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C a m b r i d g e
I l l u s t r a t e d H is t o r yChina Second Edition
Preface
A westerner visiting China for the first time is likely to find much that intrigues,
surprises, confuses, inspires, or dismays. The sheer number of Chinese is stagger
ing. There are more than a billion Han Chinese— more than the entire population
of Eastern and W estern Europe and North America put together. W hy haven’t
differences in dialect, religion, or way of life led them to divide up into mutually
suspicious groups in the way of so much of the rest of the world? How can a single
government cope with ruling so many people? A visitor will also wonder about
Chinese as individuals. Men and women observed working in the fields, buying
or selling in the markets, doting on their children in parks, enjoying their meals
at restaurants: W hat are their lives like? How has the tumult of the last century
affected them and their families? Are any of them still true-believing Maoists? The landscape of China is likely to make a deep impression as well. Through
out China Proper (the region settled by the people speaking Chinese), land to
grow crops has been treated as too precious to waste on less productive purposes
like pasturing animals. Even forested hills that might have provided lumber and
firewood have often been cleared and terraced to grow grain. W hat connections
are there between Chinese techniques of agriculture and Chinese modes of social
and political organization? Urban spaces also raise questions. In Chinese cities,
the past does not loom before one in the physical presence of statues of famous
generals and statesmen, nor can one search out many old houses, churches, and
palaces where great events of the past occurred. Even famous ancient capitals like
X i’an, Luoyang, Nanjing, and Beijing lack visible m onum ents on the order of
those found in Rome, Athens, London, or Paris. Do the Chinese have no heroes of
the sorts we are familiar with, or are heroes celebrated a different way?
In museums, it is true, visible relics of an older China can be found, but these
artifacts raise questions of their own. Ancient masterpieces— bronze ritual ves
sels, paintings, calligraphy, and porcelains— often seem to be silent indictments of
the visual dreariness of much of contemporary China, raising troubling questions:
Has the high point of C hinese culture already passed? Has the cultural link
between the past and the present become so attenuated that the two might as well
be viewed as different cultures? Those who discover themselves asking these
questions may well begin to wonder whether they are being fair: Am I judging the
aesthetic attainments of Chinese culture by western, not Chinese aesthetic stand
ards? Am I comparing the elite culture of the past to a mass culture of the present?
This book was written for those who enjoy pondering these sorts of questions. China is an extraordinarily com plex society that has been in the making for
several thousand years, and its present is not comprehensible without an under standing of its past. Contrary to the old western view of China as stagnant or
8 P re fa ce
unchanging, as almost without history, the story of how China came to be the
huge country we know today is one full of drama. In each period Chinese made
use of what they inherited, but also came up with new ideas and practices as they
struggled to find meaning or peace, to impose their will or contend with oppo
nents, to survive and thrive, to care for their families and fulfill their duties, in the
process creating the society we call China. The present thus is rooted in a com
plex, multi-layered, dynamic past that always had the potential to develop in ways
it did not, meaning that every stage provides an essential part of the story.
One could write a general history of ‘greater China’, the region of east Asia in
which China was the dominant power, much of which is now included within the
political borders of the People’s Republic of China. However, I have set myself a
smaller task, the history of Chinese civilization, a civilization never confined
within well-demarcated borders, but loosely associated with what is called China
proper. W hen neighbors imposed their rule on Chinese populations, my point of
reference is the impact of the encounter on Chinese people and Chinese culture,
not the other way around. Although I have narrowed the meaning I give ‘China’,
I have not narrowed my focus to the Chinese state or the Chinese upper class. My
focus is on the Chinese people and the culture they have created.
NO TE ON THE SECOND EDITION
For an author, it is always gratifying to find that a book gets read. The first edition
went through eight printings in its first dozen years. It also was translated into
several languages, including Chinese, Korean, German, Polish, Russian, Greek,
and Spanish. I was particularly pleased by the response of Chinese readers. Three
distinct editions appeared, one in simplified characters with the full set of color
pictures, one in simplified Chinese and black and white pictures to make it less
expensive, and one in traditional characters.
The main reason for a new edition of this book is the scale of change in China
since the m id-1990s. China’s econom y has grown spectacularly and China has
become more and more deeply enmeshed in the world outside it, not only through
trade and investment, but also through the movement of people, ideas, and tech
nologies. Moreover, fascination with China continues to stimulate the creation of
new books and articles on a wide range of China-related topics, which encourages the rethinking of many issues.
The most important changes I have made to the second edition of this book are
a new final section to the chapter on China under Mao, an entirely new chapter
on China since Mao, and a fully revised Further Reading. The theme that I tried
to weave through this book— China as a society and culture constructed over
time, its meanings and its borders changing as the Chinese pursue meaning and
security in an ever-changing international context— still seems to be a valid and useful way to think about Chinese history.
Patricia Buckley Ebrey
Acknowledgements
Part of the pleasure of preparing this book was getting to pore over a great
many wonderful art and archaeology publications in search of good illustrations.
As I tried to narrow down my choices, I showed my preliminary selections to
other China specialists, and often received excellent advice in return. I would
particularly like to acknowledge the advice of Wu Hong, Ellen Laing, Joseph
McDermott, and Jessica Rawson, each of whom had many suggestions to make. I
am ju st as indebted to colleagues who have generously read and commented on
one or more chapters: Roger Ames, Alan Baumler, Kai-wing Chow, Joh n Dardess,
Peter Gregory, Emily Hill, and David Keightley. For assistance with the mechanics
of preparing this book, I would like to thank three graduate research assistants,
supported at different times by funds from the University of Illinois’s Research
Board: Yao Ping, Kathy Battles, and Samantha Blum. I also owe a debt to the late
Professor Kwang-ching Liu, who passed away in 2006 at age 84, for contributing a foreword.
My greatest debt is to other scholars of China. Everything I have learned dur
ing forty years studying Chinese history has had some influence on the shape and
content of this book. Still, I did not write it with my desk clear, trying to distill
from memory what I knew of the course of Chinese history, but with a desk con
tinually overflowing w ith books and articles. I re-read many pieces I vaguely
recalled as trenchant or stimulating. I looked through— and sometimes became
totally engrossed in— books I had purchased over the years but never before found
enough time actually to read. I hope that authors who recognize places where I
have adopted their interpretations will feel pleased that I was persuaded by their
evidence and arguments rather than annoyed that they receive no credit beyond
mention in ‘Further Reading’.
To the memory of
Lloyd Eastman and
Howard Wechsler
10 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
C h a p t e r i The Origins o f Chinese Civilization: Neolithic Period to the Western Zhou Dynasty (to 771 b c ) Most peoples have myths about their origins, and the Chinese are no exception.
