Shang used to be an old tribe living in the lower reach of the Yellow River. It was a tributary of the Xia kingdom. At the end of the Xia, the last ruler Jie was a tyrant who made his people living miserably. The chief of Shang tribe, Tang, led uprising army and overthrew the Xia Dynasty (The 21st to the 17th century BC). Tang established the Shang Dynasty and made Bo (present Caoxian County in Shandong Province) his capital city.

Political History

The Shang Dynasty was the second monarchical state in Chinese history. Tang, the founder of Shang, having drawn lessons from the ruin of previous dynasty, treated his people benevolently and employed many able and virtuous ministers. The Shang has made great progresses in its economy during the reign of Tang.

While, due to political struggle for power in the imperial court and continuous wars with frontier tribes, Shang state ever moved its capital for five times. The most famous one was happened during the reign of King Pangeng, the seventeenth king of the Shang. He reestablished the capital at Yin, in the neighborhood of present Xiaotuncun, in Anyang City of Henan Province. The new capital contributed a lot to the stable government of the Shang Dynasty afterwards. Since then, the capital did not change throughout the Shang Dynasty. Therefore, the Shang Dynasty is often called "the Yin" or "the Yin-Shang Dynasty".

Another renowned Shang ruler was Wuding, the nephew of Pangeng. He was an aspirant king and focused on self-cultivation. Under his leadership, the empire of Shang gained great achievements in economy, which laid a foundation for the continuous development of following dynasties.

Economy and Society

From the findings on the site of Yin, the capital city of the Shang, archeologists found out that the productivity of the Shang Dynasty reached a relatively high level even during the former period. As long as agriculture concerned, farm implements had been improved. Stone ploughs, spades and sickles were widely used. The primary crops included millet and wheat. On the other hand, Shang Dynasty thrived in the manufacture of bronze vessels.

Bronze culture has already appeared in China over 3,000 BC ago and enjoyed its prosperity around the 13th century BC. Bronze object affected not only people' daily life but the arms of the state. Its wide utility enabled unprecedented accomplishments of the Shang Dynasty in politics, economy, culture and art. In the reign of King Wuding, the landmark was the appearance of alloy of copper, lead and tin. Bronzewares were under mass production. They fell mainly into two classifications: cooking vessels and alcohol containers. Among them, the famous works of art include simuwu quadripod, which is 732.84kg in weight as the largest bronzeware ever found in the world. It was made in dedication to deceased mother of Shang king. Another is a wine container that has four goats resting on its rim. Shang Dynasty marked the coming of Bronze Age.

At the same time, great development came about in other industries as well. In handicraft, the operation went under much subtler division of labor. It was recorded that a hundred lines emerged in handicraft at that time. Shang craftsmen acquired the skill of inlaying and carving and had their jade wares, stone wares and ivory wares brilliantly decorated. Textile workers invented the simple jacquard loom, which could produce high-quality silk fabric with a hidden pattern. Additionally, the Shang people also made significant progress in medicine, transportation and astronomy. During this period, important events were recorded on tortoise shell and animal bone using Oracle Script, which is the oldest known Chinese form of written communication.

The tradition of ancestral worship bears a time-honored history in China. Archeologists have found it was practiced even in Prehistoric Times (1.7 million years to the 21st century BC). With the emergence of farming, people worshipped the heaven in hope of favorable weather for crops. It actually was a kind of nature worship. Another kind of worship was ancestor worship, also called soul worship. People offered sacrifice to their ancestor, praying for blessings bestowed by their ancestors. From the Xia Dynasty onwards, King was endowed with supreme authority. In order to secure his power, the king combined ancestral worship and nature worship to create the God or the Heaven, and proclaimed himself the agent or the worldly descendent of the God.

In the Shang Dynasty, slavery system prevailed. The aristocrats enjoyed all the luxuries while the slaves lived a dog' life. They belonged to their lord. After the slave owner died, the slaves were often buried alive as human sacrifice together with animal offerings.

Decline

After the death of King Wuding, the prime day of the Shang Dynasty did not go on a long time. Toward the end, internal conflicts intensified and ducal states rebelled. The last Shang ruler was a despot. Rebellion army of slaves dethroned him in the 11th century BC.

Oracle Script

Oracle Script is an ancient script carved on tortoise shells or animal bones. It emerged in the Shang Dynasty (The 16th - the 11th century BC) and was considered as the oldest script in China.

During the Shang Dynasty, the ancients reckoned the natural elements as the exertion of some mystical power. Whenever there occurred flood, drought, lightening and thunder, or some big events, like royal hunts, journeys and military campaigns, divination would be held to predict the future foreshown through the messages of the nature. The divination performer first drilled holes on tortoise shell or a piece of bull' scapula, then put it over fire. Since the shell or bone would crack irregularly under heat, the diviner was supposed to interpret these cracks as good or bad omen. All the dates and results of the divination were written down on the shells or animal bones, which became the earliest historical document and writing symbols as well.

In 1899, a mandarin of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD) found in his doctor's prescription a kind of medicine called dragon bone. When he studied it, he noticed that it actually was a tortoise shell with some oddly-looking pictures carved on it. The mandarin then sent his men to collect dragon bones in all herbal medicine shops and had them examined by historians. Finally, over four thousand different Chinese characters were found on these bones and shells, which were used as media to record divination facts and later referred to as the "oracle bones".

Now, over 100,000 pieces of oracle shells or bones have been unearthed from the ruins of Shang Dynasty, at Anyang in Henan Province, which used to be the later capital of Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago. While other discovery has been made at Shangcheng in the neighborhood of Zhengzhou City. Though smaller in number, the findings of oracle script offered valuable materials to the study of the Shang Dynasty.