Xia Dynasty as Manifest at Erlitou

1
Xia Dynasty as Manifest at Erlitou

• Early finds at Erlitou belong to the Xias last
  capital--the Xia state was recognized by the
  Shang, Zhou and all later dynasties as the first
  dynasty to rule the central China plain. Erlitou
  has
• A bronze making tradition using piece molds to
  create elaborate pouring and drinking vessels.
• Bossing as bronze decorations incised masks and
  faces on jades.
• A class society based on clan and lineage
  interactions with Shang, other states and with
  simpler societies.
• Scapulamancy, ancestor worship, elaborate graves
  and constructions associated with its ruling
  lineage.
• No written records to date but little modern
  archaeology has been done on Xia at Erlitou or
  elsewhere.
• A bronze tradition and culture closely related
  to Shang and later Zhouthis does not mean that
  their ethnicity was identical.

2
Shang Dynasty at Erligang Anyang

• Bronze
• Erligang gives us a glimpse of middle Shang
  3500-3400 y.a.
• Bronzes elaborate in form and decoration borrowed
  shapes and probably motifs from jades, wood and
  bone.
• Incised designs inside the piece mold created
  finely and boldly raised decoration patterns
  carved on the clay model created concave designs
  on the bronze.
• At Anyang, the final Shang capital, bronze animal
  art added more delineation between major motifs
  and background design.
• Contemporary Shang towns made their own ritual
  vessels using the same shapes and decorations
  styles (did not trade for them).
• Non-Shang states also cast bronzes aping Shang
  shapes but with local motifs--different spirit
  mediums for ancestor worship.
• All bronze-producing towns and states evidently
  had their own mines, miners, smelters,
  transportation to foundries, and specialist
  artisans engaged full-time in the production of
  bronze weapons and ritual vessels.
• Elites had access to bronze commoners and
  peasants did not.

3
Shang Supernatural Beliefs and Art

• Religion was linked to the origin and the
  legitimizing of the Shang State.
• The high god heaven provided wisdom the kings
  ancestors could interact with them the king
  could communicate with his ancestors.
• The kings ability to influence the ancestors,
  through prayer, divination and ritual sacrifice,
  was powerful in sanctifying his rulehe asked
  about and influenced
• Weather his good fortune outcome of a
  contemplated war, hunt, journey, etc. the
  interpretation of an event (dream, birth,
  calamity, etc.).
• Mythical, legendary and historic precedents were
  important in the responses (knowledge obtained
  from heaven) their interpretation.
• Ancestor worship and venerating the ancestors was
  deeply embedded in ritual of each lineage, great
  and small.
• Sacrifices of humans, animals and food, feasting
  and drinking were associated with divination,
  founding towns, palaces temples, construction
  of tombs, etc.
• There were also popular superstitions and beliefs
  about the spirit.
• There was an elaborate cosmology associated with
  the morphology location of cities and towns,
  their gates and doors, cardinality, use of colors
  and symbols.
• Expertise in astronomy, geomancy magic was
  supported consulted.

4
Shang Cities and Towns

• Diffuse urbanism developed as elites were granted
  beneficesthe charge to open new areas, taking
  with them craft specialists and farmers.
• These elites were often the kings relatives who,
  in return, support him in defense, divination,
  and local rule in his name.
• The benefices were self-sufficient in terms of
  agriculture, bronze manufacture, production of
  wine, stone, bone and metal tools, construction,
  armed force, etc. They also provided support for
  the king and his large entourage when it passed
  through their area.
• Walled enclosures around palaces and elite
  precincts sustained an aura of privilege (they
  were not defensive).
• Palace architecture at Anyang and other towns is
  clearly the prototype for later, historical
  palaces (buildings on raised platforms, major
  entry facing south, ancestral temples, etc.).
• The town settlement, like the capital, had
  workshops and agricultural units outside the
  palace enclosure. So were cemeteries with
  opulent and massive tombs containing great wealth
  in bronzes, pottery, chariots, and human and
  animal sacrifices, as well as commoner-tombs of
  specialists with modest associated grave
  furnishings.

