty's legacy.[67][68] This branch
of the Confucius family is a separate branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village
and later Duke Yansheng.

Another remnant of the Shang established the vassal state of Guzhu (located in present-day Tangshan), which
Duke Huan of Qi destroyed.[69][70][71] Many Shang clans that migrated northeast after the dynasty's collapse
were integrated into Yan culture during the Western Zhou period. These clans maintained an lite status and
continued practicing the sacrificial and burial traditions of the Shang.[19]

Both Korean and Chinese legends, including reports in the Book of Documents and the Bamboo Annals, state
that a disgruntled Shang prince named Jizi, who had refused to cede power to the Zhou, left China with a small
army. According to these legends, he founded a state known as Gija Joseon in northwest Korea during the
Gojoseon period of ancient Korean history. However, scholars debate the historical accuracy of these legends.

See also
Chinese sovereign
Chinese mythology
Historical capitals of China
Women in ancient and imperial China

References
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Province, Royal Tombs of the Shang Dynasty, Dated Traditionally from 1766 to 1122 B.C..

External links
Zhengzhou Shang City Site

Preceded by Dynasties in Chinese history Succeeded by

Xia dynasty ca. 1600ca. 1047 BC Zhou dynasty

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