China's Shang Dynasty - Bronze Age (商朝)

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The bronze vessels discovered in China are first in the world in terms of quantity and degree of exquisite craftsmanship. Also appearing in the Bronze Age are the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty found in the Yin ruins. These oracle bone inscriptions mark the beginning of the time in China from which objects and era can be identified by characters. Around 4,000 years ago there was a massive flood across the land of China and the first large-scale natural disaster to be recorded in the history of China. Many people were killed, others deprived of their homes. In the fight between people and nature there appeared a great hero named Dayu who led the people to harness the rivers and control the flooding, enabling the people to live and work in peace and contentment. Dayu was a man of great love. When the flood hit the land, the myth of other nations about the flood was that a god gave him instructions. For example, the gods told him that a great flood was coming and he built a small boat and hid in the boat. But in China, it is not like that. You don't rely on gods or others. You rely on your own strength to struggle. This is very prominent. Modern science has proved that at the end of the glacial period there was indeed a worldwide flood on the earth and that it was caused by the warming of the global climate. This great flood has become a remote memory of all peoples everywhere in the world. But the difference between the various fables and legends of China and those of other countries lies in the fact that the name Dayu is clearly recorded in an ancient document and that he is closely related to the beginning of a nation. Because of his success in harnessing the flood, Dayu became universally respected and was raised to the status of head of a tribal alliance that was the Chinese nation of the time. Eventually, he established the Xia Dynasty, the earliest dynasty in China's history. Dayu is a symbol of civilization. But from a scientific point of view, we can also look at it from a materialistic point of view. The emergence of a country is a symbol of the arrival of a civilized society. But how do we determine the emergence of a country? We should look at its capital, the capital city. There is no such thing as a capital city. The capital city not only served as the political, economic and cultural center of a dynasty, but also as an embodiment of the development of human civilization. Many sensational archaeological discoveries have been made related to capitals, particularly when exploring the civilizations of remote antiquity. In 1959, while referring to passages in ancient documents, well-known archaeologist Xu Shusheng conducted an investigation in areas where people of the Xia Dynasty were known to have been active. In the process, he discovered many pottery fragments at Ao Li Tou village in Yangshuo County, Hunan Province. His knowledge of the field led him to consider that he might have found the site of an ancient capital city. Later at Ao Li Tou, archaeologists unearthed the foundations of two large palace sites, the earliest ever found in China. Bronze vessels, turquoise inlaid bronze plaques with animal face designs and jade axes were unearthed from a number of medium and small sized tombs. According to ancient records, Dayu divided the land into nine states and after collecting bronze resources from all over the country, he had nine Ning cast to represent the area of his nation. And indeed, a bronze ding was found at the Ao Li Tou site and it is the earliest found so far. Was it one of the nine ding cast by Dayu? Were these bronze vessels made by the Xia people? Around the 17th century BC, the Xia Dynasty ended and the Shang Dynasty began and it is said that the nine ding made by Dayu passed down to the Shang Dynasty. The territory of the Xia Dynasty was not large. In general, it was similar to the southern part of China and the southern part of Shanxi. In China, or at this time, when civilization was forming, it was only a small area. But when it came to the Shang Dynasty, it was a great change. The power of the Shang Dynasty was much greater than that of China. It is thought that the ancestors of the Shang people might have come from the ancient Dong Yi nationality and that later they mingled with the Hua Xia nationality in central China. Culturally, the differences between the Shang people and the Xia people were not great. In the spring of 1983, just six kilometers from the Arli Tou site, archaeologists discovered the site of an ancient city with an area of more than 1.9 million square meters. This city, dated to the early period of the Shang Dynasty, 3,600 years ago, was built near the capital of the Xia Dynasty. It was built there in order to show the 3,000 or so smaller surrounding states that the Shang Dynasty lay at the center of the land. In ancient times, areas around the middle reaches of the Yellow River, located in the center of China, were known both as Hua Xia and the Central Plain. After the founding of the Xia Dynasty, the several thousand years of Chinese history that followed unfolded with Hua Xia and the Central Plain at the court. The Central Plain became a political, economic, cultural, and ideological furnace, while the broad-minded people of the Hua Xia nation came to symbolize the strong power of cohesion and creativity of Chinese civilization. As rule over the land was consolidated and became increasingly stable, the Shang Dynasty built an even larger capital city 100 kilometers east of Yanchu. Today, that city is referred to as the Shang City of Zhengzhou. Half a century ago, archaeologists tried with limited success