Through most of the imperial period, literate Chinese had a ‘great man’ theory of
how their civilization developed. Unlike other peoples who pointed to gods as
their creators or progenitors, the Chinese attributed to a series of extraordinarily
brilliant human beings the inventions that step by step transformed the Chinese
from a primitive people to a highly civilized one. Fu Xi, the Ox-tamer, domesti
cated animals and invented the family. Shen Nong, the Divine Farmer, invented
the plough and hoe. Huang Di, the Yellow Lord, invented the bow and arrow,
boats, carts, ceramics, writing, and silk. He also fought a great battle against alien
tribes, thus securing the Yellow River plain for his people. In China’s earliest his
tory, he was labelled the first of the five great pre-dynastic rulers, the last two of
whom were Yao and Shun. Yao was credited with devising the calendar and ritu
als. Rather than hand over power to his own less worthy son, he selected Shun as
his successor, a poor peasant whose filial piety had been demonstrated by his
devoted service to his blind father and evil stepmother. Shun not only became the
next ruler but also married two of Yao’s daughters. Despite their virtue, even Yao
and Shun were unable to prevent floods, so Shun appointed an official, Yu, to
tackle this problem. For over a decade Yu travelled through the land, dredging the
channels that became the rivers of north China. So zealous was he that he passed
his own home several times without pausing to greet his wife and children. Shun
named Yu to succeed him. Yu divided the realm into nine regions, and had bronze
vessels cast to represent each one. W hen Yu died, the people ignored the succes
sor he had chosen and turned to Yu’s son to lead them, establishing the precedent
of hereditary dynastic rule. Yu and his son thus were the first two kings of the Xia
dynasty, a dynasty which lasted through fourteen rulers. It was overthrown when
King Jie , a tyrant, was deposed by a subordinate who founded his own dynasty
the Shang. This dynasty in turn lasted through thirty rulers until a self-indulgent
and obstinate king lost the support of his nobles and people, making it easy for
the armies of Zhou to come from the west to overthrow the Shang. The Zhou
became the last of the three ancient dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou).
These legends reveal how educated Chinese from the time of Confucius (c.500
b c ) onwards constructed ‘China’. To them China was defined by technology and statecraft - agriculture, writing, flood control, monarchy combining virtue and
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i z a t i o n : N e o l i t h i c Pe r i od to t he W e s t e r n Z h o u D y n a s t y
China's Physical Geography R U S S I A N F E D E R A T I O N 1 Da Hinggen
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Chinese civilization has throughout history had a strong asso- even with primitive techniques. Over time these early settle- ciation with agriculture. The earliest stages of Chinese culture ments spread broadly within the more temperate regions of developed in river valleys in which crops could be cultivated eastern Eurasia.
12 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
hereditary succession, and so on. They recorded the story of China as a single stranded narrative or genealogy, centred on a succession of rulers; China’s past was thus much like the past of a family that could be traced back through a single line of ancestors one before the other.
Modern scholars, drawing on knowledge of geology, paleoanthropology, and
archaeology, not surprisingly construct very different stories of the origins of Chi nese civilization. Their accounts do not slight agriculture, writing, bronze tech nology, and state formation, but usually differ from the traditional story in giving
more weight to the role of ritual and religion in shaping the significant character istics of Chinese culture. Equally important, they do not see Chinese history as a
single-stranded story, centred on a royal line, but a many-stranded one in which a . great many distinguishable cultures interacted, some of which would undoubt
edly have been labelled alien by the Shang or Zhou rulers. By influencing each
others’ development, these cultures all participated in the evolution of Chinese
civilization.
TH E GEOGRAPHY O F THE CHINESE SUBCONTINENT
Chinese civilization developed in a particular geographical setting, the more tem
perate zones of eastern Eurasia, an area large and diverse enough to open many
possibilities to early occupants but not without imposing some constraints as
well. China proper extends over 1,000 miles north to south and east to west; the
distance from Beijing in the north to Guangzhou in the south is about that from
Bangor to Miami, or Oslo to Barcelona; the distance from Chengdu in the west to
Shanghai in the east is almost as great as that from Paris to Warsaw or Des Moines
to New York. This huge expanse of land is interlaced with mountain ranges, which separate the more habitable river valleys from each other. It was in these
river valleys that the first human settlements were established.
Two great river systems flow east through China proper, the Yellow River in the
north and the Yangzi River in the centre. The Yellow River rises in the far western
highlands, makes sharp turns through the northern deserts, then flows swiftly
from north to south through a hilly area of loess - fine, wind-driven yellow earth
that is fertile and easy to work even with primitive tools. At the southern end of
the loess highlands, the Yellow River turns abruptly eastward and spreads out, yel low with silt, between banks a mile or more apart. Finally it traverses the whole of
the alluvial plain and empties into the sea. The other great river, the Yangzi, takes
in the water of many tributaries and carries a much greater volume of water. It rises in Tibetan highlands, crosses the mountains encircling the Sichuan basin, moves through magnificent gorges with sheer cliffs a thousand or more feet in
height, then flows eastward a thousand miles to the sea, each day delivering an
average of half a cubic mile of water into the Pacific Ocean.
The regions drained by these two rivers differ in soil, topography, temperature, and rainfall. The north is colder, flatter, and more arid; its growing season is
T h e O rig in s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P eriod to the W e s te r n Z h o u D ynasty 13
shorter and its soil more alkaline, making it best suited to crops like wheat and
millet. North of the Yellow River, rainfall is frequently too light for unirrigated
agriculture; in many areas it averages less than 20 inches a year. Flood and drought recur with much greater frequency than in the south. The Yellow River is
prone to flooding because as it flows through the loess regions of the northwest, it
collects silt which is gradually dropped as the river makes its way east and the cur rent slows. Because the silt builds up the height of the river bed, over the cen turies, farmers and government forces constructed dykes to keep the river in its
course, a practice that made floods, when they occurred, that much more destruc
tive, inundating huge regions. The region drained by the Yangzi River is warmer and wetter than the north.
Most of it stays green all year and receives more than 60 inches of rainfall annu
ally, making it well suited to rice cultivation and to double-cropping. The Yangzi and many of the numerous small rivers crisscrossing the south are navigable,
making the south a land suited to boat travel. In the north, by contrast, until mod
ern times people travelled by land, on foot, on the backs of horses or donkeys, or
in carts drawn by animals. Large stretches of land ill-suited to crop agriculture separated the Chinese
subcontinent from Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, the nearest sites of other
early civilizations. Beyond China proper to the north is the steppe or grasslands of
Inner Asia, a region even colder and more arid than north China, where animal
husbandry is a more productive use of land than planting crops. Inner Asia
was never populated primarily by Chinese; instead it was the home of nomadic
pastoralists, such as the Xiongnu and Mongols, China’s traditional enemies.
These steppes extend across Eurasia to the Ukraine, but China proper is cut off from these steppe lands on the northwest by vast deserts where nothing grows
except in rare oases. South of these deserts and directly west of south and central China is Tibet, the ‘roof of the world’, whose high mountains were as unsuited to
Chinese farming life as the deserts and grasslands to the north. The mountainous
regions southeast of Tibet (modern Yunnan and Guizhou provinces) were not
quite so impassable, but by the time there was much reason to cross through
them into south and southeast Asia, travelling by sea had become the more prac
tical option. To see the Chinese subcontinent as early Chinese saw it, we must erase from
our minds all the maps we have seen showing it to occupy only a small fraction of
the landmass of Eurasia, and far to one side at that. The Chinese subcontinent is
so vast that by the first millennium bc the Chinese thought of it as All-Under- Heaven (tiarucia), the entire earthly stage on which human beings acted out the
drama of civilization. Surrounding it were vast oceans, wild deserts, steep moun tains - regions much less central to the project of civilization. How far they
extended, no one knew for sure. But the location of the centre of civilization was
not in*doubt.