5
Shang and Political Control Patrimony

• We identify Anyang as the last Shang capital
  based on written documents found in oracle bone
  archives.
• The oracle bones refer to an inner capital region
  and an outer Shang domain, and to other groups
  who were variously allies or enemies, many
  sharing Shangs elite culture.
• The inner capital was directly under the kings
  control other towns were fairly self-sufficient
  and ruled by grantees and elite subjects in the
  name of the king ( patrimonial, rather feudal
  because the elites ruled on behalf of the
  father/king rather than in their own name).
• The basic units of political organization were
  the walled town and the lineage. We know the
  names of several thousand towns but few have been
  located or excavated to date.
• The grantee headed the town, a relative or
  fictive kin of the king who sacrificed to the
  kings and his/her own lineage ancestors. Towns
  included people from more than one kinship group
  serving the needs of agriculture, crafts,
  services to the elites, etc.
• Towns were semi-autonomous but the grantee had
  obligations at the Anyang capital, more if
  granted land nearby, less if further away.

6
Shang Economy 1 Climate, food, other resources

• Climate 5000-2500 y.a.
• Climate of the Central Plain was several degrees
  warmer and moister than now, with a more
  northerly distribution of plants and animals than
  latter the landscape was less affected by human
  activities than later.
• Animals hunted by Shang elites for food included
  wild boar, elephant, deer and other woodland and
  marsh animals whose distribution extended to
  Anyang.
• Domesticated animals tended by agriculturalists
  for elites were water buffalo, sheep, horse, pig,
  dog, cattle and even a local deer. Many were
  used in the ritual feasting and sacrificing of
  the elites. Horses drew war chariots and appear
  together with chariots and charioteers as
  sacrifices in royal burials.
• Domesticates include several millets, rice, a
  wild rice (?), wood, fiber and other economic
  plants, vegetables and fruits mulberry orchards
  fed the silkworm other grains named by the Shang
  arent yet translatable.
• Crafts and specialists
• Pottery clay selection and tempering was highly
  refined to produce a number of wares used for
  domestic, elite and ritual purposes among the
  classes, and kilns with .
• Weavers of silk and hemp, tailors, chariot
  makers, etc. were other crafts.
• Bronze manufacture was a high status craft
  specialization. Copper and tin mining and
  smelting, may have meant trade for ingots from
  towns near sources or/and Shang trading/raiding
  beyond the Shang realm.
• Cowries were considered precious and were a form
  of wealth used among elites. They came from the
  Yangtze Delta area through trade with other
  elites.
• Turtle shells for divination included one local
  species and several imports from the Yangtze
  area. They arrived in lots up to several
  thousand.
• The closest jade source is 200 mi from Anyang but
  scientific study of jades and jade sources is
  lacking.
• Gold has a known source east in Shandong
  however, it is rare in sites or much prized by
  the Shang (in contrast to Egypt, Sumer, etc.).

7
Shang Economy 2 Upward Outward Flow of
Resources

• Food and industrial products were created in the
  villages and workshops but their movement
  thereafter was not transactional (as in Sumer).
• The kings divination about crops and harvests
  was restricted to Shang for he received a share
  of grain, game, domestic animals, industrial
  products and services.
• The royal hunt was another device for economic
  exploitation in the provinces as well as a
  sportthe whole entourage had to be hosted as it
  passed through.
• The outflow from Anyang was smallerthe king made
  gifts to provincial lords (recognized sometimes
  by the latter casting commemorative bronzes
  recording the gift) the king maintained an
  umbrella military force and the king made
  ritual expressions of well-being to beyond the
  capital.
• The tangible outflow (and in flow, for that
  matter) were for elites.
• How were materials moved? Carts drawn by men and
  animals, animal and human bearers, and boats
  moved goods but surely there were lineages
  specialized in this movement goods and
  communication. Cowries may have served as
  currency. Did you know that the word for merchant
  is Person of Shang?
• Background should be character Shang Jen !!!

8
Shang Stratification and Class

• At and around Anyang the distribution of elite
  and commoner sites is postulated there were
  significant differences between the lineages that
  comprised each. There was not a slave class.
• At the top of the elite class was the Tzu clan
  royal lineage from whom the kings were chosen
  also recognized in descending order were the
  royal wives (with the Royal Consort at the apex),
  princes (a group that defies precise definition
  but included Tzu and non-Tzu males of status who
  had ritual functions and hunted with the king),
  and officials.
• Chang Shang 130 and 231
• Commoners similarly were of different status with
  some craft specialists of higher status than
  others and they in turn with status above that of
  agriculturalists. Agriculturalists made their own
  pottery, clothing, etc.
• There was a strong military aspect of
  societyfrom the king on down to the least male
  lineage member, one could be called upon. Besides
  quelling neighboring states and tribes, Shang
  undertook deliberate actions outside their realm
  to capture potential sacrificial victims
  (sacrifices might involve hundreds).
• The professional military included various ranks
  and functions. There were foot soldiers and
  archers in companies of 100 each, organized into
  regiments of 3 companies there were higher
  ranking charioteers, 3 men to a chariot, 5
  chariots to a squadron, and 25 chariots to a
  company.

