SHANG CIVILIZATION, Kwang-chih Chang, Yale University Press, New
Haven and London, 1980

After a two page preface mentioning the interdisciplinary nature of
the book, the author, an archaeologist, offers his readers
"Prologemona: Five Doors to Shang" (pp. 1-65). This begins by
defining Shang as the name of the Shang capital, dynasty, state and
period. It mentions the sources of knowledge: texts, bronze
inscriptions, oracle bone inscriptions and archaeological finds.

Texts are considered on pages 3-19, starting with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's
"Yin pen chi". Sources of the chapter are listed and then the
legendary account is given of the family's origin, the names of the
fourteen pre-dynastic heads, their moves, the thirty Shang rulers
and the doings of a few of them, especially the first and last.
There is then a look at chronology with the astronomical and
calendrical reference to the Chou conquest, understood differently
to provide 1122 B.C., as well as 1111, 1027, and others.

Bronzes are considered on pages 20-31, beginning with collections of
Shang bronzes going back to the Han and catalogues of bronzes from
Lu Ta-lin's "K'ao ku t'u" in 1092.

   In a very recent catalogue of Shang and Chou bronze inscriptions,
   4,835 bronze artifacts are listed as having inscriptions. p. 20

Some two dozen types of bronze vessels (Shang and Chou) are named
and illustrated. There is reference to the decorative art on the
bronzes and to the chronological classification of these by Bernhard
Karlgren in the 1930s, as well as to Max Loehr's later
classification of Shang vessels. Kwang-chih Chang disputes the
statements by some earlier authors that cire-perdue was used in
casting Shang bronzes.

Oracle bones are considered on pages 31-42, with mention of their
use in pre Shang times, of the use of turtle shells and the shoulder
blades of some animals, of the technique in consulting the oracle
(questioning the ancestors) and the standard record of this, of the
discovery in 1899 of the oracle bone origin of some traditional
medicine and of Li Chi's book ANYANG. Some twenty-eight catalogues
of oracle bone inscriptions are listed on pages 40 and 41.

Archaeology is considered on pages 43-60, with reference to the work
of Westerners and Japanese, but especially Chinese archaeologists.
Tung Tso-pin's report is quoted and then comes the prompt response
to its call for digging at An-yang. There is a list of excavations
from 1928 to 1976 on pages 48 to 52. The remaining pages discuss
Shang remains found at Erh-li-kang and other sites.

Pages 60-65 consider theoretical models especially dataistic and
Marxist.

Chapter One, "An-yang and the Royal Capital" (pp. 69-135), begins
with reference to P'an Keng's move of the capital to Yin, to the
name Shang or Great City Shang in the oracle bone inscriptions, to
Ssu-ma Ch'ien's comments on the location of the capital and many
moderns feeling the capital was not at An-yang, even if divination
archives were stored there.

There follows description of archaeological work at Hsiao-tun, some
three kilometres from An-yang. Professor Chang-ju is mentioned and
his classification of the site into pre-historic, pre-Shang, Shang
prior to the move, Shang rule from their last capital and post
Shang. From the Shang period comes tomb 5 excavated in 1976. This
unplundered tomb, the tomb of Fu Hao, wife of Wu Ting, contained
rich remains, including some 7,000 cowrie shells and four hundred
and forty bronzes, many inscribed, as contrasted to the 176 bronzes
from all previous excavations at An-yang.

   Fu Hao, or Lady Hao (Lady from the Tzu clan), was, in addition to
   being one of Wu Ting's sixty-four known wives, a prominent
   personage whose name and activities appear often in oracle bone
   inscriptions of the Wu Ting period. She is known from the
   inscriptions to have been a leader of military campaigns; she was
   made mistress of a landed estate outside the royal capital; she
   was sometimes in charge of specific rituals; and she was the
   subject of Wu Ting's divinations concerning her illnesses, child
   births, and general well being. pp. 89-90

There follows large above ground structures, palaces, stamped earth,
temples, semi-subterranean and pit structures, dwellings, storage
areas and workshops.