1 4 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
The Yellow River, shown here, acquired its name because the sill it carries gives it a muddy look. The earth of the north China plain is predominantly wind-borne and river-borne loess soil, which led early Chinese also to think of the earth as yellow.
The well-watered hills and val leys of south China offer a much lusher landscape than the colder, drier north.
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i z a t i o n : N e o l i t h i c P e r i o d to t h e W e s t e r n Z h o u D y n as t y 15
The geometric designs on the pots of the Yangshao culture (c. 3200-2500 b c ) often evolved from images of birds, fish, frogs, and other animals that may originally have had totemic significance. The assemblage of painted pottery depicted here captures the variety of the geometric designs that resulted, but does not show how the pots were used, since no grave had so many pots placed together.
1 6 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
The first sign of textile pro duction is the appearance of spindle whorls like these ones found at Hemudu, near Shang hai, which date from about 5000 b c . These wooden and ceramic whorls were used to put a twist in hemp yarn, mak ing it strong enough to use in weaving.
PREHISTORY
Early human beings, called Homo erectus, appeared on the Chinese subcontinent over a million years ago, having gradually spread from Africa and west Asia dur ing the Pleistocene geological era (the Ice Age). Even though no major glaciers
extended into China, the average temperature was colder than in subsequent ages, and mammoth, elk, and moose roamed north China. Peking Man, discovered in
the 1920s, is one of the best-documented examples of Homo erectus. He could
stand erect, hunt, make fire, and use chipped stones as tools.
Modern human beings (Homo sapiens) appeared in East Asia around 100,000
years ago, probably also spreading from somewhere in Africa. During the long
paleolithic period (Old Stone Age, c. 100,000 to 10,000 bc) of predatory hunters
and gatherers that followed, humans began to speak. Language expanded sym
bolic capabilities, allowing the development of notions of gods and kinship, for
instance. Over the course of these thousands of years, we can reasonably assume
that many bands of people migrated across the Chinese subcontinent, fighting
with each other when threatened, splitting up or merging when survival dictated.
Some early bands moved on to the Pacific islands or the Americas. In what sense
This finely made stone grinder, about 20 by 8 inches, was unearthed at the site of a neolithic village in Cishan, Hebei province, and dates from no later than 5000 b c .
Stone tools were used in food processing even before crops were cultivated; this one was probably used to crush the stalks of uncultivated vegeta bles to make them more digestible.
T h e O rigin s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P e rio d t h r o u g h the W e s te r n Z h o u D yn asty 17
any of those that spent time in the Chinese subcontinent should be considered ancestral to the historic Chinese is largely a matter of speculation.
Distinctly Chinese history, therefore, begins much later, after the end of the last ice age in about 10,000 bc. By 5000 bc neolithic cultures with agriculture, pottery, villages, and textiles had emerged in many of the river valleys of today’s China.
Agriculture was undoubtedly the key change, facilitated by climatic change
towards warmer and wetter weather (warmer and wetter even than today). Culti vating crops allows denser and more permanent settlements. Pottery and textiles
make life much more comfortable: pottery jars are excellent for transporting water
and storing grain; cloth made into clothing and bedding provides protection
against cold. Tending crops, weaving textiles, and fashioning pots require differ ent sorts of technical and social skills than hunting, so warriors probably had to
share leadership with skilled and experienced elders. At the same time permanent
settlements brought new forms of social organization; a territorial unit, the vil lage, supplemented kinship-based forms of organization.
Ignoring later historical legends and examining only material remains, these
neolithic cultures can be divided by latitude into the southern rice zone and the
northern millet zone. In the Yangzi valley rice was cultivated as early as 5000 bc,
supplemented with fish and aquatic plants such as lotus, water chestnut, and cal trop. At Hemudu, a site south of Shanghai, neolithic villagers built wooden
houses on stilts and made lacquered bowls and blackish pottery with incised geo metric designs. Basketry and weaving were highly developed; residents left behind
spindle whorls used to twist yarns and shuttles used in weaving. Other wooden
tools included hoes, spears, mallets, and paddles. The technological level of the
Hemudu villagers, in other words, was already higher than that of most North American Indian tribes in the seventeenth century.
North China was too cold and dry for rice; the cereal that became the founda
tion of agriculture there was instead millet. In Cishan, a site in Hebei dating to
before 5000 bc, millet was cut with stone sickles and stored in crude pottery
bowls, jars, and tripods (three-legged pots), often decorated with cord or comb
impressions. The loess soil common in north China made cultivation relatively
easy for primitive farmers as it was easily worked and its loose structure allowed
fresh nutrients to rise to the surface. In both north and south, the domestication
of animals accompanied the domestication of plants. Dogs and pigs were found in
both areas as early as 5000 bc, and by 3000 bc sheep and cattle had become impor tant in the north, water buffalo and cattle in the south.
In addition to this north-south division on the basis of subsistence technology, Chinese neolithic cultures can be roughly divided east-west on the basis of artis tic styles and burial practices. In the west, in the Yangshao culture area (primarily
Shaanxi and Gansu provinces from about 5000 to 3000 b c ) burials were generally
simple and pottery was often decorated with painted geometrical designs. Grain
jars decorated in the fully developed Yangshao style were exuberantly painted in
This stemmed cup excavated from Taian, Shandong province, has extremely thin walls, as thin as an eggshell. Such finely made black pottery is a distinctive feature of Dawenkou culture (c. 2300 b c ) .
1 8 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
red and black with spirals, diamonds, and other geometric patterns. The range of
shapes, however, was relatively limited, confined mostly to utilitarian jars and
urns. By contrast, in the east, over an area extending from Liaoning province to
Shanghai, pottery was rarely painted, but more elaborate forms appeared very
early, including tripods and pedestalled bowls and cups. The finest wares, formed
on the potter’s wheel, were thin-walled with a burnished surface almost metallic
in appearance. Many forms were constructed by combining parts, adding legs,
spouts, handles, or lids. The frequent appearance of ewers and goblets in this
region suggests rituals of feasting or sacrifice. Also in the east burials gradually
became more elaborate. At one site, Dawenkou in Shandong province, some of the
dead were buried in coffins and occasionally a wooden chamber was built to line
the burial pit, giving a further layer of protection. The richest graves at this site
contained fifty, sixty, or even well over a hundred objects, including, for instance,
necklaces and bracelets made of jade, stone, or pottery beads. One unusual feature
of the Dawenkou culture is that many people had their upper lateral incisors
extracted, a practice Chinese authors in much later times considered barbarian.
