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Course: World history > Unit 1
Lesson 7: Shang ChinaShang Dynasty in Ancient China
At the end of the Mythic Period of China's history, the Xia dynasty gave way to the Shang Dynasty… if the Xia really existed at all! Sal gives an overview of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties—societies that lived between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers—and discusses their cultural practices, their bronzeworking, and the origins of a Chinese identity.
Want to join the conversation?
- At5:10, Sal says the Shang Dynasty lasted for roughly 500 years and then says that that is a VERY VERY VERY long time. Isn't 500 years not that long? I mean.. compared to other civilizations??(11 votes)
- Well compared to some other civilizations it might not seem so long (Egyptian and Roman are good examples of long civilizations) but humans don't live 500 years so that is a long time in our lifespan. For example the United States had only been formed 1776 so it has only been around for 241 years as of 2017. It may not seem like a long time but compared to many other civilizations the Shang Dynasty lasted much longer than usual.
I hope my wordiness made sense.(47 votes)
- How do we know that Di Xin committed suicide?(14 votes)
- Good Question! We know that he committed suicide because archaeologists/scientists would have dug up the site and would have found the ashes/body of Di Xin since he set his palace on fire. Hope this helped!(12 votes)
- What defines a dynasty?(10 votes)
- A line of genetically or maritally related persons at the top of the heap. The term "dynasty" is used for China. In Europe, the term "house" is more common, as in, the current monarchs in the United Kingdom are from the house of Windsor. They were preceeded by other "houses" like the Tudors and the Stuarts (and such).(14 votes)
- 6:11who is joe?(3 votes)
- It's King Wu of Zhou, which is pronounced like Joe.(6 votes)
- has the writing ben decoded yet?(2 votes)
- Yes. Look here: http://www.softschools.com/facts/world_history/shang_dynasty_facts/2563/ If this helps, let me know.(7 votes)
- Which was the first Dynasty in China’s history?(3 votes)
- The first Chinese dynasty was the Xia Dynasty, beginning around 2000 B.C.(2 votes)
- Why did di Xin commit suicide over defeat(3 votes)
- Maybe he was ashamed. People who have shamed themselves or who have been shamed by others throughout history have often engaged in self-demise.(4 votes)
- Sal keeps saying the word B.C.E, what does it mean?(2 votes)
- It stands for “Before Common Era,” another term for A.D. It refers to any time before the year 1 A.D./C.E.(4 votes)
- Which was the first Dynasty in China’s history?(3 votes)
- The Xia dynasty, from 2100 to 1600 BCE, was the first.(3 votes)
- At3:26, do they use any other thing other than an ox's scapula as an oracle? Like clay or something?(2 votes)
- Clay does not display the same patterns of cracks when heated as can be seen in an animal scapula, neither does it carry the power of the animal. Oracle bones are called oracle "bones" because that's what they were.(4 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] We are
now going to go the east and explore Ancient China. And we're going to do that in
the second millennium B.C.E., where we see some of the
first great dynasties of Ancient China emerging. So if we go to roughly
the 16th century, B.C.E., so that would be about 3600 years ago, we have the emergence
of the Shang Dynasty, and what's significant
about the Shang Dynasty is it's the first dynasty
where we have significant archaeological evidence of its existence. We have a lot of evidence
in this area where, do you see, highlighted in
red, where the Shang Dynasty existed with its capital at Yin, near the modern-day city of Anyang. Now, we have accounts
of a Dynasty before it, the Xia or the Chia Dynasty,
although we do not have significant archaeological evidence of it. But the accounts say that the Xia Dynasty would have been around
for roughly 500 years before we get to this 16th century B.C.E., with the emergence of the Shang Dynasty. Now just to get ourselves
acquainted in time and space, and think about, well
what else was happening around 1600 B.C.E., we
could remind ourselves that that was during the new
kingdom in Ancient Egypt, right around here, the
height of Ancient Egypt's power was right around that time. We could think about the Hittite Empire that we study in other videos, we could think about Mycenaean Greece. Around 1600 B.C.E. is
when you start having, or when you have the
decline of the Indus Valley civilization, also known as
the Harappan civilization, and you start to have the Vedic period, where you have these Indo-Aryan people start to migrate into Northern India. In Mesopotamia, you have