Next there's a consideration of chronology. The oracle bone
inscriptions do not contain reign names, but they do name ancestors,
as well as some 115 inquirers. Indeed:

   Tung Tso-pin in his 1933 study listed ten criteria for dating
   oracle bone inscriptions, as follows: royal genalogy, modes of
   address, names of inquirers, pit location, tribes and states
   referred to, personalities, kinds of events inquired about,
   grammar, structure of characters, and style of writing. p. 105

Hsu Chin-hsiung adds the chiselled hollows on the shoulder blades to
the list. Dating of pottery and bone hairpins is also raised.

Then comes a look at work at other sites in the An-yang area,
including the tombs at Hsi-pei-kang. Excavations at a dozen more
sites on the south bank and half a dozen sites on the north bank of
the Huan River are listed on pages 125-129. Shang sites further away
are mentioned. The chapter closes with references to the capital in
writings, including oracle bone inscriptions.

Chapter Two, "Natural and Economic Resources" (pp. 136-157), begins
with a description of the terrain and climate. A listing of faunal
remains leads to the conclusion that the climate was warmer and more
moist than at present with heavier vegetation, including forests.

   The most direct evidence on the Shang climate may be in the
   oracle record itself. Hu Hou-hsuan listed the following as the
   meterological evidence that a warmer and moister climate
   prevailed: (a) There are records of rainfall all year round,
   including January through March, the winter months during which
   precipitation now takes the form of snow, and the rare records of
   snow refer to snow that fell mixed with rain or in the evenings.
   (b) Records of rain that fell continually for as long as more
   than ten days (eighteen days in one instance) appear to suggest
   that there were monsoons in the Shang period in the An-yang area.
   (c) Records of harvests indicate that two crops of both millet
   and rice were harvested annually in the An-yang area.
   (d) references to rice, elephant and rhinoceros are seen in the
   oracle records. (e) Records of hunts referred to such animals as
   rhinoceros, elephant, tiger, elephure, boar, wolf, and pheasant
   that again would indicate a warmer and more forested environment.
   p. 141

Palaeobotanical analyses seem not to have been conducted, but
references are made to oracle bone inscriptions and the Book of
Songs. There is the amusing bit about artemista (apparently once
mentioned in 39 poems dealing with the An-yang area) allegedly
proving a "semi-arid-steppe" (p. 145), and the poem quoted in reply
with its green bamboo, leaping fish, and horses lost in the woods.
There's a specific look at five oracle words meaning millet, wheat
and rice. There's consideration of clay, rock, metals, including
cowrie shells, jade and gold.

Chapter Three, "The Shang Dynasty and Its Ruling Apparatus"
(pp. 158-209), begins with towns, built deliberately and to plan,
and the members of the royal clan who were assigned them. It
considers at length the use of the kan (ten day) weekday designation
in names, discounting theories basing this on such accidents as
birthday and deathday, as some 86 percent of such designations in a
catalogue of 1,295 bronze inscriptions fall on even numbered week
days. It looks at distinguishing ancestral references. There is then
the comparison of information from oracle bones with the
genealogical data in Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Yin pen chi. There is a lengthy
consideration of suggested rules for succession and their possible
connection to the controversy over the existence or not of old and
new ritual schools and the revival of the old school in the reign of
Wen Wu Ting. There is also some thought shared about the two sides
of the royal burial area and the location of the royal tablets in
the ancestral temple.

There is mention of officials, lords, the composition and
organization of the armed forces, Shang weaponry, including
chariots, law, punishments, rituals, royal symbols (bronzes,
banners, battle axe, tiger and other animal figures).

