Social Life in the Shang Dynasty

The Shang rulers moved the capital to Yin (supply Anyang of Henan Province) in late Shang dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.), and the history and social life of the Shang dynasty have been identified to the public mostly by way of the cultural relics unearthed from Yin Ruins, like inscriptions on the oracle bones, bronze wares, potteries, bone wares and stone wares. What attracted the historians most have been the inscriptions on the oracle bones (more than one hundred,000 pieces), which have been made use of by the ancient imperial soothsayers for divining the future of a particular person or a nation.

The imperial soothsayers dug a compact hole on one side of a bone (not penetrating) and toasted it near the burning fire, and they divined the future of a man, a nation and the universe when the other side of the bone cracked. At final, they carved the oracle inscriptions on the turtle shells or animal bones. What was exciting, the oracle inscriptions had been primarily concerned to the ancestral worshipping rites and the quantity of animals made use of in a sacrificial rite in the Shang dynasty, and some had been connected to atmospheric situations (like rain, wind and snow), some have been connected with the harvest of agriculture, some have been with regard to war, and some had been in respect to the dreams and ailments of human beings, from which we could know a great deal information and facts about the Shang dynasty.

The Shang people today heavily depended on agriculture sector and fed on wheat, rice, glutinous millets and soybeans, and the farming operate was mostly performed by manpower and the ploughs had been applied as the most important farming tools. Fishing and hunting also had been made use of as a sideline by the Shang people today, whose preys ranged from wild boars, deer, foxes, rabbits to pheasants. What was a lot more, the Shang persons tamed the wild animals into livestock as effectively, like cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, pigs and elephants, and it was recorded that the elephants have been sent by the ancient Shang men and women to war. The Shang folks have been quite very good at producing bronze wares, which was proved by a quantity of swords, spearheads, armors, knives, arrows and axes nicely-preserved in Yin (Anyang) Ruins, and most bronze wares for the imperial and noble households have been decorated with florid styles.

In addition to a variety of bronze wares, a series of animal patterns and geometric drawings had been decorated on the potteries as nicely, which had been rather rough but vivid. The Shang people today had been also professional at tooth carvings, bone carvings, jade carvings and stone carvings, which had been in the types of human figures, tigers, rabbits, fishes, birds, dragons, turtles, elephants and phoenixes.

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