Shang dynasty updated 2009
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Transcript of Shang dynasty updated 2009
Warm up question:
What is so unique about Chinese civilization?
5,000 years of continuing history
Chinese civilization is one of oldest and continuous civilizations on Earth
Question:
What was the oldest civilization of China?
The Shang civilization happened in Huang Ho Valley
The Huang Ho (Yellow river) originates from Western China and flows through nine provinces
Neolithic settlements in Yangtze & Yellow river valleys
The two neolithic villages of Neolithic period in China before the Shang were the:
Yangshao-painted pottery community
Longshan-black pottery community
Question:
What are the contributions of Shang civilization to the world?
Shang Dynasty contributions
Impressive bronze technology
Shang Dynasty contributions
Oracle bones—beginning of writing system using ideas and things in vertical order and later became calligraphy
What was the oracle all about?
Oracle bones were used to practice of a form of divination, fortune-telling, known as pyro-osteomancy. Pyro-osteomancy is when seers tell the future based on the cracks in an animal bone or turtle shell either in thei natural state or after having been burned.
Continuation…….
The cracks were then used to determine the future. The earliest pyro-osteomancy in China included the bones of sheep, deer, cattle, and pigs, in addition to turtle plastrons (shells). Pyro-osteomancy is known from prehistoric east and northeast Asia, and from North American and Eurasian ethnographic reports.
Continuation……
Of most interest to historians are the scratchings discovered on the surface of Shang dynasty oracle bones, which have been identified as precursors to Chinese characters. Oracle bones of the Shang dynasty were ox scapulae and plastrons only, and they had characters and holes drilled into them..
Shang political system
1) priest-kings ruled (most famous king Wu Ding)
These kings when buried were accompanied with slaves as human sacrifices.
Important religious ideas from Shang
Notion of supreme heavenly power—Shangdi (god above)
Belief in power of spirits of ancestors to affect events on earth (they pray to ancestors)
Importance of rituals venerating ancestors & role of king in performing rituals
Shang culture characterized by:
Stratified social classes (aristocrat vs. lower classes)
Palatial architecture
Distinctive writing system
Elaborate religious rituals
Sophisticated art forms
Shang culture characterized by
Bronze metallurgy
Horse drawn chariot
Ability to mobilize human labor for huge projects/corvee labor
Relatively accurate calendar
Money in form of cowrie shells
Pantheon of gods
Complex lineage structure
Shang musical instruments
Music used as “civilizing” influence in state rituals
Drums
Bells
Chiming stones
ocarinas
Shang economic featuresTamed water buffalo
Cultivated rice in south
Grain grown in north
Review Questions:
1) What contributions from the Shang civilization can you remember?
2) How are they important to the present?