EAST 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Xia Dynasty, Peking Man, Chinese Mythology
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Early Chinese Mythology and History
No archeological evidence:
Three Cultural Heroes and Five Sage Kings 2852-2205 BCE
-
Xia dynasty 2100-1600 BCE
-
Archeological evidence:
Shang dynasty 1600-1046 BCE
-
Q: Why is the Shang dynasty generally considered the starting point of Chinese history
and culture in modern historical accounts?
*people have been in China for a very long time; much before Shang dynasty or '5000
years ago'
Anthropological context
People (been there a lot longer):
humanoids in China up until 1 million years ago
-
500,000 years ago: Peking man (tools and fire)
-
Modern humans (250,000 years ago)
In China: 20,000-40,000 years ago??
○
-
Neolithic (10,000 years ago): polished stone instruments
-
Shang dynasty, ca.1500 BCE (bronze and writing)
-
Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE)
Bronze and writing
Shows sophisticated advancements in the period
○
-
Satellite societies
Mostly settled along the yellow river
○
Interconnected cities with a similar culture and recognized ruler
○
-
“Dynasty”
Single ruling family that rules for ~600 years
○
-
Other “bronze” cultures
Shang dynasty wasn't the only one with bronze culture at the time. We
don't pay attention to these societies as being the start of Chinese
society - why?
○
-
Why did they settle along the yellow river?
Travel
Less labour intensive to travel over water than land
○
-
Access to water
-
Downside: floods
-
Early Chinese Archeology: Discussion
Archeological evidence: What kind of archeological evidence would you expect
to find from ancient China (2000-1000 BCE)?
What could this evidence potentially tell us about early China? What
doesn’t it tell us about?
○
What kinds of things will you not find from this period?
○
-
Shang Dynasty Archeological evidence
Oracle bones (jiagupian 甲骨片)
1.
Bronzes2.
Tombs3.
Insights and limitations of archeological evidence
-
Religion in the Shang (1600-1046 BCE)
The Shang ruler as diviner/shaman
-
oracle bones (jiagupian 甲骨片) – discovered in early 20th C.
-
Oracle Bones
Divination:
plastromancy (turtle shells)
○
scapulimancy (cattle bones)
○
Character bu 卜
○
-
Example of Oracle Bone Divination
[Preface:] Crack making on guisi day, Que divined:
-
[Charge:] In the next ten days there will be no disaster. [Prognostication:] The
king, reading the cracks, said, “There will be no harm; there will perhaps be the
coming of alarming news.”
-
[Verification:] When it came to the fifth day, dingyou, there really was the
coming of alarming news from the West. Zhi Guo, reporting, said, “The Du Fang
[a border people] are besieging in our eastern borders and have harmed two
settlements.” The Gongfang also raided the fields of our western borders.
-
Religion and Writing in the Shang
Divination and natural patterns (omens)
-
Writing as natural pattern
-
Ruler/shaman/historian (recorder)
Beginning of recorded history
○
-
Communication with spirits/ancestors
-
Oracle Bones: Religious Significance
Communication with spirits
-
Types of divination
-
Positive and negative symmetry
-
Oracle Bones
-Information about early Shang dynasty culture and the later Chinese culture
-First evidence of chinese writing
-Bones used for divination in which they recording questions and the
interpretation of the bones
-They were only discovered in the early 20th century
-Farmers used to till fields and come across the bones and they thought it was
dragon bones and take it to the pharmacist for medicine
-One side was a charge, or question, on the other was the hot poker; this was
the place that made cracks and the cracks were the answers
○Charge read the crack => divination
-oracles bones reflects the unseen world, the sports are understood as being
ancestors who now live in the spirt realm
-Spirts in the Shang: Shangdi was a personal god, the lord on high, someone of a
distant ancestor of the ruler, but you can’t go directly to shangdi, you have to go
though the immediate ancestors
Oracle Bones: Beginning of Chinese Writing
Pictograms, Ideograms, Phonograms
○pictograms are literal
○Ideograms are pictures that convey meanings, like women under roof
meaning safe
○Phonogram are characters that represents words, (sounds of the word
matters more)
-
Logograms: characters represent words Chinese words: monosyllabic, disyllabic,
etc. Ex. train 火車 (fire + car)
-
Chinese Characters
Pic on slide
-
Spirits in the Shang
Di 帝or Shangdi 上帝 “The Lord on High”
-
ancestral spirits
-
nature deities (sun, cloud, snow, river)
-
“living with ancestors”
-
Shang and Zhou Bronzes
Bronze Motifs
Taotie 饕餮
-
Double profile
-
Bronzes
-Import source of information
-Evidence of Bronze in the Shang
○Produced in the next dynasty as well (Zhou)
○Demonstrates use of metal working
-Social stratification involved; someone has the wealth for someone else to pay
and commission this,
○Elite class who runs this
Man in Mouth motif
-They have motifs, or themes that tells us how the shang conceptualized the
sports
-the face is a composite, not just animal imagery, but it blends different
elements between different animals
-Often have a double profile
-Shaman has a familiar to guide them in the spire realm and this is represented
in the man in mouth motif
Tombs: Grave Goods and the Afterlife
-Tombs help us to understand what the worldly life was like for these people
○Tomb becomes shaped as a house that you can live in
-Tomb of Lady Hao
○Tomb of the lady Hao was important as she was probably a great warrior
○Still a patriarchal society but she was important
-They would sometimes bury people alive with the deceased
○Over time however, this human sacrifice becomes less common, real
beats in tomb are less common as well
“living environments”: food, drink, weapons, utensils, jewels, family members,
servants, etc.
