1.
Shang dynasty
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The Shang dynasty or Yin dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c.1600 to 1046 BC, the Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, the Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king is given, a closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history, the name Yīn is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and in the current text version of the Bamboo Annals for both the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a name for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi, it has often used specifically to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still referred to almost exclusively as the Yin dynasty, however it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the bones, which refer to the state as Shāng. It also does not appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13 generations later, when Xies descendant Tang overthrew the impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the final king Di Xin. According to the Records, the Shang moved their capital five times, Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou. Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive Battle of Muye, according to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody
2.
Lacquer
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The term lacquer is used for a number of hard and potentially shiny finishes applied to materials such as wood. These fall into a number of different groups. This dries to a hard and smooth surface layer which is durable, waterproof. Asian lacquer is sometimes painted with pictures, inlaid with shell and other materials, or carved, as well as dusted with gold and given other further decorative treatments. In modern techniques, lacquer means a range of clear or coloured wood finishes that dry by solvent evaporation or a process that produces a hard. The finish can be of any level from ultra matte to high gloss. It is also used for paint, which is a paint that typically dries better on a hard. Lacquer is more durable than shellac and these ultimately derive from Sanskrit lākshā, which was used for both the Lac insect and the scarlet resinous secretion it produces that was used as wood finish. Lac resin was once imported in quantity into Europe from India along with Eastern woods. Lacquer sheen is a measurement of the shine for a given lacquer, different manufacturers have their own names and standards for their sheen. The most common names from least shiny to most shiny are, flat, matte, egg shell, satin, semi-gloss, urushiol-based lacquers differ from most others, being slow-drying, and set by oxidation and polymerization, rather than by evaporation alone. In order for it to set properly it requires a humid, the phenols oxidize and polymerize under the action of an enzyme laccase, yielding a substrate that, upon proper evaporation of its water content, is hard. These lacquers produce very hard, durable finishes that are beautiful and very resistant to damage by water, acid, alkali or abrasion. The active ingredient of the resin is urushiol, a mixture of various phenols suspended in water, the resin is derived from a tree indigenous to China, species Toxicodendron vernicifluum, commonly known as the Lacquer Tree. The fresh resin from the T. vernicifluum trees causes urushiol-induced contact dermatitis, the Chinese treated the allergic reaction with crushed shellfish, which supposedly prevents lacquer from drying properly. Lacquer skills became very highly developed in Asia, and many highly decorated pieces were produced, the earliest extant lacquer object, a red wooden bowl, was unearthed at a Hemudu culture site in China. By the Han Dynasty, many centres of production became firmly established. The knowledge of the Chinese methods of the process spread from China during the Han, Tang and Song dynasties, eventually it was introduced to Korea, Japan, Southeast
3.
Yi people
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The Yi or Lolo people are an ethnic group in China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Numbering 8 million, they are the seventh largest of the 55 ethnic minority officially recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. They live primarily in areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou. As of 1999, there were 3,300 Lô Lô people living in Hà Giang, Cao Bằng, the Yi speak various Loloish languages, Sino-Tibetan languages closely related to Burmese. The prestige variety is Nuosu, which is written in the Yi script. Of the more than 8 million Yi people, over 4.5 million live in Yunnan Province,2.5 million live in southern Sichuan Province, and 1 million live in the northwest corner of Guizhou Province. Nearly all the Yi live in areas, often carving out their existence on the sides of steep mountain slopes far from the cities of China. The altitudinal differences of the Yi areas directly affect the climate and these striking differences are the basis of the old saying that The weather is different a few miles away in the Yi area. Yi populations in different areas are different from one another. The appellations of Nuosu, Nasu, Nesu, Nisu, and other names are considered derivatives of the original autonym “ꆀ” appended with the suffix -su. The name Sani is also a variety of this group, further, it is widely believed that the Chinese names 夷 and 彝 were derived from Ni. The appellations of Lolo, Lolopu, etc. are related to the Yi people’s worship of the tiger, lo is also the basis for the Chinese exonym Luóluó 猓猓, 倮倮, or 罗罗. The original character 猓, with the dog radical 犭and a guǒ 果 phonetic, was a graphic pejorative, languages reforms in the PRC replaced the 猓 character in Luóluó twice. First by Luó 倮, with the human radical 亻and the same phonetic, but that was a variant for luǒ 裸 naked. Paul K. Benedict noted, a leading Chinese linguist, has remarked that the name Lolo is offensive only when written with the dog radical and this group includes various other appellations of different groups of Yi. Some of them may be of other groups but are recognised as Yi by the Chinese. The Pu may be relevant to an ancient ethnic group Pu, in the legends of the northern Yi, the Yi people conquered Pu and its territory in the northeastern part of the modern Liangshan. Some scholars believe that the Yi are descended from the ancient Qiang people of todays western China and they migrated from southeastern Tibet through Sichuan and into the Yunnan Province, where their largest populations can be found today
4.