9
Shang Dualism and Patrilineal Kinship

• The Royal Lineage was segmented into 10
  sub-lineages and the 10 were arranged in two
  groups (referred to here as A B)
• Kingship alternated between the two groups with
  each generational change. An A group kings son
  (also A) could not succeed him but,
  theoretically, his grandson could since a king
  from B was from the intervening generation.
• Kings married women from the opposite group as
  well as outsidersmales were polygamous.
• The movement of females into and outside the
  Royal Lineage (or the Shang elite) was based on
  status (high status non-Shang women to Shang
  relatively lower status Shang females outside the
  clan. Such marriages build and maintained
  alliances.
• Commoners adhered to patrilineal, patrilocal
  kinship, marriage and descent patterns.
• The extended family was the norm among all
  classes, with the lineage head its authority just
  as the king was the embodiment of the father of
  all Shang lineages.
• Chang Shang 112 bled as background for this slide
  
• In the Royal Cemetery, 11 of 12 Anyang kings are
  buried in two groupsone of 7, equal to the
  number of sub-lineage A kings 4 from group B who
  are known to have been buried (the last king was
  killed by the Zhou). The largest tomb is 40
  deep, 54 n-s, 50 e-w, with 4 ramps 45-95
  longa massive public work and labor force at the
  command of the rulers.
• There are two divination styles or schools
  (some differences in ancestors used, divination
  calendar, etc.).
• King and prime minister an sub-lineage A king
  had as his chief minister a contemporary from
  sub-lineage B, balancing the interests of the two
  groupings of sub-lineages.
• Religious art was markedly dualistic split-faces
  or double animal profiles found on ritual
  bronzes used by the Royal Lineage may reflect the
  complimentarity of the two sub-lineages, of
  heaven and earth and other dualistic principles.
  
• Ancestor temples were spatially separated.

10
Shang Bronzes and Decoration

• Barnes 122, 123, 124, 125

11
Shang King as Father Patrilineal State

• Patrimonial Rule
• New towns were assigned to clan/lineage members
  who served as court officials, were princes,
  royal consorts, or elites from other groups
  (defeated Xia, for example) who swore allegiance
  to Shang. Size of benefice related to status of
  the person enfoeffed.
• Benefice holders ruled in the name of the king
  (father), were expected to lead an army in time
  of war, to sacrifice to the kings ancestors (as
  well as their own lineage founder),
• Some crafts are associated with specific lineages
  and they often live in an area devoted to
  producing those goods (bronze vessels, wine,
  arrows, etc.) for the town elites.
• Ideally, 100 households were under the authority
  of the lineage head and his word was inviolate
  male householders would serve as a unit in
  warfare as well, although there was a
  professional army as well.
• There was little commerce since each town was
  self sufficient in its productionelite items
  might move but markets were not developed nor was
  there a system of coinage (cowrie shells may have
  a kind of currency).

12
Shang Science and Technology

• Bronze making was a significant technology of the
  Shang, with refinements and elaborations over
  time and, like many crafts, in the hands of
  certain lineages. There was a hierarchy based on
  skill required and what was produced, translated
  into houses, materials goods of artisans, their
  burials, etc.
• Pottery making included some specialized
  production and knowledge of clay sources, the
  potters wheel, engraving, heat, kiln use,
  temperature control etc. Early porcelain needed
  kilns with 1000 C heat.
• Stone and jade making similarly showed many
  grades of skills and scales of operation, from
  making slate knives on up to master craftsmen
  carving jade. A workshop of the latter had
  rammed and plastered walls, painted murals, and
  simple evidence of ritual activity.
• Chariot making involved producing wheels, axle,
  body mounted on the axle, pole and yoke for two
  horses. Spoke wheels were held on by lynch pins.
  Several sizes of chariots, possibly
  standardized, are recognized. Here several
  additional lineages had specialties in the
  production sequence.
• Aspects of each of these conspicuous technologies
  involved technological breakthroughs and
  application of scientific knowledge, as did silk
  weaving and embroidery, the jacquard loom,
  bookmaking, new plant varieties, and so on, all
  present by Shang times.
• Astronomy (star movements, eclipses, etc.),
  mathematics (based on 10), civil engineering,
  solar and lunar calendars, and observation of
  eclipses are other areas where Shang made
  advances, with applications both for elites and
  commoners--practical application of knowledge was
  emphasized in most fields.