○Needed to provide all of this stuff for the deceased to take with them into
the next realm
-
Tomb of the First Emperor of Qin, 221-206 BCE)
Estimated over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry
horses
-
-Terracotta warrior tomb
Early Chinese Mythology and History
Question: Which do you think tells us more about Chinese culture—traditional
Chinese mythology or the archeological record? Any connections between the
two?
-
Question: Should the Shang dynasty be considered the starting point of Chinese
culture? Why or why not?
-
Next Week: Zhou Dynasty State Formation and Cosmology
Monday: Correlative Cosmology (yin/yang, etc.) Jeaneane and Merv Fowler,
“Rhythms of the Universe,” 39-64
-
Wednesday: Poetry and Music, Stephen Owen, trans, “Selections from “The
Classic of Poetry: ‘Airs,’” 30-32; “Using the Poems and Early Interpretation,”
64-71; and “The One Who Knows the Tone,” 286-287.
-
2: Early Archaeology
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
9:31 AM
Early Chinese Mythology and History
No archeological evidence:
Three Cultural Heroes and Five Sage Kings 2852-2205 BCE
-
Xia dynasty 2100-1600 BCE
-
Archeological evidence:
Shang dynasty 1600-1046 BCE
-
Q: Why is the Shang dynasty generally considered the starting point of Chinese history
and culture in modern historical accounts?
*people have been in China for a very long time; much before Shang dynasty or '5000
years ago'
Anthropological context
People (been there a lot longer):
humanoids in China up until 1 million years ago
-
500,000 years ago: Peking man (tools and fire)
-
Modern humans (250,000 years ago)
In China: 20,000-40,000 years ago??
○
-
Neolithic (10,000 years ago): polished stone instruments
-
Shang dynasty, ca.1500 BCE (bronze and writing)
-
Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE)
Bronze and writing
Shows sophisticated advancements in the period
○
-
Satellite societies
Mostly settled along the yellow river
○
Interconnected cities with a similar culture and recognized ruler
○
-
“Dynasty”
Single ruling family that rules for ~600 years
○
-
Other “bronze” cultures
Shang dynasty wasn't the only one with bronze culture at the time. We
don't pay attention to these societies as being the start of Chinese
society - why?
○
-
Why did they settle along the yellow river?
Travel
Less labour intensive to travel over water than land
○
-
Access to water
-
Downside: floods
-
Early Chinese Archeology: Discussion
Archeological evidence: What kind of archeological evidence would you expect
to find from ancient China (2000-1000 BCE)?
What could this evidence potentially tell us about early China? What
doesn’t it tell us about?
○
What kinds of things will you not find from this period?
○
-
Shang Dynasty Archeological evidence
Oracle bones (jiagupian 甲骨片)
1.
Bronzes
2.
Tombs
3.
Insights and limitations of archeological evidence
-
Religion in the Shang (1600-1046 BCE)
The Shang ruler as diviner/shaman
-
oracle bones (jiagupian 甲骨片) – discovered in early 20th C.
-
Oracle Bones
Divination:
plastromancy (turtle shells)
○
scapulimancy (cattle bones)
○
Character bu 卜
○
-
Example of Oracle Bone Divination
[Preface:] Crack making on guisi day, Que divined:
-
[Charge:] In the next ten days there will be no disaster. [Prognostication:] The
king, reading the cracks, said, “There will be no harm; there will perhaps be the
coming of alarming news.”
-
[Verification:] When it came to the fifth day, dingyou, there really was the
coming of alarming news from the West. Zhi Guo, reporting, said, “The Du Fang
[a border people] are besieging in our eastern borders and have harmed two
settlements.” The Gongfang also raided the fields of our western borders.