Even more distinctive of the eastern cultures is their investment in the produc
tion of finely worked jade. Jade is a very hard stone, formed when the crystals of
Jade object with a snake- or dragon-like body and pig-like snout, 6 V2 inches long, excavated at Sanguan Dianzi in Liaoning province (Hongshan culture, c. 3500 b c ) .
Neolithic villagers, using sand or other abrasives, would have had to devote many days to fashioning this small orna ment or talisman.
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i z a t i o n : N e o l i t h i c P er i od to t he W e s t e r n Z h o u D y n a s t y
Left. The most spectacular neolithic jade discoveries are from the Liangzhu culture (c. 3300-2250 b c ). This grave excavated at Sidun in Jiangsu province contained long rows of twenty-five cong (tubes with cylindrical bores and squared sides) and thirty-three bi (discs). Archaeologists specu late that the individual buried there was a priest interred with the treasures he used in ceremonies.
Below. Skill at precise meas urement and planning was
needed to achieve the highly regular motifs on the jade cong found at Liangzhu. The promi nent eyes and symmetrical design on this 2 '/4-inch-tall
cong tube, excavated at Sidun, Jiangsu province, suggest con nections with the famous taotie design found on bronzes a thousand years later.
T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
rocks have been crushed over millions of years to make a matted configuration of
molecules. As jade does not split or fracture easily, to shape it requires grinding
with abrasive sand in a slow, labour-intensive process. The most spectacular dis
coveries of neolithic jades are from the Hongshan culture of Liaoning province
(c .3500 bc) and the Liangzhu culture of Jiangsu province (c.2500 bc) - areas that even two thousand years later were not considered fully ‘Chinese’. In the Hong shan area, jade was made into ornaments and small figurines of furtles, birds, and
strange coiled ‘pig dragons’. Some of these figurines were found at sites of stone
ritual structures, suggesting that they had symbolic or religious meanings. In the
Liangzhu area as well, jade was fashioned into ritual objects, and hundreds of bi
(disks) and cong (columns) have been excavated. A couple of thousand years later. bi and cong were still used in rituals and were considered to have cosmological
significance, the circles and squares representing heaven and earth respectively. Elsewhere in the eastern half of China jade objects were not so distinctive, but
jade axes, presumably used for ritual purposes, have been widely found. The late neolithic period (c .3 0 0 0 -2 0 0 0 bc) was a time of increased contact
between these regional cultures. Pottery shapes and designs spread into new
areas; cooking tripods, for instance, spread west, while geometric decoration
spread east. It was also a time of increased conflict between communities. Metal began to be used on a small scale for weapons, and in the north China plain
walled settlements appeared. The wall at Chengziyai in Shandong province is
estimated to have been 20 feet high and 29 feet thick. Enclosing a settlement with
such a wall of rammed earth no doubt required the ability to coordinate labour
and thus also indicates advances in social organization - by this time there must
have been chiefs capable of commanding men and resources in considerable
quantity. Another sign of the power of religious or military elites was the appear
ance of human sacrifice. By 2000 bc, human remains were being buried under the
foundations of major buildings in the north China plain. Sacrificing captives may
have been seen as a way of pleasing ancestors or gods; it probably also strength
ened the political power of the elites who wielded the power of life and death so
dramatically. Social differentiation also was expressed in burials. In one large
cemetery in southern Shanxi province with over a thousand graves, nine individ
uals were given elaborate burials, with wooden coffins and over a hundred grave
goods each, including musical instruments, jades, and jugs. Some eighty medium
sized graves had similar objects in smaller numbers. More than 600 graves were
simple burials with neither coffins nor grave goods. Even as late as 2000 bc, neolithic communities in the Chinese subcontinent
were probably as varied as they were in North America before Europeans arrived: a great many languages were undoubtedly spoken, some related and some not; shamans were probably powerful in some tribes, unknown in others; it seems
likely that warfare dominated life in some times and in some places but not so much in others. Although archaeologists have identified features of these cultures
T h e O rigin s of C h in e s e C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P eriod to the W e s te r n Z h o u D ynasty 21
Ancestors
; Jhe practice of burying the dead with containers of food and drink or other objects needed by the living was in historical
S' times associated with beliefs about the mutual dependency of the living and their dead ancestors. Tfie dead needed the living tg supply tjjem with offerings in the lomb and also through sacrifices after burial, while the living needed to please their ancestors so that they would protect them or at
’ least not do them harm. Neolithic burials incorporating both v utilitarian containers "for food and drink and precious objects
like jade and cowry shells suggest that such beliefs go back to prehistory. The earliest definite evidence of these beliefs can be found on the oracle bone inscriptions of the late
v? Shang period. :<v.v Shang kings communicated :V.- with their ancestors through sac
rificial rituals and through divina tion. The most common technique
"\of divination involved the diviner1 applying a glowing metal poker or other heat source to turtle shell or cattle shinbone. The resulting heat-stress crack was interpreted as an auspiciousj inauspicious, or
, neutral response to a question or '■ statement that the diviner^ha'd
posed. Inscriptions on these oracle > hones show that ancestors were
often asked about sacrificial offerings, for instance whether an
; offering of a cow would bejappro- fe^riate. Ancestors could be asked
^■either questions as well, such as .'.whether they were -causing the
toothache or dream. There were spiritual forces separate’
f^.Trom ancestors - especially Di, the frfLord on High, who could grant
bountiful harvests, -lend divine Resistance in battle, send rain, oJfiOTder, wind, drought, of epi
demics. But to communicate with these forces, the king regu-
called on his ancestors to act as intermediaries.
Inscribed cattle scapula excavated at Anyang. The king Wu Ding (c. 1250 b c ) bad this bone used sev eral times to make predictions (such as ‘in the next ten days there will be no disasters’) and to record what actually happened after the divinations had
been made. Among the events recorded were a death and a hunting accident.
Ancestors were no less central to the religious imagina tion in .Western Zhou times. Bronzes were often inscribed with reports to ancestors detailing the achievements of their descendants. The Book of Documents portrays the Duke of Zhou as having a deep belief in the power of the Zhou royal ancestors to affect the welfarp of both their descendants and the whole country. When his brother the king was ill, the duke performed an open-air ceremony, addressing his ancestors and offering to give up his own life to serve his ancestors in ttie-netherworld if they would spare, the king: 'Take me as a substitute for the king. I was kind and obedi ent to my father. 1 have many talents and skills and can serve the ghosts and spirits.' If this text accurately reflects early
Zhou belief, family ethics and thi ancestral cult were'already merged: ancestral rites had a moral cast, reflecting notions of filial piety of sons towards fathers, and patterns of authority within the family had a religious cast, as p^erit*chHd rela tions would in time became ances- W*ffescen<Jant ones. : Sacrificial odes in the Book of JS^Sportray ancestral rites in early ifwu aristocratic circles as emo- Ikmally charged rituals of* great symbolic power. The ancestor was represented by a human imperson ator, often a grandson, who acted as a medium so that the ancestral spirit coyld be present among those sacrificing to him. The impersonator was offered many glasses of wine, presented the best available food, and entertained with singing and dancing. The descendants, by join
ing the feast, werejn communion with the ancestor present in the body of the impersonator. The tcfe often imply reciprocity: because the rites are performed meticu lously and without ancestors confer long life ah many descendants.
