Shang dynasty

The Shang dynasty (商朝) is thought to have ruled northern China from about 1600 to 1046 BCE. These dates are approximate: some scholars instead place the dynasty between the mid-18th and the late 12th century BCE. It was centred on the North China Plain, reaching the modern provinces of Shandong and Hebei and extending westward through Henan.

The Shang is the first Chinese dynasty attested both by writing from its own time and by archaeology. That was not always a given. Until the oracle bones were deciphered, historians had no firm proof that the dynasty had existed at all: its history rested on accounts written long after it ended.

The inscriptions changed that. By studying them together with tombs and excavated sites, scholars have confirmed the names of the Shang kings and pieced together their government, their wars, their beliefs, their rituals and their society. These records, written at the time, are what make the Shang the starting point of China's documented history.

According to tradition, followed by UNESCO, it was around 1300 BCE that King Pan Geng (盘庚) moved his capital to Yin, in the area of Xiaotun village, near the modern city of Anyang (安阳) in Henan, some 500 km south of Beijing. Yin remained the capital under twelve kings, until the fall of the dynasty in 1046 BCE. The oldest inscriptions found there, however, only date from the reign of Wu Ding (武丁), three reigns after Pan Geng.

Its remains are called Yinxu (殷墟), literally "the ruins of Yin". Palaces and several royal tombs have been uncovered there. In pits in the palace area, archaeologists found large numbers of inscribed oracle bones, regarded as the earliest evidence of written Chinese. The Metropolitan Museum also notes that the Anyang period is known for its extraordinary bronze vessels.

UNESCO added Yinxu to the World Heritage List in 2006. It describes the site as a witness to the golden age of early Chinese culture, crafts and sciences, at the height of China's Bronze Age. It singles out the tomb of Fu Hao, the only tomb of a member of the Shang royal family to have survived intact.

In 1899 Wang Yirong (王懿荣), head of the Imperial Academy and a scholar of ancient inscriptions, recognized the signs carved on certain bones as an early form of Chinese writing. Bones of this kind were then sold in pharmacies as "dragon bones" (龙骨), a traditional remedy. An often-repeated story has Wang, ill with malaria, spotting the signs while examining his medicine with his friend Liu E (刘鹗). It is a legend: how he actually came by the bones is not known, and another account has an antiques dealer from Shandong selling them to him.

The bones were in fact cattle shoulder blades and turtle plastrons, the flat underside of the shell. According to UNESCO, about 150,000 pieces have been found at Yinxu.

They were used for divination. Britannica describes the method as practised under King Wu Ding (武丁, c. 1250–1192 BCE): the bone was planed, bored with small hollows and then exposed to intense heat; the resulting T-shaped cracks were read as lucky or unlucky. The day, the name of the diviner (some 120 are known), the question, the forecast and sometimes the outcome might then be carved into it. Topics included sacrifices, military campaigns, hunts, weather, harvests, sickness, childbirth, dreams and tribute.

At the heart of this religion was the worship of royal ancestors, whose goodwill was sought through prayer and offerings. The highest power was Di (帝), or Shangdi (上帝), "the Lord on High".

For anyone learning Chinese, these bones are a starting point. Their script, jiaguwen (甲骨文), is the oldest known form of Chinese writing, and the inscriptions found at Xiaotun make up, according to Britannica, the earliest body of Chinese writing known so far.

It is not a rough draft. By comparing the inscriptions with modern characters, scholars have shown that the Shang had already developed all the principles of the writing system used today (Stanford University). The shapes have evolved over more than three thousand years, but the system is the same one behind the characters you are learning.

Not everything can be read, though. Estimates go up to some 5,000 distinct characters, but only about 1,200 to 2,000 of them can be read with certainty, depending on the count; the exact total is uncertain, since some signs may just be variants of the same character.

The modern name of the script breaks down like many Chinese words:

• 甲 (jiǎ): shell;

• 骨 (gǔ): bone;

• 文 (wén): writing, script.

So 甲骨文 means "writing on shells and bones".

The Shang are especially famous for their bronzes. The most striking are ritual vessels for wine and food, used in ceremonies that linked rulers with their ancestors.

The way they were made is unusual. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the earliest Chinese bronzes were not cast by the lost-wax method used in other Bronze Age cultures, but in moulds made of several pieces. A model of the object was made and a clay mould taken from it; the mould was then cut into sections to release the model. The sections were fired and reassembled to form the mould into which the metal was poured.

This cumbersome process had one big advantage: the decoration could be carved or stamped directly on the inside of the mould before firing. That let the bronze caster achieve very sharp, well-defined patterns, even intricate ones.

The Anyang period (c. 1300–1046 BCE) is known for its extraordinary vessels, cast in multiple ceramic moulds, a technology that, according to the museum, has no parallel elsewhere in the ancient world. Fu Hao's tomb alone held 468 bronze objects.

Of all the tombs at Yinxu, only one belonging to the royal family has been found intact: that of Fu Hao (妇好), one of the consorts of King Wu Ding.

Its contents are remarkable:

• 468 bronze objects, 130 of them weapons;

• 755 jade objects, some of which were already antiques in her day, Neolithic pieces handed down as heirlooms or acquired from elsewhere.

In all, Smarthistory counts some 1,600 objects; other sources give higher figures. Sixteen human victims and six dogs were also buried with her.

The weapons are not mere decoration: they attest to Fu Hao's power and status as a military leader. The tomb held four large, flat bronze axes of the yue (钺) type, associated with the granting of military authority. According to Smarthistory, the burial confirmed her as one of the most important women military commanders of ancient China.

According to legend, the last Shang ruler, Zhou (纣), lost his kingdom through his debauchery. Don't confuse him with the Zhou (周) dynasty that overthrew him: they are two different characters, and in pinyin they differ only by tone, Zhòu and Zhōu.

The state of Zhou prepared the conquest under King Wen (文王); King Wu (武王) completed it and founded the Zhou dynasty. The classical account of the decisive battle says that the Shang vanguard went over to the enemy, the whole army collapsed and Wu entered the capital unopposed. Yet as early as the 4th century BCE the thinker Mencius (孟子) doubted the text he read about it, the "Wucheng" (武成) chapter of the Book of Documents, which also spoke of a bloodbath: when the most humane of rulers attacks the most inhumane, he objected, how could blood have flowed in torrents? Again according to legend, King Zhou set fire to his palace and threw himself into the flames.

The date of the conquest is itself debated. Tradition puts it in 1122 BCE and the calculations of Dong Zuobin (董作宾) in 1111; other dates have been proposed, including 1046 BCE, the one used today by Britannica, UNESCO and the Metropolitan Museum.