Shang

Shang (shäng) or Yin, dynasty of China, which ruled, according to traditional dates, from c.1766 B.C. to c.1122 B.C. or, according to some modern scholars, from c.1523 B.C. to c.1027 B.C. It is the first historic dynasty of China; its legendary founder, T'ang, is said to have defeated the last Hsia ruler, Chieh. His successors ruled over a city-state in modern Henan prov. and may have controlled other smaller states on the North China Plain. They warred against the Huns and against the Chou, who finally defeated the last Shang king, Shou. Archaeological remains at one of the capitals, near modern Anyang, suggest (along with later records) that the Shang had a complex agricultural civilization of peasants and city-dwelling artisans, with a priestly class, nobles, and a king, who was also high priest. Shang religion was characterized by ancestor worship, sacrifices to nature deities, and divination. Stylized inscriptions on bone and bronze artifacts probably reveal the earliest examples of Chinese writing. Bronze casting under the Shang reached a height of artistic achievement rarely equaled anywhere in the world. There was a highly organized bureaucracy, and the patriarchal Chinese family system seems to have already been developed.

Bibliography

See H. G. Creel, The Birth of China (1954); T. Cheng, Archaeology in China: Vol. II, Shang China (1960); K. C. Chang, Shang Civilization (1980); D. Keightley, Early China (1981) and The Origins of Chinese Civilization (1983).

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Shang

1. the dynasty ruling in China from about the 18th to the 12th centuries bc

2. of or relating to the pottery produced during the Shang dynasty

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Shang 

(also Yin), the name of the first verifiable period in the history of the Chinese people, as well as the name of an early state in China (16th—11th centuries b.c.). The last capital of the Shang state was situated near modern-day Anyang, near the village of Hsiaot’un in the province of Honan. The major branches of the economy were farming and livestock breeding; there was also hunting and fishing. The land was worked primarily with stone and wooden implements. Handicraft production had achieved a rather high level of development, especially the production of bronze vessels, weapons, certain work tools, and pottery. This period also saw the appearance of hieroglyphic writing, the so-called divination inscriptions on the bones of animals and the shells of tortoises.

The data provided by archaeological discoveries and studies of the inscriptions reveal a significant degree of property differentiation and class stratification in Shang society. The oppressed classes consisted of members of communities—the principal agricultural producers—and slaves. The members of communities (chung, chungjen) in actual fact were dependents of the state and thus differed very little from the slaves. The latter consisted largely of prisoners of war. By the 14th century b.c., a state had already formed, headed by a ruler of unlimited authority, the wang. The Shang state waged a long struggle against neighboring tribes (T’ufang, Mafang, Ch’iang). In the 11th century b.c., however, the related Chou tribe, taking advantage of the sharpening class contradictions and internecine war within the Shang state, was able to destroy it.

Scholars are still unable to agree on the character of the social organization of the Shang period. The majority of Chinese scholars (Kuo Mo-je, Wu Tse, and others) believe that a developed slave-holding society already existed in China at this time. Some (Lii Chen-yii, Fan Wen-Ian) even assert that the end of this period saw a transition to a feudal society. There are, however, some researchers (Chao Hsi-yüan) who feel that Shang society represented a transition between clan and class types of organization, and others (Yii Hsing-wu) who see it as the last stage of a primitive society. Soviet scholars likewise have differing opinions. Some see Shang society as a class society, whether of an early slave-holding (L. I. Duman) or a developed slave-holding type (R. V. Its), and others consider it to have been a disintegrating primitive communal system at the stage of a military democracy (T. V. Stepugina) or a society with an emerging class structure (M. V. Kriukov, L.S. Vasil’ev).

L. I. DUMAN