Shang dynasty: A Visual History

The Shang dynasty ruled the middle Yellow River valley from about 1600 to 1046 BC. Long thought legendary, it was confirmed by the discovery of inscribed oracle bones at Anyang, the last capital, in 1899. Shang kings ruled a network of walled towns, cast the finest bronzes of the ancient world, fielded chariot armies, divined the future by cracking bones and sacrificed thousands of war captives to their ancestors. The tomb of Lady Fu Hao, a royal consort and general, was found intact in 1976. King Wu of Zhou defeated the last Shang king Di Xin at Muye in about 1046 BC.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Shang dynasty. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Datable oracle bone inscriptions by period

Over 150,000 fragments are known; the great majority date to Wu Ding's reign.

Timeline of the Shang dynasty

1. 1,600 BC
   Tang overthrows the XiaTraditional founding.
2. 1,500 BC
   Erligang city at Zhengzhou
3. 1,300 BC
   Pan Geng moves to Yin (Anyang)
4. 1,250 BC
   Wu DingPeak of Shang power; Fu Hao's campaigns.
5. 1,200 BC
   Fu Hao buried
6. 1,046 BC
   Battle of MuyeThe Zhou conquest.

From legend to archaeology

Tradition says Tang overthrew the tyrant Jie of Xia. Early Shang capitals have been identified at Erligang (Zhengzhou), where a huge rammed-earth wall enclosed a city; around 1300 BC King Pan Geng moved to Yin near Anyang, occupied for over 250 years. The Anyang oracle bones name kings matching Sima Qian's list, written a thousand years later.

Kings, ancestors and bronze

The king was chief diviner and priest, consulting ancestors by applying heat to prepared ox scapulae and turtle plastrons and reading the cracks; the questions and answers inscribed on them are the earliest Chinese writing. Ritual bronze vessels, cast in ceramic piece-moulds, reached extraordinary refinement. Royal tombs at Xibeigang held chariots, bronzes and hundreds of sacrificed humans; over 13,000 sacrificial victims are recorded in the oracle bones.

Fall

Later texts portray the last king Di Xin as a debauched tyrant with a lake of wine and a forest of meat, though this is Zhou propaganda. The Zhou, a client people from the Wei valley, under King Wen and King Wu, defeated the Shang army at Muye; Di Xin burned himself in his palace. The Zhou preserved Shang ritual and gave the Shang royal line the state of Song.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Xia dynasty (2,070 BC to 1,600 BC)
• Zhou dynasty (Western Zhou) (1,046 BC to 256 BC)
• Eastern Zhou (771 BC to 256 BC)
• Chu (state) (1,030 BC to 223 BC)
• Qin dynasty (221 BC to 206 BC)

8 surprising things about the Shang dynasty

1. Oracle bones were being sold as 'dragon bones' for medicine when a scholar noticed the writing on them in 1899.
2. The Houmuwu ding, a bronze cauldron weighing 833 kg, is the heaviest bronze vessel ever found from antiquity.
3. Fu Hao, wife of Wu Ding, led armies of 13,000 and was buried with 468 bronzes, 755 jades and 16 human sacrifices.
4. The Shang counted time in a 60-day cycle using ten 'heavenly stems' and twelve 'earthly branches', still used in the Chinese calendar.
5. Shang chariots appear suddenly around 1200 BC, almost certainly borrowed from the steppe.
6. The oracle bones record eclipses that allow some Shang kings' reigns to be dated astronomically.
7. The Shang are the source of the Chinese word for 'merchant' (shangren), supposedly because displaced Shang people took up trade.
8. The character for the Shang's last capital, Yin, gives the dynasty its alternative name Yin-Shang.

Sources

• Shang dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Shang dynasty Wikipedia
• Shang Dynasty World History Encyclopedia
• David N. Keightley, Sources of Shang History (1978) University of California Press

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