Xia Dynasty as Manifest at Erlitou

1
Xia Dynasty as Manifest at Erlitou

• Barnes 118 bronze vessel is backdrop to this
  slide
• Early finds at Erlitou belong to the Xias last
  capital 3800 y.a.
• Xia was recognized by the Shang, Zhou and later
  Chinese as the first dynasty to rule the central
  China plain (Huang Wei rivers eastward).
• Xia became the first dynasty at the point it
  converted its rivals to participate in Xia
  rituals and Xia ancestor worshipit was a
  strategic coup detat that Xias rivals,
  including the contemporary Shang, recognized.
• The bronze tradition and culture of Xia are
  closely related to Shang and later Zhoufor our
  purposes, all three may be seen as sub-cultures
  of the same culture though their ethnicity was
  not identical.
• At the late Xia capital at Erlitou, we see a
  bronze making tradition using piece molds to
  create elaborate pouring and drinking vessels
  known Xia bronze decorations include bossing
  however, Xia jades have incised masks and faces
  that foreshadow later metal art. The
  contemporary pre-dynastic Shang bronzes are more
  elaborately decorated, including with masks next
  slide). The production of bronze appears to be a
  local outgrowth of the regions highly evolved
  local ceramic production systems and kilns.
• Xia was a class society based on clan and ranked
  lineages.
• Scapulamancy, ancestor worship, elaborate graves
  and constructions distinguish its ruling lineage,
  as do palatial and ancestral temple structures on
  raised, stamped earth platforms. By Xia, town
  walls were massive undertakings (35 thick 20
  tall) with gates and guard houses.
• Animal and human sacrifices commemorated the
  important structuresreiterating the kings power
  over human life, the association of sacrifice
  with beliefs regarding his right to rule, and the
  kings demand for order.
• Xia written records to date elude us at this
  time.
• Too little work has been done on Xia sites to be
  able to say more.

2
Xia Dynasty

• While information from Xia sites is very limited,
  preceding neolithic sites demonstrate the
  continuity in construction and decorative motifs
  that may be found in the Three Dynasties.
• Barnes 114-115 Masks
• Barnes 117 Walled town
• Barnes 121 clay piece mold

3
Shang Dynasty at Erligang Anyang

• Bronze
• Erligang gives us a glimpse of Shang 3500-3400
  y.a.
• Bronzes elaborate in form and decoration, borrow
  long-standing motifs from jades, bone and
  probably wood.
• 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 capital of 12 Shang kings,
  bronze animal art adds more delineation between
  major motifs and background design other Shang
  towns made their own ritual vessels using the
  same vessel shapes and decorative styles (they
  werent traded from Anyang).
• Other, non-Shang, states cast bronzes using Shang
  shapes but local motifsdifferent spirit
  mediums--also for elites and ancestor worship.
• All producing towns and states evidently had
  their own mines, miners, smelters, transportation
  to the 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.

4
Shang Dynasty at Erligang Anyang

• Regional bronze making Barnes 122
• The mask Barnes 123
• Shang bronze vessel shapes 125

5
Shang Supernatural Beliefs and Art 1

• Religion was linked to the origin and the
  legitimizing of the Shang State.
• The high god, Ti, gave fruitful harvest and
  assistance in battle.
• The kings ancestors could interact with Ti.
• 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 ruleheres
  what he asked about and influenced--
• Rain and fair weather,
• His own good fortune,
• The outcome of a contemplated action (war, hunt,
  journey, etc.),
• Interpretation of an event (dream, birth,
  calamity, etc.).
• Mythical, legendary and historic precedents were
  important in the responses (knowledge obtained
  from heaven) and their interpretation also,
• Founding a new town involved passing down
  appropriate paraphernalia with religious as well
  as political content--bronze bells, jades, flags,
  the bonze art itself, etc.
• Paraphernalia was not newly madeeach item had
  past associations with authority, deeds merit.

6
Shang Supernatural Beliefs and Art 2

• Background is Wheatley 422
• 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.
• Sacrifices, huge public works (tombs), etc.
  reflected the deceaseds status in life and,
  perhaps, provided support for the afterlife.
• There were also many popular superstitions and
  beliefs related to the spirit world (ghosts, good
  and bad naturalistic spirits, etc.)
• There was an elaborate cosmology associated with
  the very morphology location of Shang cities
  and towns
• This included the cardinal location of gates and
  doors and cardinality of siting buildings,
• Colors were associated with direction (as were
  certain animals) and there was a fifth
  directionthe center.
• Symbol of the center was where divine power
  entered the world and diffused though the
  kingdom).
• Choosing town sites, laying out town walls,
  orienting platforms for buildings all called upon
  knowledge of astronomy, geomancy magic.

7
Shang Cities and Towns 1

• Background is Barnes 127 town walls graphic
• Urbanism on a modest scale developed when the
  king granted new territory (benefices) to elites.
  They were charged with opening new areas, taking
  with them craft specialists and farmers and their
  families. These elites were often the kings
  relatives who, in return, support him in defense,
  divination and rule.
• These benefices were largely 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 sustain the aura of privilege rather
  than serve defensive purposes.

