The Shang dynasty,also known as the Yin dynasty,was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC,traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents,Bamboo Annals and Records of the Grand Historian. Modern scholarship dates the dynasty between the 16th to 11th centuries BC,with more agreement surrounding the end date than beginning date.
Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron,which were used for pyromancy –a form of divination –in ancient China,mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination,plastromancy if turtle plastrons were used. A recent count estimated that there were about 13,000 bones with a total of a little over 130,000 inscriptions in collections in China and some fourteen other countries.
Yinxu is the site of one of the ancient and major historical capitals of China. It is the source of the archeological discovery of oracle bones and oracle bone script,which resulted in the identification of the earliest known Chinese writing. The archeological remnants known as Yinxu represent the ancient city of Yin,the last capital of China's Shang dynasty which existed through eight generations for 255 years,and through the reign of 12 kings. Yinxu was discovered,or rediscovered,in 1899. It is now one of China's oldest and largest archeological sites,and was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006. Yinxu is located in northernmost Henan province near the modern city of Anyang,and near the Hebei and Shanxi province borders. Public access to the site is permitted.
Oracle bone script is an ancient form of Chinese characters that is the oldest known form of Chinese writing. Oracle bone writing was engraved on oracle bones,which were animal bones or turtle plastrons that were used in pyromantic divination during the late 2nd millennium BC. The vast majority of oracle bone inscriptions,of which about 150,000 pieces have been discovered,were found at the Yinxu site located in Xiaotun Village,Anyang,Henan Province. The latest significant discovery is the Huayuanzhuang storage of 1,608 pieces,579 of which were inscribed,found near Xiaotun in 1993. They record pyromantic divinations of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty,beginning with Wu Ding,whose accession is dated by different scholars at 1250 BC or 1200 BC. Oracle bone inscriptions of Wu Ding's reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC±10 years. After the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou dynasty in c. 1046 BC,divining with milfoil became more common,and a much smaller corpus of oracle bone writings date from the Western Zhou. Thus far,no Zhou sites have been found with a cache of inscriptions on the same scale as that at Yinxu,although inscribed oracle bones appear to be more widespread,being found near most major population centers of the time,and new sites have continued to be discovered since 2000.
Guo Moruo,courtesy name Dingtang (鼎堂),was a Chinese author,poet,historian,archaeologist,and government official.
Wu Ding;personal name Zi Zhao (子昭),was a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty who ruled the central Yellow River valley around the second half of the 13th century BC. He is the earliest figure in Chinese history mentioned in contemporary records. The annals of the Shang dynasty compiled by later historians were once thought to be little more than legends until oracle script inscriptions on bones dating from his reign were unearthed at the ruins of his capital Yin in 1899. Oracle bone inscriptions from his reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC ±10 years,closely according with regnal dates derived by modern scholars from received texts,epigraphic evidence,and astronomical calculations.
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages,but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China. Then later,the Korean peninsula and Japanese Archipelago. Dongyi refers to different group of people in different periods. As such,the name "Yí" 夷 was something of a catch-all and was applied to different groups over time. According to the earliest Chinese record,the Zuo Zhuan,the Shang dynasty was attacked by King Wu of Zhou while attacking the Dongyi and collapsed afterward.
Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century,artifacts bearing markings dating to the Neolithic period have been unearthed at several archeological sites in China,mostly in the Yellow River valley. These symbols have been compared to the oracle bone script—the earliest known forms of Chinese characters,first attested c. 1200 BCE—and have been cited by some as evidence that Chinese writing has existed in some form for over six millennia. However,the Neolithic symbols have only been found in small numbers,and do not appear to go beyond pictorial techniques,as is required to obtain a true writing system representing spoken language.
Radical 194 or radical ghost (鬼部) meaning "ghost" or "demon" is one of the 8 Kangxi radicals composed of 10 strokes.
David Noel Keightley was an American sinologist. He was a professor of Chinese history at the University of California,Berkeley,as well as a published author covering the Shang and Zhou dynasties and the Chinese Bronze Age. He was best known for his studies of Chinese oracle bones and oracle bone script. His work changed the way that many Sinologists viewed Shang dynasty history.
Shi Jinbo is a Chinese linguist and Tangutologist.
Qiu Xigui is a Chinese historian,palaeographer,and professor of Fudan University. His book Chinese Writing is considered the "single most influential study of Chinese palaeography".
Ken-ichi Takashima is,according to the editors of the Thesaurus Linguae Sinicae,"the world's leading authority on Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions".
Zheng Zhenxiang is a Chinese archaeologist most famous for excavating the Bronze Age tomb of Fuhao at Anyang. She has been referred to as the 'First Lady of Chinese Archaeology'.
James Mellon Menzies (明义士) was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary,archaeologist,professor,and author. He was the first Western scholar to study Shang dynasty Oracle bone script,the earliest form of Chinese writing. In the years following his death,he was considered a leading authority on the Shang dynasty.
Hu Houxuan was a Chinese historian,chief editor and a contributor of the Jiaguwen Heji Shiwen (甲骨文合集释文),the modern Chinese transcriptions of the most comprehensive collection of the oracle bone inscriptions. For 26 years,since 1956,he led the editorial team of the Jiaguwen Heji,a monumental collection of over 40,000 pieces of inscribed oracle bones and a milestone in the history of the oracle bone studies. Hu Houxuan was the mentor of Professor Qiu Xigui of Fudan University in China and a leading historian of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The religion of the Shang dynasty,practiced in ancient China from c. 1600 BC to c. 1046 BC,involved practitioners communicating with deified beings,including deceased ancestors and supernatural gods. The primary methods of spiritual veneration were divinations,carried out on oracle bones,and sacrifices of living beings. The Shang dynasty also had large-scale constructions of tombs,which reflects their belief in the afterlife,along with sacred places. Numerous Shang vessels,as well as oracle bones,have been excavated in the kingdom's capital Yin. They reveal a large number of honored deities,most of which came from the Shang's extensive observations of the surrounding world. Headed by the god Shangdi,the deities form a diversified pantheon.
The second royal regime of China,the Shang dynasty,developed a polytheistic religion that focused on worshipping spiritual beings. The dynasty developed a bureaucracy specialized in practicing rituals,divided into several positions tasked with performing different aspects of the religion. Usually,the head practitioners were the Shang king and other members of the royal family. Their activities,taking place at the Shang dynasty's capital city Yin were recorded on oracle bones.
The Shang dynasty of China practiced a spiritual religion that includes veneration of deceased royal ancestors. Shang ancestors were perceived to possess divine powers ranging from trivial matters to state-related affairs,and sometimes were interpreted as a component of the Shang supreme god Di. Towards the later years of the Shang dynasty,activities of ancestral veneration became increasingly frequent compared to those of supernatural deities. The Shang dynasty organized performance of ancestral rituals into a full year with 36 weeks,intended for all deceased members of the royal clan.