13
The Shang Realm and External Relations

• The Shang State Network
• The Capital the capital area (Anyang)not a
  fixed point as there were several capitals over
  time Shang, a town/city often referred to that
  was a fixed place important in the pre-dynastic
  and early dynastic state the area of royal
  hunts, a bridge to the wider realm.
• The Domain the area where the king had direct
  access to economic resources (where he divined
  about the harvest and pursued hunts. There were
  greater and lesser cities, in hierarchical
  arrangements. Beyond lay groups not under Shang
  control.
• Outside the realm the polities sometimes paid
  tribute to Shang and sometimes were independent
  some were long-time enemies upon whom Shang
  raided for sacrificial victims one extant
  throughout Anyang times was Zhou, to the west,
  with its own written historyZhou defeated the
  last Shang king to take on the Mandate of Heaven.
  
• Over the several hundred years that Anyang was
  the capital, the number of border states
  diminished--some incorporated by Shang or others
  through warfare. Notably, now many shared the
  same culture, linked through the exchange of
  women as wives to the elite males. Oracle texts
  indicate that relations NW were often tense this
  is where important tin sources are recorded.

14
Shang Elite Culture

• Royal elites in Anyang enjoyed spacious, above
  ground palatial dwellings and ancestral halls on
  slightly raised platforms in them sacrifices are
  common.
• Residential areas for lower ranking elites lacked
  sacrifices in the earthen platforms.
• Besides the kings male contemporaries of the
  Royal Lineage, Shang royal consorts, the princes
  and officials had special duties at Anyang and
  some, mostly males, were granted titles to walled
  towns with agricultural land and to the income
  from the harvests.
• Lady Fu Hao, one of 64 of king Wu Tings wives,
  was prominent and a subject of royal divination
  and granted a walled town outside of Anyang in
  which were built ancestral temples of the kings
  line and her own. The town was established with
  her clan name and given a new town name and she
  was given ritual regalia befitting her new
  political status and role. She led military
  expeditions. Her burial tomb near Anyang is
  massive, with human and animal sacrifices, 200
  ritual bronzes, thousand of cowries, etc.
• Elites had access to wealth commensurate with
  their statusbronzes, jades, palaces, ritual
  functions, etc.
• Chang Shang 93 as background

15
Shang Common People

• All the land belonged the king, parceled out
  through benefices to aristocrats to oversee it on
  his behalf. Thus, most Shang were agricultural
  laborers who were organized to work the land. If
  they went to a new benefice, then they debarked
  of woodland in one year and burned the trees the
  next. They opened the ground using a two-pronged
  digging stick pushed by one or pushed and pulled
  by two (a primitive plow). The common people who
  worked the fields were a vast lower classthe
  lowest members of the lowest ranked lineages.
• The king oversaw the agricultural cycle (he made
  sacrifices for information about when to plant,
  harvest, etc.)the cycle was based on the solar
  calendar.
• Lineage leaders headed the lineage members (100
  householders) who were organized into production
  teams. Cattle, sheep and horses were kept in
  pens.
• Lineage groups were occupational units engaging
  in the production of industrial goods and
  specialized services pottery making wine vessel
  manufacture rope making fencing stone working
  lacquer ware making etc. All were present at
  Anyang smaller towns probably had fewer
  specialists or depended on the regional lords
  town to produce some items.
• At the Anyang capital, dwellings, often partly
  underground, storage pits and workshops of
  commoners are also identifiable. The houses and
  associated household goods of bronze workers
  surpassed those of other workers, indicating
  ranking/wealth differences by occupation.

16
Shang and Culture Beyond the Shang

• The influence of Shang was widespread, with many
  groups taking on the trappings of the culture and
  remaining for a time subordinate to Shang.
• Over time, subordinate states outside Shang
  developed and some benefices exercised more
  independence from Shang.
• At the same time, culturally different areas to
  the south became more involved in interaction
  with Shang as their societies evolved. We see
  Shang bronze ritual vessels but local decorations
  reflecting these differences and interactions.
• On their sweep to Anyang from the W, the Zhou
  report subjugating a number of entities that were
  associated with but not part of Shang.
• The Zhou defeated Shang, grown weak and unworthy
  under the last king, and assumed the mantle of
  heaventhey took over the nine bronzes,
  extinguished (symbolically covered) the Shang
  altar to heaven, and continued the royal
  ancestral cult.