Women in ancient and imperial China
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Pre-modern Chinese society was predominantly patriarchal and patrilineal from at least the 11th century BCE onwards. The freedoms and opportunities available to women varied depending on the time period, the status of women was, similar to men, closely tied to the Chinese kinship system. These texts, like the Zuo zhuan and Classic of Poetry, focus on male nobles and scholars, the majority of women included were members of the nobility and were generally depicted as passive, with their male guardians controlling their actions. In contrast, archaeological remains from pre-Confucian periods show that women played active roles at all levels of society, Neolithic society in China is perceived to be matrilineal, with patrilineal societies becoming dominant later with the rise of pastoralism and the first social division of labor. This originates from Marxist theories of historical materialism, which argue that social structure is determined by the economy and this assumption continues to be influential in modern archaeology. These figures are posed with their hands resting on their bellies and, as the Niuheliang figure was found inside a temple. The division between female and male was also likely less rigid in the Neolithic than in later periods, Women buried at sites belonging to the Majiayao culture are often accompanied by spindle whorls, suggesting that weaving was an important occupation. When a male and female were buried together, they lay next to other in the same positions. By the Qijia culture, the woman is buried outside of the main coffin along with the grave goods. This suggests that the women were being treated as possessions of the men buried in the main grave, the left leg of one female in a double burial was even caught beneath the coffin lid, which archaeologists suggest indicates that she was buried alive. In addition, the average age at death was slightly higher than the mens. This contrasts with the pattern at other cemeteries of the same period, the tomb of Fu Hao, consort of King Wu Ding, contained precious jade objects and ritual bronze vessels, demonstrating her wealth. After her death, Fu Hao was honoured by later rulers as Ancestor Xin, the topics of the oracle bones suggest that the Shang preferred male children, as the question posed to one bone was whether Fu Haos pregnancy would be good. The bone records that the pregnancy was, not good, was a girl, in addition, male rulers were allowed to marry several wives in order to improve their changes of having male children. Fu Hao was, thus, referred to as consort, whereas Fu Jing was also first wife and this difference in status is shown by Fu Jings being buried in the kings precinct in a tomb with a ramp. In contrast, Fu Hao was buried outside the official cemetery, by the Zhou dynasty, Chinese society was decidedly patriarchal, with female and male social roles determined by a strict, feudal hierarchy. Well-ordered gender relations gradually came to be expressed in the phrase, men plow and this division expanded to create social separation between men and women. The Book of Changes states that, among members, womens proper place is inside
5.
University of Washington
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The University of Washington, commonly referred to as simply Washington, UW, or informally U-Dub, is a public flagship research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast, the university has three campuses, the oldest and largest in the University District of Seattle and two others in Tacoma and Bothell. Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities and is ranked among the top 15 universities in the world by a variety of international publications. In athletics, the university competes in the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference and its athletic teams are called the Huskies. Seattle was one of several settlements in the mid to late 19th century vying for primacy in the new Washington Territory, in 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in Washington. Several prominent Seattle-area residents, chief among them Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley and they convinced early founder of Seattle and member of the territorial legislature Arthur A. Denny of the importance of Seattle winning the school. When no site emerged, the legislature, encouraged by Denny, in 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres site in Seattle to serve as the campus for a new university. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, and fellow pioneers Edward Lander and Charlie and this tract was bounded by 4th and 6th Avenues on the west and east and Union and Seneca Streets on the north and south. UW opened on November 4,1861, as the Territorial University of Washington, the following year, the legislature passed articles incorporating the University and establishing a Board of Regents. The school struggled initially, closing three times, in 1863 for lack of students, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to shortage of funds. However, Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt became the first graduate of UW in 1876 when she graduated from UW with a degree in science. By the time Washington entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially, enrollment increased from 30 students to nearly 300, and the relative isolation of the campus had given way to encroaching development. A special legislative committee headed by UW graduate Edmond Meany was created to find a new campus able to serve the growing student population. The committee selected a site on Union Bay northeast of downtown, the university relocated from downtown to the new campus in 1895, moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, the University still owns what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. In the heart of the city, it is among the most valuable pieces of estate in Seattle. The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908 and its former site houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The sole surviving remnants of UWs first building are four 24-foot, white, hand-fluted cedar and they were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany—one of the Universitys first graduates and the former head of the history department
6.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Oracle bone