the Assyrian Middle Kingdom right around here, so
this is all happening in this mid- to late-second
millennium B.C.E., which is roughly the time
of the Shang Dynasty. Now the Shang Dynasty was
known for many things, it was a Bronze Age culture,
and you can see depicted here, many examples of that and
this is pretty impressive work with bronze, this
is a bronze battle axe right over here, you can
imagine a handle for this axe, something like this, this
is nothing that you would want to deal with in a battle,
and you can see these other very significant, large,
bronze crafts, handiwork, that the Shang Dynasty
was able to produce. Now what the Shang Dynasty
is also well-known for is their writing, it's the first evidence of a fairly advanced writing form, and it's related to modern Chinese. And a lot of that writing,
the significant artifacts from that time are on what
are called oracle bones. That's an oracle bone right over here, this is actually the scapula,
the shoulder blade of an ox, and what they would do is
they would write questions in this oracle bone script on
top of that scapula of an ox and then they would heat it up in a flame or some type of source
of heat until it cracks and then they would interpret the cracks to see what was the answer
to their actual questions. And you can actually see
how this oracle bone script is related to modern Chinese script. So this is Shang written
in oracle bone script and you can see how it evolved over time to the modern-day Chinese script. Even though if you go
straight from that to that, they look reasonably different, but when you look at the evolution, you can see that they
have lot of commonality. You also see it in words, right over here, shows you evolution of the word tiger, and once again, this is
the oracle bone script and you can see it looks
right here like a picture of a tiger, but then it evolved over time to the modern form right over here. Now, this Shang civilization,
it's no coincidence that first the Xia and then the Shang, that they develop over
here in the yellow river and the Yangtze River valleys,
we've talked about it, the Ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, all of the Indus Valley civilization, they all started where
agriculture first emerged, which tended to be in these
river valley civilizations. Now the Shang in particular,
not only were they known for their bronze work, they were known for their large cities, they were known for their
complex social structures, they were known especially near
the end of the Shang period, for having chariots, and some people think that because they had chariots, there might have been contacts
with folks further west. Now the Shang Dynasty, I said
how the Xia Dynasty lasted for over 500 years, and the
Shang Dynasty also lasts for on the order of 500 years, which is a very very very very long time. But as we get to the middle
of the 11th century B.C.E., it would reach its end. The last king of the Shang
Dynasty is this gentleman right over here, this
would be Dix Xin or Di Shin and the accounts have
him initially in his rule as being a very capable
ruler, but later in his rule, he seems to get more corrupt,
becomes less competent of a ruler, his favorite
consort Daji, right over here, she's a bit of a not-so-popular
figure in Chinese history, a lot of people think that she helped, or they blame her for corrupting Di Xin, and so he eventually faces his end in the Battle of Muye,
against King Wu of Zhou or Joe is actually the correct
pronouncing, King Wu of Zhou, and King Wu of Zhou is
able to defeat Di Xin at the Battle of Muye, and that
is the end of Shang Dynasty and it begins the Zhou
Dynasty, which will go on for another 800 years,
that's pretty impressive, how continuous these
dynasties actually are, and after that battle, Di Xin
goes off and commits suicide, and this right over here is a depiction of King Wu of Zhou, who
starts the Zhou Dynasty. But the big picture here
is we're talking about huge swaths of time and we have a significant, I guess you could say,
civilization, that started with the river valleys
in China but it's amazing how continuous these civilizations were and it's almost amazing how
modern their writing was relative to modern Chinese script and that's why historians
believe that writing of this form was, because of how advanced it was, was probably in place
for a long time before we see these oracle bones,
so even though we don't have the strong archaeological evidence yet for the Xia Dynasty,
there's a lot of evidence that by the time the Shang came about, the Chinese civilization was
already quite well-developed around the Yellow River and the Yangtze.