Chapter Four, "Economy and the Political Order" (pp. 210-259),
begins with the network of walled towns, perhaps some thousand of
them, residences of tzu kin groups supporting the king. There is
mention of the fixed capital, Great City Shang, understood to be
different than the last capital at An-yang. There is consideration
of the economic significance of the royal hunt. Then comes a look at
agriculture, at clearing and settling new land, with reference to
axes, digging sticks, plows, spades and sickles, supervisors,
collective farming teams and war captive farmers. There was
significant specialization, and, it seems, clans involved in the
production of specific artifacts.

This leads to a look at the manufacture of bronze, pottery, stone
and jade. Transportation comes next with the statement on page 240
that while the wheel and the chariot are known, neither
archaeological remains or oracle bone inscriptions have clearly
communicated the existence of carts. Carts and traders are assumed
from later records and for the very term for merchant even today,
Shang jen.

Next comes movement of messages, oral and written, and the
development of Chinese writing. This begins with the marks on
pottery excavated from pre-Shang levels. A list is given on page 243
of some fourteen "Prehistoric finds," including those of Lung-shan
and Yang-shao cultures. The find at Pan-p'o has been radiocarbon
dated to the early Fifth Millennium B.C.

   As mentioned above, scholars have used the pottery inscriptions
   to discuss the great antiquity of Chinese writing. I see the
   significance of pottery inscriptions in the issue of the origin
   of Chinese writing also in this light: the invention of writing
   in China was more associated with social identification than with
   economic transaction, and it was initiated by the common potters
   rather than society's heroes and geniuses (such as Ts'ang Chieh).
   Obviously, Pan-p'o village was not a stratified, class society,
   and its writing served the mere common villagers instead of any
   specialists or rulers. This same village tradition of inscribing
   pottery continued into the Shang period, even though by then
   writings of a much more sophisticated order were used for other
   purposes by people of very different social status. But the
   probable fact that Chinese writing had its roots in the marking
   of pottery for social identification, in marked contrast to the
   roots of Near Eastern writing in an accounting system, may give
   us a strong hint of ancient Chinese priorities: Membership in
   one's kin group was the first thing that the first writing
   recorded, because it was key to ancient Chinese social order.
   pp. 247-248

There follows several pages of considerations of Shang relations
with neighbouring states, some of which are enumerated and discussed
on pages 248-252. This includes Shang conflicts with these states.

Chapter Five, "Cheng-chou" (pp. 263-288), looks at this first major
Shang site outside An-yang. It is some 150 km south of An-yang and
has been suggested to correspond to the Hsiao or Ao named as a Shang
capital in the reigns of Chung Ting and Wai Jen. Among remarks on
dating are two results of radiocarbon dating of the wall of
Cheng-chou at the Ehr-li-kang phase. These give 1560 and 1590 B.C.
plus or minus 160 years. Some test trenches have been dug within the
walled area, though the occupation of the site by the modern city
makes excavation difficult.

   At the northeast and northwest corners of the walled-in area were
   found a number of house floors; some of the better preserved ones
   are rectangular or square, paved with a layer of fine yellow clay
   or white limey clay, with some remaining wall bases. Some of them
   had a door on the south wall and a raised earthen altar against
   the center of the interior of the north wall. Residential
   rubbish, including potsherds, stone implements, and oracle bones,
   was also found in scattered areas along and against the walls.
   pp. 276-277

A bronze workshop was found north of the enclosure. Some house
floors, etc. and graves were found to the east. To the south was
found another bronze workshop and residential area. And to the west
two bronze quadropods, a cemetery, dwellings and a pottery workshop.

There comes a brief survey of archaeological cultures in North Honan
from the palaeolithic finds at Hsiao-nan-hai more than twelve
thousand years ago to Shang remains at An-yang. Finds at Lo-ta-miao
are attributed to the Hsia.