2 2 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
that persisted into later times, it would be misleading to think of them all simply
as proto-Chinese.
TH E SHANG DYNASTY
Some time soon after 2000 b c there emerged out of the diverse neolithic cultures
in the north China plain a more complex bronze-age civilization marked by writ
ing, metal-working, domestication of the horse, class stratification, and a stable
political-religious hierarchy administering a large territory from a cult center. The
earliest stages of this transition are traditionally associated with the Xia dynasty.
Since no site that might possibly be Xia has yielded written documents, it is still
The abrupt appearance of the light, spoke-wheeled war char iot in about 1200 bc suggests contact with bearers of Indo- European culture - similar chariots with large, many- spoked wheels had been in use in the Caucasus for several centuries. Chariots came to play such an important role as symbols of rulership in late Shang and Zhou warfare that they were sometimes buried with their owners in their graves. This burial pit, unearthed at Liulihe in Hebei province and dating from the Western Zhou period, con tains the remains of horses and chariots.
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i z a t i o n : N e o l i t h i c P er i od to t he W e s t e r n Z h o u D y n as t y 2 3
uncertain whether or not there was a fully fledged Xia dynasty before the Shang
(c. 1600-c. 1050), but there was, without doubt, a major transition in this period
of Chinese history. From this point on, organized political entities become crucial
elements in the story of China. And a literate elite associated with the polity
begins to give us their version of what is important by producing the documents
that colour how we see all beyond them - not only other peoples they considered
to be alien, but also other elements in their own society, ranging from slaves to
rival elites.
The Shang state did not control a very large part of China proper - their
domain probably did not even encompass all of Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei,
and Shanxi provinces. The influence of Shang culture, however, extended far
beyond its territorial limits, with its technology and decorative motifs adapted by
peoples throughout the Yangzi valley. The Shang was said to have had five suc
cessive capitals, and several large settlements of Shang date have been discovered,
including Zhengzhou, possibly an early cult centre, and Anyang, from which the Shang kings ruled for more than two centuries. Shang civilization was not as
densely urban as that of Mesopotamia, but these cult centres were large and com-
This tomb (number 1001) of a Shang king is one of eleven large tombs and over a thou sand small graves excavated at Anyang, all of which are ori ented north-south. Although this tomb was robbed in ancient times, perhaps even by the Zhou invaders, when exca vated it contained numerous stone, jade, shell, bone, antler, tooth, bronze, and pottery artefacts. As the pit is more than 300 feet long and 60 feet deep, moving the earth to cre ate the tomb must have required a huge mobilization o f labour.
2 4 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
Headless skeletons of human sacrificial victims in tomb 1001 at Anyang. Textual evi dence of the practice of human sacrifice has been confirmed by discoveries of clearly aligned headless skeletons like these. The heads were found elsewhere in the same tomb.
plex. At their core were large palaces, temples, and altars constructed on rammed- earth foundations, in one case 26 by 92 feet in size. Surrounding the central core
were industrial areas occupied by bronze workers, potters, stone carvers, and
other artisans. Further out were small houses built partly below ground level and,
beyond them, burial grounds. The inscribed oracle bones found at Anyang present a picture of an embattled
central power, allied with some local powers and at war with others. The king sent out armies of 3 ,000 to 5 ,000 men on campaigns. Over time vassals became ene
mies and enemies became allies. War booty provided the king with resources: cap
tives could be made into slaves or slaughtered as sacrificial victims. Even though
agricultural technology had not advanced much since pre-Shang times, military
technology had. Bronze-tipped spears and halberds, composite bows, and horse- drawn chariots provided significant advantages in warfare to the warrior elite who
possessed them. Chariots came into use around 1200 bc, probably as a result of
diffusion from western Asia. Pulled by two or four horses, the chariot allowed
commanders to supervise their troops and gave archers and soldiers armed with
long halberds more mobility. Chariots were also used in royal hunts, grand out ings cum military exercises that might last months. Deer, bears, tigers, wild boars, elephants, and rhinoceroses were plentiful, indicating that there was considerable
forest cover in the north China plain.
T h e O rig in s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P e rio d to the W e s te r n Zhou D ynasty
Shang kingship, however, was not based simply on military supremacy, but was
firmly grounded in religion and ritual. The Shang king played a priestly role in the
worship of the high god Di and the royal ancestors, a role that justified his politi cal powers. To put this another way, it was because among the dead his ancestors
were best able to communicate with Di and because among the living he was best
able to communicate with his ancestors that the king was fitted to rule. Given the
importance of the royal ancestral cult, it is not surprising that patrilineal princi ples also governed succession to the throne: kingship passed from elder to
younger brother and father to son, but never to or through sisters or daughters.
To discover his ancestors’ wishes, the king employed professional diviners to
prepare the bones used in divinations, but he himself interpreted the meaning of
the heat-induced cracks. Many of the predictions the king made sound almost like
magical incantation or prayers - ‘It will rain’, or ‘During the next ten days there
will be no disasters.’ The king also played a priestly role during his frequent trav els through the realm, for he often stopped to make sacrifices to local spirits.
As in many other societies, both animals and human beings were sacrificed to
royal ancestors and to various nature gods. The principles underlying sacrifice, in
China and elsewhere, are reciprocity and feeding: one makes offerings to those
from whom one wants help, and one feeds rich foods to the god or ancestor to
keep him strong. Shang kings frequently offered sacrifices of human beings,
sometimes dozens at a time. Subordinates would also voluntarily ‘accompany’ a
superior in death, showing that they felt obligations tantamount to servitude to
those above them. At the early or middle Shang royal burials at Zhengzhou, one, two, or three sacrificial victims were often buried between the inner and outer cof fin chambers or on the roof of the outer chamber. By the late Shang, many more
people accompanied the rulers into their graves. Tomb 1001 at Anyang, which
may be for the king who reigned about 1200 bc, has yielded the remains of ninety
followers who accompanied him in death, seventy-four human sacrifices, twelve
horses, and eleven dogs. These victims were placed in the shaft, ledges, and
ramps. Some followers were provided with coffins and bronze ritual vessels or
weapons of their own, some (generally female) with no coffins but with personal
ornaments; others were provided with no furnishings and were beheaded, cut in two, or put to death in other mutilating ways.
The vast tombs of the royal family are one sign of the ability of the Shang rulers
to mobilize human and material resources. Thousands of labourers had to be
assembled to dig huge holes up to 40 feet deep, construct massive wooden burial
chambers, and then fill in the site with layers of rammed earth. This ability to
mobilize labour clearly predated the move to Anyang; the enormous city walls of
Zhengzhou, which were 60 feet wide, 30 feet high, and 2 ,385 feet long, would
have taken ten to twenty years to complete, even with 10,000 labourers working
to move and ram the earth.