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Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula or turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the term if ox scapulae were used for the divination. Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding future weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the family, military endeavors. These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool, intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well, by the Zhou dynasty, cinnabar ink and brush had become the preferred writing method, resulting in fewer carved inscriptions and often blank oracle bones being unearthed. The oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing, when they were discovered and deciphered in the early twentieth century, these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, which some scholars had until then doubted. The turtle shell fragments were prescribed for malaria, while the animal bones were used in powdered form to treat knife wounds. A legendary tale relates that Wang was sick with malaria, and his scholar friend Liu E was visiting him and they discovered, before it was ground into powder, that it bore strange glyphs, which they, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions, recognized as ancient writing. As Xǔ Yǎhuì states, No one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into peoples stomachs. It is not known how Wang and Liu actually came across these dragon bones, although scholars tried to find their source, antique dealers falsely claimed that the bones came from Tangyin in Henan. In 1908, scholar Luo Zhenyu discovered the source of the bones near Anyang, decades of uncontrolled digs followed to fuel the antiques trade, and many of these pieces eventually entered collections in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan. The first Western collector was the American missionary Frank H. Chalfant, Chalfant also first coined the term oracle bone in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing, which was then borrowed into Chinese as jiǎgǔ 甲骨 in the 1930s. The Canadian Presbyterian minister James Mellon Menzies bought the largest amount, the Chinese still acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Menzies as the foremost western scholar of Yin-Shang culture and oracle bone inscriptions. His former residence in Anyang was declared a Protected Treasure in 2004, the inscriptions on the oracle bones, once deciphered, turned out to be the records of the divinations performed for or by the royal household. These, together with royal-sized tombs, proved beyond a doubt for the first time the existence of the Shang dynasty, which had recently been doubted, today, Xiǎotún at Anyang is thus also known as the Ruins of Yin, or Yinxu. The Jiǎgǔwén héjí edited by Hu Houxuan, with its supplement edited by Peng Bangjiong, is the most comprehensive catalogue of oracle bone framents, the 20 volumes contain reproductions of over 55,000 fragments. A separate work contains transcriptions of the inscriptions into standard characters, the vast majority of the inscribed oracle bones were found at the Yinxu site in modern Anyang, and date to the reigns of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty. The extant inscriptions are not evenly distributed across these periods, with 55% coming from period I and 31% from periods III, a few oracle bones date to the beginning of the subsequent Zhou dynasty
9.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
10.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
11.
Yinxu
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Yinxu is the site of one of the ancient and major historical capitals of China. It is the source of the discovery of oracle bones and oracle bone script. Yinxu was discovered, or rediscovered, in 1899, it is one of Chinas oldest and largest archeological sites, Yinxu is located in northernmost Henan province near the modern city of Anyang, and near the Hebei and Shanxi province borders. Public access to the site is permitted, in the Book of Documents, the Pan Geng chapter, describes King Pan Geng moving the capital of the Shang dynasty. According to the Historical Records of Sima Qian, Pan Geng moved his capital from the north of the Yellow River to Bo 亳, according to the Bamboo Annals, he moved the capital from Yān, to a site called Běimĕng and Yīn. The name Yin is an ancient term referring to vibrant music-making, from that point on the dynasty would also be known as the Yin dynasty. According to the accounts, later rulers became pleasure-seekers who took no interest in state affairs. King Zhòu, the last of the Shang dynasty kings, is remembered for his ruthlessness. His increasingly autocratic laws alienated the nobility until King Wu of the Zhou dynasty was able to gain the support to rise up, the Zhou dynasty established their capital at Fenghao near modern-day Xian and Yin was abandoned to fall into ruin. Thereafter the once-great city of Yin was relegated to legend along with its founding dynasty until the years of the Qing dynasty. Yinxu is famous for its bones, which were first discovered in 1899 by Wang Yirong. Director Wang was suffering from malaria at the time and was prescribed Longgu 龍骨 at a traditional Chinese pharmacy and he noticed strange carvings on these bones and concluded that these could be samples of China’s earliest writing. He sent his assistant in search of the source of these bones, in 1917, Wang Guowei deciphered the oracle bone inscriptions of the names of the Shang kings and constructed a complete Shang genealogy. This closely matched that in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian confirming the authenticity of the legendary Shang dynasty. However, the oracle bone inscriptions record the name of the state as Dàyìshāng or Shāngyì, the first excavations at Yinxu were led by the archeologist Li Ji of the Institute of History and Philosophy from 1928-37. They uncovered the remains of a palace, several royal tombs. One of the largest and oldest sites of Chinese archaeology, excavations here have laid the foundation for work across the country, four periods are recognized at the site. From these remains archaeologists have been able to confirm that this was the spiritual and cultural center of the Shang dynasty, the best preserved of the Shang dynasty royal tombs unearthed at Yinxu is the Tomb of Fu Hao
12.
Tomb of Fu Hao
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The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the ancient Shang dynasty capital Yin, within the modern city of Anyang in Henan Province, China. It is to date the only Shang royal tomb found intact with its contents, in 1976 archaeologists probing the area around Yinxu with a long shovel, called a Luoyang shovel, recovered some samples of red lacquer. The burial pit uncovered, officially titled tomb number 5, is a pit,5.6 metres by 4 m. The tomb has been dated to around BCE1200 and identified, from inscriptions on ritual bronzes and her tomb, one of the smaller tombs, is one of the best-preserved Shang dynasty royal tombs and the only one not to have been looted before excavation. Inside the pit was evidence of a wooden chamber 5 meters long,3.5 m wide and 1.3 m high containing a wooden coffin that has since completely rotted away. The floor level housed the royal corpse and most of the utensils, there is also evidence above ground of a structure built over the tomb that probably served as an ancestral hall for holding memorial ceremonies, this has since been restored. Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, from some 800 years later, website on the tomb 10 minute documentary feature, part 1 of 7