to reveal the secrets of the Shang City. But then, at the end of 1989, a farmer in Xiaoshuangqiao village Zhengzhou dug up a bronze object, clearly from the era of the Shang Dynasty, that might have been fixed to a palace gate. A huge wooden stake had once stood on the base of this stone stele, and what it supported then would most likely have been the palace of the Shang Dynasty. Also found in the Shang City of Zhengzhou was China's earliest porcelain, and it reveals that Shang people knew how to apply glaze to their pottery. They also knew how to use bronze and did so to create ritual vessels, weapons, and tools for use in daily life and for production purposes. Among the items excavated from the Shang City of Zhengzhou was a large bronze ding. It is one meter in height and weighs 86 kilograms. People today regard these large bronze ritual vessels as a testament to the glorious achievements of the Shang Dynasty. What are the great achievements? The first is, of course, the bronze vessel. The bronze vessel is more complex, has a larger volume, and the pattern is more detailed. Of course, it is more difficult to make. The technical, artistic, religious, and ideological aspects of it are more abundant. Around the year 1300 BC, King Pangong of the Shang Dynasty moved the dynasty's capital city to Yin, and Yin would remain the capital until the year 1046 BC. The ruins of Yin were referred to by a later Han Dynasty historian, but the location of the ruins was lost and remained a mystery for many hundreds of years. But then at the end of the 19th century, a farmer in Shaotun village in Anyang city, Henan province, dug up some animal bones known as dragon bones, which he then sold to a drugstore, because their value was far greater than his entire harvest of grain for a year. We don't know how many of these dragon bones were ground into powder to be consumed as Chinese traditional medicine, but it was not until the autumn of 1899 that someone realized their true value. That person was Wang Yirong, at the time a well-known antiquarian and epigraphist. While buying materials to be used in the preparation of some herbal medicines, he noticed some symbols carved into the bones he was purchasing, and that the symbols were very similar to inscriptions seen on items of bronze. He immediately bought all the dragon bones the store had to offer, and after carefully studying them, he concluded that the symbols they bore were characters that were even older than those used in inscriptions on bronze articles. The dragon bones were, in fact, oracle bones from the Shang dynasty era. Wang Yirong had made a major discovery, and with it, he became the first person to discover and collect oracle bones dating back to the Shang dynasty. But just where had these oracle bones, kept secretly by dealers in such antiquities for so long, actually come from? After years of investigation, another epigraphist, Luo Zhenyu, guessed that the oracle bones might have been unearthed from Shaotun, in the town of Anyang in Henan province. And so in the spring of 1915, Luo went to Shaotun to carry out an investigation. Before long, he realized that Shaotun was not only the place where the oracle bones had been unearthed, but that it was also the site of the capital city of the Shang dynasty. What he had found was the Yin ruins, as referred to by Han dynasty historians more than 2,000 years ago. Following Luo Zhenyu, famous scholar Wang Guowei carried out textual research on the names of the Shang dynasty kings and their lineage, as recorded in Sima Qian's Records of the Historian. He found that the records in Sima Qian's work agreed with the details carved on the oracle bones and tortoiseshells. This proved that history records concerning the Shang dynasty were surprisingly accurate. The discovery of the Yin ruins meant that a great gateway to the Shang dynasty that had been closed for more than 3,000 years had been reopened. But what kind of a world would be revealed as a result? These are the famous Yin ruins, located to the northwest of the city of Anyang in Henan province. Over a period of 254 years, Yin, the capital city of Shang, experienced the rule of more than 12 kings over 8 generations. And here, the palaces of those kings and their ancestral temples have been discovered. So far, more than 70 sets of construction foundations have been found in the areas where the palace once stood, and they have revealed that the palaces of the city of Yin were more magnificent in terms of architecture than the royal houses in the Shang dynasty cities of Yanshu and Zhangzhou. They reveal the striking achievements of the Shang people in what was a glorious time in China's Bronze Age. The area of the Yin ruins so far revealed covers some 20 square kilometers. At present, archaeologists are excavating a road in the city dating back to the Shang dynasty. This road was nearly 10 meters wide, big enough for four carriages running side by side. Today, we can enter the halls of the city of Yin, the capital city of the Shang dynasty. Combining horses with carts was a great innovation in the history of human civilization, and it was one that accelerated the course of human history. The structure of a Shang dynasty chariot was very complicated, and the art and craft of making one had reached perfection. To kings, princes, and aristocrats of the Shang dynasty, possessing a carriage symbolized royal status, and owning a fine chariot was a name well worth pursuing. This is the character for king. When it appears in oracle bone inscriptions, it means the ruler of a country, and it evolved from the character for battleaxe. At first, the battleaxe was used as a kind of practical weapon, but later it became a ritual article. So far, no