2 6 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
W R IT IN G
The organizational capabilities of the Shang government probably should be cred
ited in part to the perfection of a system of writing. In China, as elsewhere, writ
ing, once adopted, has profound effects on social and cultural processes. Exactly
when writing was first used in China is not known since most writing would have
been done on perishable materials like wood, bamboo, or silk. Symbols or
tripot f ie ld then to go vessel To show, (showing (m en and an cestor against,
w ater (ring) dec lare divisions) bow l) (phallus) tow ards heaven to pray
¥ r % 3) 1 b St ¥ b - £1 £ ¥ 5 n x / * /fS it & X*
The modern Chinese writing system (lower row) evolved from the script employed by diviners in the Shang period (upper row).
Lady Hao's tomb
The ancient Chinese did not invest in the construction of stone monuments; there are no Chinese equivalents of the pyramids, the Palace of Minos, or the Parthenon to make later visitors ponder their greatness. What comes closest in terms of expenditure and desire for permanence are the vast tombs of the Shang royal family, the splendours of which were carefully hidden from public view underground.
The only royal Shang tomb never to have been robbed before it was excavated is tomb 5 at Anyang for Lady Hao (c.1250 bc). One of the smaller tombs (about 13 by 18 feet at the mouth and about 25 feet deep), and not in the main royal cemetery, it was nonetheless filled with an extraordi nary array of sacrificial goods.
Human sacrifice is evident (the sixteen human skeletons include both males and females, children and adults), but not on as great a scale as some of the larger tombs. Rather it is the burial of a profusion of valuable objects that is the most striking feature of this burial, suggesting almost pot latch-like conspicuous destruction. In this tomb were 460 bronze objects (including more than 130 weapons, 23 bells, 27 knives, 4 mirrors, and 4 tigers or tiger heads), nearly 750 jade objects, some 70 stone sculptures, nearly 500 bone hairpins, over 20 bone arrowheads, and 3 ivory carvings. In addition, there were nearly 6,900 cowry shells, possibly evi
dence that these shells were used for money. Most of these items are distinctly metropolitan in style; others may have been sent from distant places as tribute.
The 200-odd bronze vessels constitute the largest and most complete set of ritual vessels unearthed from a Shang
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i z a t i o n : N e o l i t h i c P e r i o d to t he W e s t e r n Z h o u Dy n a s t y 2 7
emblems inscribed on late neolithic pots may be early forms of Chinese graphs. Early Shang bronzes sometimes have similar symbols cast into them. The earliest
evidence of full sentences is found on the oracle bones of the late Shang. From
these divinatory inscriptions, there can be no doubt that the Shang used a lan
guage directly ancestral to m odem Chinese and moreover used a written script
that evolved into the standard Chinese logographic writing system still in use
today. Of the thousand-odd characters that have been deciphered, some are pic-
tographs that visually represent a thing or an idea, some are borrowed for their
sounds, and others were created by combining two characters, one giving mean
ing, the other sound. In China, as elsewhere, with writing comes list-making and
efforts to organize thoughts that facilitate higher-order mental processes of
abstraction and theorizing. In Shang times, one sign of such complex cognitive
organization is the use of two sequencing systems, one based on ten and the other
on twelve. The cycle of ten was used to label days in the ten-day week, and a com
bination of the two was used to produce a sixty-day cycle.
grave. More then twenty types are represented, including goblets, tripods, and basins. Vessels for holding wine pre dominate, suggesting that as a last step at the funeral cere monies mourners made a libation of wine and tossed in the wine cup as well as the wine. Some sixty bronze vessels have Lady Hao's name inscribed on them. Striking among them are ones in the form of real animals, possibly reflecting influence from the south where similar forms had been pro duced earlier.
The artefacts in this tomb do not provide much evidence of what Lady Hao was like as a person. Probably she is the same Lady Hao mentioned in many oracle bone inscriptions as one of the many wives of the king Wu Ding (c. 1200 bc). The king made divinations concerning her illnesses and pregnancies. From these inscriptions we also know that she took charge of certain rituals and had a landed estate out side the capital. She even led military campaigns, once with 13,000 troops against the Qiang to the west, at other times against the Fu Fang in the northwest, the Ba Fang in the southwest, and the Yi in the east.
The 23A-inch jade figure (left) and the nearly foot-tall ivory wine cup inlaid with torquoise (right) were both among the goods in Lady Hao’s tomb. The figure kneels in the formal posture adopted in China before the chair came into com mon use more than 2,000 years later.
2 8 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
Cultural spheres. The cultural influence of the two great states of Bronze Age China, the Shang (c .1600-1050 b c )
and the Western Zhou (c. 1050-771 b c ) extended from the Yellow River valley into the Yangzi River valley. In neolithic times distinct cul tures had emerged in many regions of the Chinese subcon tinent, but by the third millennium b c borrowing had become so extensive that this central China region had already become a sphere of interacting cultures.
It is essentially accidental that the Shang developed a logographic script rather
than a phonetic script like most of those that became dominant elsewhere in
Eurasia. This accident, however, had momentous consequences for the way Chi nese civilization developed. It shaped the nature of the elite: the difficulty of mas tering this script made those expert in it an elite possessed of rare but essential
skills. Because the Chinese logographic script did not change to reflect differences
in pronunciation, the literate elite easily identified with others whose writings
they could read, including predecessors who lived many centuries earlier and
contemporaries whose spoken languages they could not comprehend. Just as cru cially, this script also affected the processes of cultural expansion and assimila
tion. People on the fringes of Chinese culture who learned to read Chinese fop
pragmatic reasons of advancing or defending their interests were more effectively
drawn into Chinese culture than they would have been if China had had a pho netic script. Reading and writing for them could not be easily detached from the
body of Chinese texts imbued with Chinese values, making it difficult for them to
use their literacy to articulate the vision of a local population defined in opposi
tion to China.
BRONZES
As in other parts of the world, the development of more complex forms of social organization in Shang China was tied to perfecting metal-working techniques.
Ways to smelt metal ores were probably discovered in China as a by-product of
the use of high-temperature kilns for ceramic production. The earliest-known
bronze vessels date from about 1 7 0 0 -1 6 0 0 bc, and were found at Erlitou, in
extent of regions w ith considerab le cultural borrowing major sites ancient shoreline
| extent of Shang culture Shang sites ancient shoreline
* extent of Zhou culture Zhou sites
T he O rigin s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P eriod to th e W e s te r n Zh ou D ynasty 2 9
Henan province, a region associated with the Xia dynasty. The extreme thinness of some of the vessels found there (in one case only 1 mm thick), coupled with fea tures of their shapes, such as sharp angles and crimped edges, suggest the possi bility of imitation of sheet-metal prototypes. But bronzes steadily got larger and
heavier, and by late Shang times huge bronze vessels were produced, some weigh ing more than 200 pounds.