Chapter Six, "Shang Archaeology outside An-yang and Cheng-chou"
(pp. 289-321), begins with cautioning as to terminology and a
statement that the focus is on finds from c. 1700-c.1100 B.C. Then
there's a description of excavations at T'ai-hsi-ts'un, at
Liu-chia-ho near Peking (with the reference at this point to the
Hsia-chia-tien culture dated to 2410 B.C. plus or minus 140 years,
and to 1690 B.C. plus or minus 160 years and an even earlier c. 3350
B.C. for the earliest oracle bone found), in Shang-ch'iu (too silt
covered from repeated flooding to as yet produce any significant
Shang remains), Chia-shan, P'an-lung-ch'eng (a significant site 500
km from Cheng-chou with large residence and sixty eight ritual
vessels) and Wu-cheng (similar to, in contact with, but distinctive
from Shang), at Su-fu-t'un in Shantung, at Ch'iu-wan in the Huai
Valley.

There is a general summing up and consideration of archaeological
evidence since 1950, noting the two stages of Shang (Cheng-chou or
Erh-li-chang and An-yang or Dynastic), the interaction of Shang with
neighbouring cultures and its stimulating effect on regional
societies, such as in the Yangtze region.

Chapter Seven, "General Issues Concerning the Early Shang
Civilization" (pp. 322-355), begins with a consideration of
chronology from radiocarbon dates and reference to eclipses in
oracle bone inscriptions. This results in a date prior to 1700 B.C.
for T'ang's founding of the dynasty, before 1300 for An-yang
becoming the capital and around 1100 B.C. for the end of the
dynasty. The chapter proceeds to recognition of the Shang language
as Chinese, and on the basis of artistic portrayals, as well as
scientific analysis of physical remains (though there is some
controversy here), that at least since Neolithic times the
inhabitants of the area have been Chinese.

There is a lengthy consideration (pp. 335-348) of the archaeological
record. The conclusion is that sites have been found of the Hsia
dynasty and this overlaps chronologically with those designated
Early Shang. Indeed:

   Since the emergence of modern hisoriography in China, many
   scholars have engaged in discussing the nature of the
   interrelationship of the Three Dynasties, but most have centered
   on their cultural similarities and differences and on the
   resultant issue of the ethnic classification of their peoples.
   What I emphasize here is, indeed, the political interrelationship
   of Hsia, Shang, and Chou, as three parallel, or at least
   overlapping, polities. Cultural classification and political
   classification are not necessarily identical, and both
   classifications may be considered. A view of the Three Dynasties
   that is consistent with current facts would be as follows: Hsia,
   Shang, and Chou were subcultures of a common -- ancient Chinese
   -- culture, but more particularly they were political groups in
   opposition to one another. Their horizontal, rather than
   sequential interrelationship, is key to understanding their
   development, and it is, thus, key to understanding the process of
   formation of ancient Chinese states. p 348

There's mention of the successor states, Ch'i for Hsia and Sung for
Shang, continuing through succeeding dynasties, and of the
geographical location of Hsia in the middle, Shang in the east and
Chou in the west. Then comes a look at similarities and differences.

   As pointed out by Yen Yi-p'ing, the sacred trees used for the
   earth ritual were indeed different among the Three Dynasties --
   pine for the Hsia, cypress for the Shang, and chestnut for the
   Chou -- but all three performed such rituals and used sacred
   trees. pp. 352-353

Such similarity includes a clan network operating through walled
cities.

"Epilogue: Shang in the Ancient World" (pp. 357-367) looks at common
characteristics of Shang with other early civilizations, the
possible influence of such places on China (for example, the thought
that wheat came from Mesopotamia) and the individuality of Chinese
civilization, regardless of what may have come from outside. There
is urbanism, stratification, concentration of wealth, civilization.

A Postscript (pp. 369-370) and Appendix (pp. 371-372) provide
updates on archaeological work and on radiocarbon dating.

The volume is replete with many diagrams, sketches, photos
illustrating the archaeological record. Each Chinese name or term is
provided in Chinese on its first appearance in the text. This book
is a very good academic look at the topic.

Michael McKenny November 7-9, 2002 C.E.


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