more than 10 bronze battleaxes have been found at the Yin ruins, and this indicates that only a few people could possess one. Shang dynasty troops were armed with what were at the time the best bronze weapons in the world. They wore bronze helmets, and they wore leather suits of armor. Thousands upon thousands of bronze weapons have been unearthed from Shang tombs, including various kinds of bronze daggers and sharp bronze spears. It seems that every adult male had to be prepared to be called upon at any moment to become a lion-hearted fighter for the Shang dynasty. In 1976, Chinese archaeologists discovered a Shang dynasty tomb, which, while not particularly large, was highly important as it had never been looted. Inside were thousands of burial articles, including some 468 items of bronze of various types, and some of the types had never been seen before. After removing stains and rust marks from the bronze articles, archaeologists could make out phrases. This one reads Si Mou Xin, Fu Hao, and Hao, indicating the name of the same person. Fu Hao was the wife of Wu Ding, king of the Shang dynasty, and her name appears as many as 250 times in oracle inscriptions carved on bones and tortoise shells. Up to now, the tomb of Fu Hao is the only tomb of a Shang dynasty royal family member found at the Yin ruins for which the occupant and his or her status can be confirmed, and it also includes oracle inscriptions. Not only was Fu Hao highly involved in the state affairs of her era, she was also China's first female general. Fu Hao is also believed to have been a beauty. She had no less than 490 different hairpins, enabling her to appear every day with a new face in front of King Wu Ding. No less than 755 articles of jade have been unearthed from the tomb of Fu Hao, and they include a jade bird, jade horse, jade tiger, jade dragon, and jade phoenix. All of them are lifelike in appearance and reveal that the aristocrats of the era domesticated many pets, including large animals such as the elephant and bear. An elephant pit discovered at the Yin ruins contained a small elephant with a bronze bell tied around its neck. Just one kilometer from the palace of the king in the city of Yin, there was a Shang Dynasty bronze foundry that covered an area of 10,000 square meters. Although numerous craftsmen worked in the foundry, only the king himself could make decisions about the dynasty's output of bronze, the varieties of objects made, and their scale. Shang Dynasty craftsmen not only mastered the bronze-making arts they had inherited from their ancestors, but also developed a unique combination of pottery moulds to make very large bronze vessels. They pounded sun-baked clay into pieces, and mixed this clay with fine sand that contained a large amount of quartz. They then carved different designs on the clay, and after drying, the results became pottery moulds. Because each mould could be used only once, no two bronze objects of the same design have ever been found at the Yin ruins. Bronze objects were made by turning copper ore into molten copper, which was then poured into a pottery object called a general helmet. Sometimes, this object was used as a crucible. Such small-sized copper furnaces have remained in use to the present day, the only difference being that today's furnace operators must wear a special face mask to protect themselves against the heat, as the temperature of molten copper reaches more than 1,200 degrees centigrade. The large Simu Wu Ding weighs 875 kilograms, making it the largest object made of bronze excavated anywhere in the world. To maintain a large-scale bronze foundry, great quantities of ore were needed. The bronze articles unearthed from the tomb of Fuhao alone come to a combined weight of more than 1,600 kilograms, requiring at least 8 tons of copper ore. However, so far, no Shang dynasty mining and smelting base has been found near the Yin ruins, and this leads us to wonder where the ore came from. These beautiful small flowers, called Haizhou Xiangru, are also known as Tongxiao grass, which means copper rust grass. They flourish on the sites of old copper mines. This place, more than 900 kilometers from the Yin ruins, is located in today's Ruichang city in Jiangxi province. This lone wooden pole was erected by Shang people as part of the supporting frame of a mine more than 3,000 years ago, evidence of the earliest mining and smelting site in China. Tonglu Shan, located in Dayue city, Hubei province, to the northwest of Ruichang, is one of the six top copper bases in China. Here, the Shang people built tunnels that led to underground mines, and working underground, the miners chose rocks bearing malachite sparkling with an emerald luster and had them sent up to the surface by means of wooden tackle. Most of the copper resources needed to make articles of bronze for the Shang capital probably originated from the Tonglu Shan mine. As the areas along the middle reaches of the Yangtze river possessed an abundance of such strategic resources, the Shang dynasty king would certainly have strengthened his control over this area. Although the historical development of China has been turbulent, it has been able to survive. This foundation is also very important. The foundation of agriculture is at the forefront, and now it is the foundation of the culture of the Qing dynasty, which represents the Qing culture. It is recorded many times in the oracle-bound inscriptions unearthed from the Yin ruins that the Shang dynasty was once associated with southwestern Shu, which was far from Shang territory. Shu was short for what is today's Sichuan province, yet the state of Shu of ancient times is still wrapped in the mist of history. This place is called Sanxingdui. What