-
Religion and Writing in the Shang
Divination and natural patterns (omens)
-
Writing as natural pattern
-
Ruler/shaman/historian (recorder)
Beginning of recorded history
○
-
Communication with spirits/ancestors
-
Oracle Bones: Religious Significance
Communication with spirits
-
Types of divination
-
Positive and negative symmetry
-
Oracle Bones
-Information about early Shang dynasty culture and the later Chinese culture
-First evidence of chinese writing
-Bones used for divination in which they recording questions and the
interpretation of the bones
-They were only discovered in the early 20th century
-Farmers used to till fields and come across the bones and they thought it was
dragon bones and take it to the pharmacist for medicine
-One side was a charge, or question, on the other was the hot poker; this was
the place that made cracks and the cracks were the answers
○Charge read the crack => divination
-oracles bones reflects the unseen world, the sports are understood as being
ancestors who now live in the spirt realm
-Spirts in the Shang: Shangdi was a personal god, the lord on high, someone of a
distant ancestor of the ruler, but you can’t go directly to shangdi, you have to go
though the immediate ancestors
Oracle Bones: Beginning of Chinese Writing
Pictograms, Ideograms, Phonograms
○pictograms are literal
○Ideograms are pictures that convey meanings, like women under roof
meaning safe
○Phonogram are characters that represents words, (sounds of the word
matters more)
-
Logograms: characters represent words Chinese words: monosyllabic, disyllabic,
etc. Ex. train 火車 (fire + car)
-
Chinese Characters
Pic on slide
-
Spirits in the Shang
Di 帝or Shangdi 上帝 “The Lord on High”
-
ancestral spirits
-
nature deities (sun, cloud, snow, river)
-
“living with ancestors”
-
Shang and Zhou Bronzes
Bronze Motifs
Taotie 饕餮
-
Double profile
-
Bronzes
-Import source of information
-Evidence of Bronze in the Shang
○Produced in the next dynasty as well (Zhou)
○Demonstrates use of metal working
-Social stratification involved; someone has the wealth for someone else to pay
and commission this,
○Elite class who runs this
Man in Mouth motif
-They have motifs, or themes that tells us how the shang conceptualized the
sports
-the face is a composite, not just animal imagery, but it blends different
elements between different animals
-Often have a double profile
-Shaman has a familiar to guide them in the spire realm and this is represented
in the man in mouth motif
Tombs: Grave Goods and the Afterlife
-Tombs help us to understand what the worldly life was like for these people
○Tomb becomes shaped as a house that you can live in
-Tomb of Lady Hao
○Tomb of the lady Hao was important as she was probably a great warrior
○Still a patriarchal society but she was important
-They would sometimes bury people alive with the deceased
○Over time however, this human sacrifice becomes less common, real
beats in tomb are less common as well
“living environments”: food, drink, weapons, utensils, jewels, family members,
servants, etc.
○Needed to provide all of this stuff for the deceased to take with them into
the next realm
-
Tomb of the First Emperor of Qin, 221-206 BCE)
Estimated over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry
horses
-
-Terracotta warrior tomb
Early Chinese Mythology and History
Question: Which do you think tells us more about Chinese culture—traditional
Chinese mythology or the archeological record? Any connections between the
two?
-
Question: Should the Shang dynasty be considered the starting point of Chinese
culture? Why or why not?
-
Next Week: Zhou Dynasty State Formation and Cosmology
Monday: Correlative Cosmology (yin/yang, etc.) Jeaneane and Merv Fowler,
“Rhythms of the Universe,” 39-64
-
Wednesday: Poetry and Music, Stephen Owen, trans, “Selections from “The
Classic of Poetry: ‘Airs,’” 30-32; “Using the Poems and Early Interpretation,”
64-71; and “The One Who Knows the Tone,” 286-287.
-
2: Early Archaeology
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 9:31 AM
Document Summary
Three cultural heroes and five sage kings 2852-2205 bce. *people have been in china for a very long time; much before shang dynasty or "5000 years ago" People (been there a lot longer): humanoids in china up until 1 million years ago. 500,000 years ago: peking man (tools and fire) Interconnected cities with a similar culture and recognized ruler. Single ruling family that rules for ~600 years. Shang dynasty wasn"t the only one with bronze culture at the time. Less labour intensive to travel over water than land. The shang ruler as diviner/shaman oracle bones (jiagupian ) discovered in early 20th c. [preface:] crack making on guisi day, que divined: [charge:] in the next ten days there will be no disaster. [prognostication:] the king, reading the cracks, said, there will be no harm; there will perhaps be the coming of alarming news.