8
Shang Cities and Towns 2

• Palace architecture at capital and other towns is
  clearly the prototype for later, historical
  palaces (buildings on raised platforms, major
  entry faces south, ancestral temples, etc.).
• Wheatley 46, 45
• The town settlement, like the capital, has
  workshops and gricultural units outside the
  palace enclosure.

9
Shang Cities and Towns 3

• Barnes 128 Yinxu settlement with Hiaotun
  palace-temple complex and Xibeigang royal
  cemetary.
• The settlement includes the Royal Cemetary at
  Xibeigang that contains massive tombs with great
  wealth in bronzes, pottery, chariots, and human
  and animal sacrifices commoner tombs of
  specialists may have modest associated grave
  furnishings.
• Barnes 128 plan of Royal Cemetary and 129 section
  of royal tomb.

10
Shang and Political Control Patrimony 1

• We identify Anyang as the last Shang capital
  based on written documents found in oracle bone
  archivesthey also 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.
• Barnes 133 Chang Shang 72
• The inner capital was directly under the kings
  control other towns were semi-autonomous and
  ruled by grantees and elite subjects in the name
  of the king (some call Shang a patrimonial state
  in which lords rule on behalf of the
  father/king who made the grant).

11
Shang and Political Control Patrimony 2

• The two basic units of political organization
  were the walled town (yi) and the lineage (tsu).
  To date, few of the thousands of Shang towns
  named in the oracle bone records have been
  located or excavated, limiting our data.
• Any particular town had at its head the grantee,
  a relative or fictive kin of the king,
  sacrificing to the kings and his/her own lineage
  ancestors.
• The town included people from more than one
  kinship group serving the needs of agriculture,
  craft production, services to the elites, etc.
• Towns were semi-autonomous but the grantee had
  obligations at the Anyang capital, more if
  enfeoffed nearby, less if further away (and
  presumably he/she was of lower status in the
  overall hierarchy of elites).
• Chang Shang 71

12
Shang Economy 1 Climate, food, other resources 1

• 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 3500 y.a.
• 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.

13
Shang Economy 1 Climate, food, other resources 1

• 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.
• Weavers of silk and hemp, tailors, chariot
  makers, etc. were among the 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.
• Cowry shells were considered precious and were a
  symbol of wealth accumulated and possibly used
  among elites. They came from the Yangtze Delta
  area through trade.
• Turtle shells for divination included one local
  species and several imports from the Yangtze
  area. Shells 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 so we dont know the extent of traffic in
  this stone.
• Gold has a known source east in Shandong
  however, it is rare in sites and probably not
  much prized by the Shang (in contrast to Egypt,
  Sumer, etc.).

14
Shang Economy 2 Upward Outward Flow of
Resources

• The king divined only about crops and harvests in
  his state--he received a share of grain, game,
  domestic animals, industrial products and
  services from towns and villages of his domain.
• Food and industrial products were made in the
  workshops and villages but their movement beyond
  was not transactional (as it was in Sumer, for
  example)specialty products were for elites.
• The royal hunt was a device for economic
  exploitation as well as sportand the kings
  entourage had to be hosted when it passed through
  the lands of a person/town he enfeoffed.
• The outflow from Anyang was smaller than in-flow
• The king made gifts to provincial lords
  (recognized sometimes by them casting
  commemorative bronzes recording the gift).
• The king maintained an umbrella military force.
• The king made ritual expressions of well-being to
  beyond the capital.
• Materials were moved by carts drawn by men and
  animals, by animal and human bearers, and by
  boatslikely the movement of goods and
  commutations was in the hands of lineages
  specialized in these activities.
• Cowries may have served as currency but more
  likely mainly symbolized wealth--they show up in
  quantities in elite graves.
• Did you know that the word for merchant is Person
  of Shang?
• Background should be character Shang Jen !!!

15
Shang Stratification and Class 1

• At and around Anyang the distribution of elite
  and commoner sites is likely, with significant
  status and wealth differences between the
  lineages in each.
• Chang Shang 130
• Social stratification was pyramidal with elites
  above and a vast commoner class below. There was
  a category of captives but no institutionalized
  slave class.
• The top of the elite class was the Tzu clans
  royal lineage from whom the kings were chosen
• Recognized in descending order were the royal
  wives (the Royal Consort at the apex), the
  princes (a group that we cannot confidently
  define it included Tzu and non-Tzu males who
  had ritual functions and hunted with the king),
  and officials.
• Chang Shang 231

16
Shang Stratification and Class 2

• Commoners, like elites, were internally ranked
  some craft specialists (bronze) ranked higher
  than others (pottery), as seen in their graves
  and houses, and many/most of them ranked above
  the great mass of full time agriculturalists.
• Agriculturalists made their own pottery,
  clothing, houses, etc.
• There was a strong military aspect to Shang
  societyfrom the king on down to the least male
  lineage member, one could be called upon through
  conscription to serve.
• Besides quelling neighboring states and tribes,
  Shang undertook deliberate actions outside their
  realm, for example, 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.
• The number of full-time military personnel,
  versus those conscripted is not known but it was
  likely not large.
• Status of the military did not diminish in the
  eyes of the Chinese until Middle Zhou times when
  Confucians and others deplored them as embodying
  violence (and being productive in a Confucian
  senseas distinguished from farmers, etc. who
  were conscripted).