remains at Sanxingdui is the remnants of an ancient city wall, and the wall can be clearly seen. To the ancient people of Shu, the thick city wall and what it enclosed would have seemed like a fort. Today, it ushers in groups of uninvited guests who have heard that someone knocked on the gate of this wall, and that it opened to reveal the secrets of an ancient kingdom. In the summer of 1986, several workers were digging through the hard soil with their hoes, none of them having any idea that mixed in with the soil were cracked pieces of pottery, broken bones, and valuable objects of jade. Soon, no one was allowed to use the soil to make bricks, and the entire block of land once part of the ancient state of Shu was under protection. The gate to a mysterious kingdom dating back more than 3,000 years was about to be opened, in what would prove to be a truly sensational discovery. When the rammed earth in the excavation pit was cleared away, a miracle of archaeology was revealed. Unearthed at Sanxingdui were a large number of vessels made of gold, the wealth of a king protected by troops of roaring tigers. These tomb guardians standing underground had fulfilled their duty to the kingdom more than 3,000 years. The culture of the ancient city of Sichuan is very diverse. I would like to emphasize that this culture has a relatively independent origin and its development context. This is something that must be affirmed. Because it is a culture that grows on its own in this area. At the same time, we must emphasize that it has a very close relationship The ancient and mysterious state of Shu had finally been found. And just like the Shang Dynasty in central China, it had a highly developed bronze civilization. But who had been the master of the ancient state of Shu? The people of Shu had not left behind any written clues. This object, which looks rather like a steering wheel, gleams in its bronze splendor. Legend has it that the man who established the ancient state of Shu and became its first king was named Tan Tung. It is also said that he had protruding eyes and was actually called vertical eyes. However, people had never been able to imagine what these vertical eyes looked like until one day another sensational discovery was made. Is this the image of a person or an animal? The appearance of this face mask made of bronze certainly startles everyone. Completely different in shape from those unearthed from Sanxingdui, it has eyes that protrude as much as 20 centimeters. Can this be the legendary Tan Tung, the ancestor of the Shu people? Perhaps this is an image of Tan Tung made to protect the state of Shu he founded, a state that became another center of civilization far from central China. But if so, what did the ancient people of Shu use as the basis for this image of their great ancestor? In spite of the fact that a great many bronze statues had already been excavated from the ancient state of Shu, the last find greatly surprised everyone. A standing bronze figure 262 centimeters high. Such a huge bronze statue from this time had never been found in China or anywhere else in the world. The figure wears a high hat and his clothes are decorated with dragon and phoenix designs and various animal mask designs. But what was he holding so tightly in his hands? He stands with bare feet on a square shaped platform that also bears animal mask designs. Who can he be? It has been surmised that this mysterious figure might well have been a king of the ancient state of Shu. Also unearthed from the Sanxingdui site were many articles in the shape of birds, their elegant bodies reminding us of phoenixes in the sky. Legend has it that for several generations the names of all Shu kings were related to birds. One of them was called Yu Fu or Fish Mallard. We know that in ancient times China's tribes took the phoenix as their totem as the use of this totem has also been seen in Da Wen Kou culture and He Mu Du culture. However, ancient documents from the central plain claim that the offspring of the kings of Shu were descendants of the Yellow Emperor, the great emperor of the Xia dynasty. If so, then the two civilizations developed in parallel. Why? Naturally, people were greatly excited by the great Sanxingdui discoveries. When this bronze tree appeared, a crane and wooden frame had to be used to raise it into place. Although the tree is broken at the top, it is still nearly four meters high and archaeologists have called it a deity tree. The base on which the tree stands looks like a mountain and the overall impression is that the tree growing out of the mountain is a heavenly tree. The trunk has three layers of branches from which hang fruit and various flying birds stand on the fruit. In ancient Shu, people believed that high mountains and big trees were steps that led to the sky. Flying birds, meanwhile, were regarded as envoys coming and going between the earth and heaven, passing information. Scholars believe that the bronze tree might represent Fu Sang, a place inhabited by the sun god. Certainly, it would seem that at the very least, the deity tree symbolizes the reverence accorded the sun by the Shu people. This kind of influence has a common feature with other African regions. The most prominent areas of influence are the areas of the Li-Yue-Qi, especially the Li-Qi of the Qing-Meng-Qi. For example, there are Lei, Zun, and various Qi-Wu. You can see that these Qi-Wu are very similar to those in other regions The bronze Zun and bronze Lei and other ritual vessels unearthed from Sanxingdui are very similar in shape and style to those from the Shang Dynasty on the Central Plain. And clearly, they originated from Shang culture. Dragons, so often seen in other parts of China, were also