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![Preface:] Crack making on gui-si day, Que divined:
[Charge:] In the next ten days there will be no
disaster.
[Prognostication:] The king, reading the cracks, said,
"There will be no harm; there will perhaps be the
coming of alarming news."
[Verification:] When it came to the fifth day, ding-you,
there really was the the coming of alarming news from
the west. Zhi Guo, reporting, said, "The Du Fang [a
border people] are besieging in our eastern borders
and have harmed two settlements." The Gong-fang
also raided the fields of our western borders.
This translation follows (with slight modifications)
David N. Keightley, Sources of Shang History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 44.
The oracle bone being cited is Ching-hua 2.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/shangdynasty2012-140902084016-phpapp01/85/Shang-dynasty-2012-9-320.jpg)
Uploaded byBeth Kuebler-Wolf
Shang dynasty 2012
The Shang Dynasty ruled from around 1500-1100 BCE during the Bronze Age in China. They developed advanced bronze metallurgy techniques like piece-mold casting to produce ritual vessels. They also created one of the earliest forms of Chinese writing through oracle bone inscriptions used for divination. An important Shang site was discovered at Yinxu containing remains of palaces, tombs like that of Fu Hao, and thousands of oracle bones providing evidence of their advanced script and bureaucracy.
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Shang dynasty 2012
- 1. Shang Dynasty ca.1500-1100 BCE Part of the Bronze Age
- 2. Bronze Age =2000 – 771 BCE • Xia Dynasty (?) 2100-1800 BCE – Erlitou • Shang Dynasty 1500-1122 BCE – Erligang • Zhou Dynasty 1122-256 BCE – Western Zhou – Eastern Zhou • Spring & Autumn Period • Warring States Period
- 3. Before the Shang • 3 Sovereigns and 5 Emperors – Credited with inventing agriculture, writing, government, flood control, silk culture, medicine • Emperor Yu (last of 5) – Flood control – 9 sacred vessels – Founding of Xia Dynasty • Controversies over archaeological evidence
- 4. Shang Dynasty •Emergence (and survival) of written records – oracle bones • Bronze technology
- 5. • Oracle Bone “to ancestress Yi offer a fine pig, to ancestress Gui a boar, to ancestress Ding a pig, to ancestress Yi a pig.”
- 6. • Turtle plastron oracle bone
- 7. • Ox scapulaoracle bone, late Shang, ca. 1200 BCE
- 8. Oracle bone pit,Anyang
- 9. Preface:] Crack makingon gui-si day, Que divined: [Charge:] In the next ten days there will be no disaster. [Prognostication:] The king, reading the cracks, said, "There will be no harm; there will perhaps be the coming of alarming news." [Verification:] When it came to the fifth day, ding-you, there really was the the coming of alarming news from the west. Zhi Guo, reporting, said, "The Du Fang [a border people] are besieging in our eastern borders and have harmed two settlements." The Gong-fang also raided the fields of our western borders. This translation follows (with slight modifications) David N. Keightley, Sources of Shang History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 44. The oracle bone being cited is Ching-hua 2.
- 10. • Bronze Ding, Shang, ca. 13th C
- 11.
- 12. • Cast abronze vessel
- 13. Jue Gu Ding 3 vessel shapes predominant in Shang. All had been created in clay in earlier periods.
- 14. • Bronze Ding, Shang, ca. 13th C
- 16. • Shang bronzegui, ca. 1600-1100 BCE
- 17. • Bronze Gu(wine goblet), Shang dynasty, 13th C BCE
- 18. • Longshan Neolithic • “Eggshell” pottery
- 19. • Closeup of tao tie on early Shang bronze
- 20. • Spouted ritualwine vessel (guang), Shang dynasty, early Anyang period (ca. 1300–1050 B.C.),
- 21. • Jue, Ritual Wine Vessel, Late Shang (12th C BCE)
- 22. • Fang I(Ritual Wine Vessel) Shang, :late 13th-12th century • 11 3/4 x 7 1/4 in.
- 26. • Shih tripodbronze ting vessel Late Shang dynasty (1300-1046 B.C.)
- 27. Shang Dynasty Burials • Fu Hao, died ca. 1200 BC • A wife of Emperor Wu Ding • A military general • An oracle bone diviner • Tomb discovered in 1976
- 29. • Modern Statue representing Fu Hao, at the site of her tomb. Tomb is open for tourist visits • YinXu is site of many oracle bone pits, last capital of Shang Dynasty
- 30. • Burial Pitof Lady Fu Hao with Bronze vessels & human companions
- 31. • Bronze Dingfrom Fu Hao’s Tomb (about 10 inches tall), rubbing of her posthumous name, inside ding.
- 32. • Zun, orWine Vessel, from Fu Hao’s Tomb (two images)
- 33. • Decoration ofzun from Fu Hao’s tomb,
- 34. • Lidded containerfrom Fu Hao’s tomb
- 35.
- 36. Jade cong fromNeolithic era
- 37. • Drinking vessel,Fu Hao’s tomb, Shang, ca. 1200 BCE
- 38. • Compare toNeolithic pottery vessel, ca.2000 bce
- 39. • Ivory gobletinlaid with turquoise, Late Shang Period (c. 1200 B.C.) Fu Hao’s tomb
- 40. Shang Dynasty Review • Bronze Age: weaponry, ritual vessels • Highly stratified, wealthy and powerful society • The basis for modern Chinese writing • vocab: taotie, afterlife, grave goods, ritual, divination, oracle, ancestor worship, Xia dynasty, gu, ding, jue, piece-mold casting, pictograph, thunder pattern