17
Shang Dualism and Patrilineal Kinship 1

• The Royal Lineage was patrilineal and segmented
  into 10 sub-lineages which were arranged in two
  groups (referred to here as A B).
• Kinship was reckoned in the males line only.
• Kingship alternated between the two groups with
  each generational change.
• An group A kings son (also A) could not succeed
  him theoretically, his grandson could since a
  king from B was from the intervening generation.
  
• Kings married women from the opposite sub-lineage
  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.
• Patrilocal means women went to live with the
  extended family of her husband.
• The extended family (multiple generations of
  related males and their families) 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.

18
Shang Dualism and Patrilineal Kinship 2

• Dualism is clearly an element of great
  importance throughout Shang culture. The shift
  of kingship between Royal Lineage sub-groups
  appears to be confirmed by the relationships
  between the many kings of Shang.
• 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 NS, 50 EW,
  with 4 ramps 45-95 longa massive public works
  and labor force at the command of the rulers.
• There are two divination styles or schools
  (some differences in ancestors consulted, the
  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
  group 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 heaven and earth, Royal
  Lineage succession, and other dualistic
  principles.
• Ancestor temples were spatially separated in the
  capital.

19
Shang Bronzes and Decoration

• Barnes 122, 123, 124, 125

20
Shang King as Father Patrilineal State

• Patrimonial Rule
• New towns were assigned to clan/lineage members
  who served as court officialsto 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
  enfeoffed.
• Benefice holders ruled in the name of the king
  (father), were expected to lead an army in
  times of war, to sacrifice to the kings
  ancestors (as well as their own lineage founder),
  and host the royal entourage on visits (hunting,
  etc.).
• Some crafts are associated with specific lineages
  and the artisans 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 standing
  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 (cowry shells may have
  a kind of currency but restricted in its use).

21
Shang Science and Technology

• Aspects of each of many technologies involved
  technical breakthroughs and application of
  knowledge on the part of Shang artisans.
• Bronze making was a significant technology, with
  refinements and elaborations over time and, like
  many crafts, in the hands of certain lineages.
  Higher status of bronze makers was reflected in
  their houses, materials goods, burials, etc.
• Pottery making included 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 and the Shang developed them.
• Stone and jade making showed many grades of
  skills and scales of operation, from making slate
  knives to master craftsmen carving jade. The
  latters workshop plastered walls, murals, and
  evidence of some ritual activity.
• Chariot making involved producing spoke wheels,
  axles, body, pole and yoke for two horses.
  Several sizes of chariots are known.
• Silk weaving and embroidery, the jacquard loom,
  bookmaking, new plant varieties, and so on, were
  all present.
• Astronomy, mathematics (base10), civil
  engineering, solar and lunar calendars, and
  observation of eclipses advanced, with
  applications both for elites and
  commoners--practical application of knowledge was
  emphasized in most fields of Chinese science and
  technology for the next 2500 years.

22
The Shang Realm and External Relations

• The Shang State Network
• The Capital the capital area (Anyang) was not a
  fixed point as there were several capitals over
  time Shang, was 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, were a bridge to the wider realm.
  
• The Domain the area was where the king had
  direct access to economic resources (where he
  divined about the harvest and pursued hunts).
  There were greater and lesser cities/towns, in
  hierarchical arrangements. Beyond were
  polities/groups not under Shang control.
• Outside the domain, the polities sometimes paid
  tribute to Shang and sometimes were independent
  some were long-time enemies that Shang raided for
  sacrificial victims one polity 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, by late Shang many
  shared the same culture, linked to Shang and each
  other 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.

23
Shang Elite Culture

• Royal elites in Anyang enjoyed spacious, above
  ground palatial dwellings and ancestral halls on
  slightly raised platforms in their foundations
  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.
• 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

24
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 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. Good weather, good harvests, etc. were
  a benefit commoners gained from his divination
  and sacrifices.
• 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.

25
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 old Shang benefices exercised
  some independence.
• At the same time, by late Shang culturally
  different areas to the south became more involved
  in interaction with Shang as their own societies
  developed to a level comparable with Shang.
• Here we see Shang-type bronze ritual vessels but
  with local decorations, reflecting these
  differences and these interactions.
• On their sweep to Anyang from the west, the Zhou
  report subjugating a number of entities that were
  associated with but not part of Shang (as they
  had been).
• The Zhou defeated Shang, grown weak and
  unworthy under the last king, and they assumed
  the mantle of heaven.
• They took over the nine bronzes from Xia times,
  extinguished (symbolically covered) the Shang
  altar to heaven, and continued the royal
  ancestral cult sacrificing to their ancestors.