The great bulk of the surviving bronze objects are cups, goblets, steamers, and
cauldrons, beautifully shaped and decorated, in a great variety of shapes and sizes, presumably made for use in sacrificial rituals. Some distinctive neolithic pottery
forms, such as tripods, were reproduced in Shang bronzes, showing links between
the artistic tradition of the Shang and the previous cultures of the area. The com
plexity of design of Shang bronzes was achieved through mould casting and pre fabrication. Thus legs, handles, and other protruding members were cast first and
then the body was cast on to them.
The bronze vessels produced in Shang China reveal much about Shang culture
and society. Thousands of Shang bronzes survive today, and we know from exca
vations that as many as 200 vessels could be interred in a single grave. Their num
bers testify to the willingness of the Shang elite to devote huge quantities of a
valued resource to ritual uses. The production of such quantities of bronzes also
provides further evidence of the organizational capacity of the Shang rulers, for
they had to mobilize men and material to mine, transport, and refine the ores, to
manufacture and tool the clay models, cores, and moulds used in the casting
process and to run the foundries. Additionally, the history of the decoration on
Shang bronzes provides evidence of the dynamics of cultural change during Shang
times. The animal mask or taotie was the predominant decoration throughout, but
its appearance changed markedly over time (see pages 3 6 -3 7 ). Moreover, in some
periods patrons were more open to borrowing new forms from their neighbours;
at other times they turned back to old forms and motifs, reworking them, pre sumably finding something admirable in their antiquity.
Bronze technology spread beyond the area controlled by the Shang, probably
even into areas the Shang would have considered entirely alien. In 1986 archaeol ogists discovered at Sanxingdui in Sichuan province a bronze-producing culture
apparently contemporary with the late Shang that did not share either the basic
Shang artistic repertoire, nor, it would seem, Shang religious beliefs. At this site
were rammed earthen city walls of the familiar sort, but also outside the wall two
sacrificial pits entirely unlike anything found earlier. One contained about 300
gold, bronze, jade, and stone objects along with thirteen elephant trunks and
nearly 100 cubic feet of burnt and broken animal bones. The most astonishing
finds were life-sized bronze heads with angular facial features and enormous eyes. In the second pit, about 100 feet away, there was a life-sized statue and forty-one
bronze heads of varying size, some with gold masks. As most objects had been
burnt and broken, archaeologists infer that these two pits are the remains of large-
Regions beyond Shang pol itical control were not necessar-ily backward, but withoutwritten records we know little of them. This extraordinary bronze statue, about 6 feet tall on a 2V2-foot base, was excavated at Sanxingdui, Sichuan province. It was discovered in one of two pits filled with bronze heads, masks, elephant tusks and other objects that reveal a tech nologically advanced culture whose religious practices dif fered from those of the Shang and early Zhou.
3 0 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
scale sacrificial ceremonies held about a generation apart. There is no evidence of
human remains in these pits, which has led to speculation that the bronze heads
and the statue stood in for the sacrifice of human beings.
Bronzes did not, of course, constitute all of Shang art, even if they have sur
vived the best. Finely worked jade objects, many perpetuating neolithic forms,
such as cong, hi, knives, and axes, continued to be included among the objects in
opulent burials. Silk was already being woven, and traces of elaborate silk weaves
have been found. Carved wood and ivory, sometimes inlaid with turquoise, have
been discovered, as have traces of lacquer decoration. All this suggests that the
Shang kings and probably other noble families lived surrounded by objects of great beauty.
TH E ZHOU C O N Q U EST
How directly or tightly the Shang controlled its territories can only be dimly dis
cerned from oracle bones and archaeological excavations. Certainly the Shang
campaigned constantly against enemies. To the west were the fierce Qiang, con
sidered barbarian tribesmen, and perhaps speaking a proto-Tibetan language.
Between the Shang capital and the Qiang was a frontier state called Zhou, which
seems both to have inherited cultural traditions from the neolithic cultures of the
northwest and to have absorbed most of the material culture of the Shang. In
about 1050 BC, the Zhou rose against the Shang and defeated it in battle.
The early Zhou is the first period from which texts have been transmitted. The
B ook o f Documents (Shujing), one of the Confucian classics, purports to contain
texts from the beginning of the Zhou, giving us the Zhou version of their history.
These documents describe the Zhou conquest of the Shang as the victory of just
Remains of rammed-earth foundations at Fengchu in Shaanxi province have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the design of this early Zhou palace or temple. The com pound was 145 by 105 feet, the main hall in the centre 56 by 20 feet and the whole was built around courtyards in the fashion typical of later Chi nese architecture.
T h e O r i g i n s o f C h i n e s e C i v i l i za t i o n : N e o l i t h i c P er i o d to the W e s t e r n Z h o u D y n a s t y
and noble warriors over decadent courtiers led by a dissolute, sadistic king. At the
same time, they show that the Zhou recognized the Shang as occupying the cen
tre of the world, were eager to succeed to that role rather than dispute it, and saw
history as a major way to legitimate power. Besides these transmitted texts, hun
dreds of inscriptions on ritual bronzes have survived. Particularly useful are
inscriptions that record benefactions from the king and mention the services that
had earned the kings favour.
The founding of the Zhou was associated with a series of important religious
changes. The scale of human sacrifice at burials declined, suggesting that ideas
about death and the afterlife were changing. The practice of voluntary accompa
nying in death continued, but on a considerably smaller scale. The practice of
divining with oracle bones declined and the new divination system laid out in the
Classic o f Changes (Yijing) gained ground, involving interpretations of randomly
selected sets of broken and unbroken lines. Another key development was the
introduction of the concept of heaven, conceived as something like the sacred
moral power of the cosmos. In transmitted texts and bronze inscriptions alike, the
rule of the Zhou kings was linked to heaven. A king and a dynasty could rule only
so long as they retained heaven’s favour. If a king neglected his sacred duties and
acted tyrannically, heaven would display its displeasure by sending down omi
nous portents and natural disasters. If the king failed to heed such warnings,
heaven would withdraw its mandate, disorder would increase, the political and
social order would fall into chaos, and heaven would eventually select someone
else upon whom to bestow a new mandate to rule. Moral values were thus built
into the way the cosmos worked, and history was read as a mirror of heaven’s will.
The ruler mediated between heaven and the realm of human beings, and his virtue
ensured the proper harmony of the two sides. Because these ideas do not seem to
have any place in Shang cosmology, it may be that they were elaborated by the
early Zhou rulers as a kind of propaganda to win over the conquered sub
jects of the Shang. Whatever their origin, the ideas proved compelling
and remained a central tenet of Chinese political cosmology until modern times.
In early texts, three Zhou rulers have been given great credit
for establishing a stable state. King Wen (the ‘Cultured King’)
formed alliances with neighbouring states and tribes in prepa
ration for attacking the Shang. His son King Wu (the ‘Martial
King’) built a new capital further east and launched the
expedition that succeeded in defeating the Shang army and
taking its capital. Rather than kill all members of the
Shang royal house, he left a son of the last king as nom i
nal ruler of the city to continue sacrifices to his powerful
ancestors. King Wu died young, only six years after the
conquest, and his brother, the Duke of Zhou, acted as
Bronze was used not only for ritual objects, but also Tor more practical things such as weapons and armour. This early Zhou helmet was proba bly actually used in warfare, as it was unearthed alongside weapons in the Beijing area.