sacred in the minds of ancient Shu people. Scholars believe these bronze Zun and bronze Lei indicate that a courtesy system operated in the land of Shu, that there was a kind of peaceful cultural exchange with the Shang Dynasty. Archaeologists believe that the large number of bronze items and ivory items unearthed from Sanxingdui may have been left behind by the ancient people of Shu after some important ritual activity or sacrificial ceremony. Let's imagine such a sacrificial offering ceremony of the ancient Shu people more than 3,000 years ago. The king is the chief diviner. His very power comes from the people's faith in him. Large amounts of regional wealth are concentrated here and used as sacrificial offerings to ancestors and deities. The sacred stateliness of it all amazes his people. But in a raging fire, the deity tree disappears and the king, too, vanishes. Eventually, the ancient state of Shu also dies away and 300 years later, the character for Shu is found only on the oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the Yin ruins. The appearance of these oracle bone inscriptions marks the point at which China enters a period in the ancient past that can be verified through characters. The oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin ruins boast the earliest Chinese characters ever found. And these characters appear in places where sacrificial activities were frequently held by kings of the Shang dynasty. Every day, the Shang king would ask a fortune teller to foretell everything. The weather, the harvest, whether hunting would be good or whether there would be victory in battle. All the foretellings that resulted from the reading of omens were recorded on tortoiseshells or on the shoulder blades of oxen. These became the state archive of the Shang dynasty. The characters recorded on the tortoiseshells and bones are referred to as oracle bone inscriptions. The oracle bone inscriptions can be read for thousands of years. The oracle bone inscriptions can be read for 2,000 years. For example, as a middle school student, you just need to memorize a few oracle bone inscriptions and read some Tang poems. You can read the poems of Tang dynasty from 1,000 to 500 years ago. You can also read the poems of Sima Qian from 2,000 years ago. You can basically understand the meaning of the poems. But in Europe, let alone 2,000 years ago, I'm afraid that some of Shakespeare's famous plays and oracle bone inscriptions may not be able to be read in English today. This is an important cultural gene that our national culture can continue and should continue in a more complete way. The legend Tang Jie's invention of words familiar to all Chinese indicates that ancient Chinese people paid great attention to the origin of Chinese characters. As written characters are an indicator of civilization, the birth of characters announces the beginning of the history of human civilization. As the oracle inscriptions on tortoiseshells and bones of the Yin ruins reveals, Chinese characters originated before the Shang dynasty. The number of different words appearing in oracle inscriptions on tortoiseshells comes to more than 4,000 and so far at least 1,500 of these have been identified. Scholars now believe that the number of characters used by Shang people exceeded 5,000 and perhaps numbered as many as 6,000. It was a logical and mature character system and as such it made an important contribution to both Chinese and world civilization. The number of characters used in oracle inscriptions on tortoiseshells is about 60,000 to 70,000. The number of characters we use daily is about 7,000 to 10,000. This is a very large number. However, as we all know, the word in Chinese characters is not the word in English. It is a character, not a word. The character in English is not the same as the word in Chinese. The word in Chinese can be made up of many words with many meanings. This cannot be compared. Therefore, the word in Chinese is one of the richest in the world compared to English and other languages. Carve symbols used earlier on pottery were later used to create oracle bone inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze. These were followed by minuscule script, Chinese official script and regular script, all of them bearing Chinese characters which have been an important carrier of Chinese civilization. So-called oracle bone inscriptions were also carved on tortoiseshells but in fact during the Shang Dynasty writing tools mainly consisted of brushes. Characters recorded at that time were written on bamboo slips using brushes to record official records. Unfortunately, however, as bamboo slips rot easily, so far no standard books of the Shang Dynasty have been found. But we can see from the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin ruins that the characters used then were quite different from today's Chinese characters in terms of style. That said, there is no great difference in the method used to construct a character. The Chinese character system is unique, completely different from any other language in the world. Without doubt, the invention of oracle bone inscriptions was the greatest invention and creation of the Chinese nation, setting in motion the use of a character system that has lasted to the present day. Although the land of China is vast and a great variety of dialects are spoken from one end to the other, its unique system of Chinese characters has enabled its people to access areas where different dialects prevail. The character system has also influenced the people's way of thinking and expression through literature, maintaining the continuation of Chinese civilization and playing a highly important role in China's long-term unification.