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 and 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 in pyromancy – a form of divination – during the Late Shang period in ancient China. 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 a Chinese archeological site corresponding to Yin, the final capital of the Shang dynasty. Located in present-day Anyang, Henan, Yin served as the capital during the Late Shang period which spanned the reigns of 12 Shang kings and saw the emergence of oracle bone script, the earliest known Chinese writing. Along with oracle bone script and other material evidence for the Shang's existence, the site was forgotten for millennia. Its rediscovery in 1899 resulted from an investigation into oracle bones that were discovered being sold nearby. The rediscovery of Yinxu marked the beginning of decades of intensive excavation and study. It is one of China's oldest and largest archeological sites, and was selected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. Yinxu is located in northern Henan, near modern Anyang and the borders Henan shares with Hebei and Shanxi. Public access to the site is permitted.
Wu Ding ; personal name Zi Zhao (子昭), was a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty who ruled the central Yellow River valley c. 1250 – 1200 BCE. 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 Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project was a multi-disciplinary project commissioned by the People's Republic of China in 1996 to determine with accuracy the location and time frame of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.
Zu Ding, personal name Zi Xin, was a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty.
Zu Jia (祖甲) or Di Jia (帝甲), personal name Zǐ Zǎi (子載), was a Shang dynasty King of China. He was the third recorded son of Wu Ding, the first Chinese monarch verified by contemporary records. Having inherited a large area of lands conquered by his father and brother, he led the Shang kingdom through the last brief period of stability. After his reign, Shang went into irreversible decline.
From c. 1650 BC, elaborately decorated bronze vessels were deposited as grave goods in the tombs of royalty and nobility during the Chinese Bronze Age. Documented excavations have found over 200 pieces in a single royal tomb. They were produced for an individual or social group to use in making ritual offerings of food and drink to his or their ancestors and other deities or spirits. Such ceremonies generally took place in family temples or ceremonial halls over tombs. These ceremonies can be seen as ritual banquets in which both living and dead members of a family were supposed to participate. Details of these ritual ceremonies are preserved through early literary records. On the death of the owner of a ritual bronze, it would often be placed in his tomb, so that he could continue to pay his respects in the afterlife; other examples were cast specifically as grave goods. Indeed, many surviving examples have been excavated from graves.
Shang archaeology is concerned with the archaeological evidence for the Chinese Shang dynasty. Choice of excavation sites and interpretation of finds have been heavily influenced by the textual historical record.
A jia is a ritual vessel type found in both pottery and bronze forms; it was used to hold libations of wine for the veneration of ancestors. It was made either with four legs or in the form of a tripod and included two pillar-like protrusions on the rim that were possibly used to suspend the vessel over heat. The earliest evidence of the Jia vessel type appears during the Neolithic Period. It was a prominent form during the Shang and early Western Zhou dynasties, but had disappeared by the mid-Western Zhou.
Guifang was an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang Dynasty. Chinese historical tradition used various names, at different periods, for northern tribes such as Guifang, Rong, Di, Xunyu, Xianyun, or Xiongnu peoples. This Chinese exonym combines gui and fang, a suffix referring to "non-Shang or enemy countries that existed in and beyond the borders of the Shang polity."
The State of Quán was a small Zhou dynasty vassal state of Central China. A marquisate, then dukedom (侯), its rulers were descendants of Shang dynasty ruler Wu Ding with the surname Zi (子). Quan was founded by Wen Ding’s son Quan Wending (权文丁) in the area of modern-day Maliang Town (马良镇), Shayang County, Jingmen City, Hubei Province, next to what would later emerge as the State of Chu.
The Predynastic Zhou or Proto-Zhou refers to the state of Zhou that existed in the Guanzhong region of modern Shaanxi province during the Shang dynasty of ancient China, before its conquest of the Shang in 1046/1045 BC which led to the establishment of the Zhou dynasty. It was ruled by the Ji clan. According to histories, Predynastic Zhou rose as a western vassal of the Shang, acting as its ally until their influence surpassed that of the dynasty.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ancient China:
Dong Zuobin or Tung Tso-pin (1895–1963) was a Chinese archaeologist. He was a leading authority on the oracle bone and turtle shell inscriptions of the Shang dynasty. In 1928, Dong supervised the first archaeological dig of Anyang, the Shang capital. Dong was a professor at National Taiwan University and director of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica from 1950 to 1954. Dong's construction of a Shang chronology was his most important research achievement.
The state religion of the Shang dynasty involved trained practitioners communicating with deified beings, including deceased ancestors and supernatural gods. Primary methods of spiritual veneration were written divinations on oracle bones and sacrifice 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 honoured deities, most of which came from the Shang's extensive observations of the surrounding world. Headed by the god Dì, the deities formed a 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 religion also existed outside of the capital, being practiced by royal patrons who were entrusted to govern different regions within the Shang state.
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.
The Late Shang, also known as the Anyang period, is the earliest known literate civilization in China, spanning the reigns of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty, beginning with Wu Ding in the second half of the 13th century BC and ending with the conquest of the Shang by the Zhou in the mid-11th century BC. The state is known from artifacts recovered from its capital at a site near Anyang now known as Yinxu and other sites across the North China Plain. One of the richest finds was the Tomb of Fu Hao at Yinxu, thought to belong to a consort of Wu Ding mentioned in Shang inscriptions.
Predynastic Shang or Proto-Shang refers to the state of Shang that is believed to have existed during the Xia dynasty in ancient China, before its conquest of the Xia in approximately 1600 BC that led to the establishment of the Shang dynasty. The Predynastic Shang started from Xie, a son of Emperor Ku and the first known Shang ancestor. Xie is said to have helped Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia dynasty, to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. The period would last until Tang defeated Jie of Xia in the Battle of Mingtiao, eventually overthrowing the Xia dynasty.