3 2 T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
Inscribed bronze ritual vessel, unearthed from a storage pit in Fufeng, Shaanxi province. The 284-character inscription on this bronze, composed shortly before 900 b c by Histo rian Qiang, relates the major events under the six kings from Wen to Mu, such as cam paigns against various ‘barbarians’, as well as the deeds of Qiang’s own ancestors in the service of these kings.
regent for King Wu’s young son. The Duke of Zhou extended and consolidated the
new territories, conducting a series of expeditions eastward to bring the whole
Yellow River plain under Zhou control, destroying in the process, it is said, fifty
states. He built a new city at modern Luoyang in Henan province from which to
govern the eastern territories and moved former Shang nobles to his new city.
W hen the young king came of age, the Duke of Zhou relinquished his powers and
became at once the most reverent of subjects. These three early Zhou rulers thus
became emblematic figures, representing the leadership qualities required for the
establishment of enduring states: military prowess, the morally based civil arts, and loyalty.
The process of absorbing the tribes and states on the periphery of the Zhou
realm was slow and not always successful (the fourth Zhou king disappeared with
his armies on a campaign into modern Hubei province and was not heard from
again). Rather than attempt to rule all of their territories directly, the early Zhou
rulers sent out relatives and trusted subordinates with troops to establish walled
garrisons in the conquered territories. Where that was not possible, they recog
nized local chiefs as their representatives. These lords were given titles that became hereditary and were obliged to render military service and send tribute.
But all power was not parcelled out; the kings also set up a central proto-bureau cratic administration that made extensive use of written records. Moreover, the
kings maintained a royal army that fought alongside warriors contributed by the feudal lords.
Kinship and the cults associated with it tied the lords to the king and to each other. The king bore the title ‘Son of Heaven’ and had the unique right to make
sacrifices to heaven at the capital. He also presided at rites to royal ancestors, in
much the way the Shang kings had. Lords conducted similar sacrifices to the first
T h e O rigin s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P eriod to the W e s te r n Z h o u D yn asty
holder of their fiefs as well as their more recent ancestors. Marriage among patri lineal relatives was not practised, so the king and lords of his surname had to
marry with the families of lords of other surnames, linking virtually all of the
upper ranks of the nobility through either patrilineal or affinal kinship. Loyalty
and military valour were much esteemed among these nobles, but familial ethics
of obedience, respect, and kinship solidarity were just as prized.
By 800 bc there were around two fendred lords with domains large and small, of which only about twenty-five were large enough to matter much. Each lord
appointed various officers under him, men with ritual, administrative, or military
responsibilities, and these posts and the associated titles tended to become hered itary as well. In this way each domain came to have aristocratic families with
patrimonies in offices and associated lands. Society was conceived in strongly
hierarchical terms, ranging from the Son of Heaven, through the lords, to the
great ministers, other officers, the knights and court attendants, and finally the
ordinary farmers who generally seem to have been attached to domains in a serf like manner.
Along the Zhou borders and interspersed among the Zhou domains were non-
Chinese peoples who resisted Zhou hegemony. Chinese writers of the time classi fied them into four ethnic groups: the Yi centring on modern Shandong, the Man
in the Yangzi valley, the Di along the northern Jborder, and the Rong centring in
Shaanxi. These outsiders were not necessarily primitive tribesmen. In the south, along the Yangzi, several political entities had come into existence independently
of the Zhou — the states of Chu, Wu, and Yue. Their chiefs called themselves
kings, but by the end of the eighth century bc were allowing the Zhou kings to consider them peripheral parts of the Zhou feudal order.
Zhou art shows important shifts from Shang tradition. Large bronze ritual ves sels continued to be produced in great abundance in early Zhou times, probably
often by the same craftsmen who had served under the Shang rulers. Neverthe less, within a couple of generations of the conquest of the Shang, the dominant
motif on Shang bronzes, the animal mask or taotie, all but disappeared. Birdlike
imagery became more important, along with purely ornamental decorations, such
as spikes and ribs. The use of bold ribs and spikes suggests that vessels were being
viewed from greater distances, during rituals performed in front of audiences. At the same time, ritual vessels came to be frequently treated as vehicles for texts, which grew longer and longer, suggesting that the vessels were seen as family
heirlooms in the making, with thoughts to their effects on descendants as much as on ancestors.
The earliest Chinese poetry originates from the early Zhou period. Many of the
305 poems in the Book of Songs (Shijing) would have been sung at court during
important ceremonies. Some celebrate the exploits of the early Zhou rulers; oth ers praise the solemnity with which the living provide food offerings to their
ancestors during sacrifices. One court ode expresses a profound distrust of
T h e C a m b r i d g e I l l u s t r a t e d H i s t o r y o f C h i n a
women’s involvement in politics and the affairs of government:
Clever men build cities, Clever women topple them. Beautiful, these clever women may be
But they are owls and kites. Women have long tongues
That lead to ruin. Disorder does not come down from heaven;
It is produced by women.
Other poems in the Book of Songs appear to have begun as folk songs. These
include love songs and songs depicting ordinary people at work clearing fields, ploughing and planting, gathering mulberry leaves for silkworms, spinning and
weaving. There are even complaints about tax collectors and the hardships of mil
itary service. One stanza of a love poem reads:
Please, Zhongzi, Do not leap over our wall, Do not break our mulberry trees.
It’s not that I begrudge the mulberries,
But I fear my brothers.
You I would embrace,
But my brother’s words - those I dread.
A stanza of a poem of complaint reads:
Which plant is not brown? Which man is not sad?
Have pity on us soldiers, Treated as though we were not men!
Poems like these remind us that ancient China was populated by more than
kings, warriors, diviners, and bronzesmiths. The vast majority of the population,
then and later, were farmers, toiling in their fields, trying to fashion satisfying
lives and to limit the exactions of those with power over them.
Most of the basic elements of ancient Chinese civilization were not unique to
China. All over the world, people discovered that animals and plants could be
domesticated; there is little reason to think agriculture was invented in one place
and then carried to all parts of the world through migration of peoples or com munication of ideas. Very basic ideas about kinship and religion - such as tracing
descent solely through the male line, or making sacrifices of animals or humans
to gods or ancestors - and very basic ideas about social order - such as enslaving those defeated in war and passing kingship from one man to his son or brothel -
The O rigin s of C h in ese C iv il iz a t io n : N e o l i th ic P e rio d to the W e s te r n Z h o u D yn asty
are also extremely common cross-culturally. These phenomena are more plausibly attributed to shared human psychology than to cultural contact.
Much less common in world history is the leap to complex civilization, to the
ideas and technology that allow co-ordination of large populations. Writing, met allurgy, and strong priestly kings appeared together in several ancient civiliza
tions: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus'Valley, China, and Mexico. It is generally
accepted that the American civilizations must have been independent in' origin
from those of Asia and that those of the ancient Near East were influenced by each
other. But what about China? Did it make the leap entirely on its own? Or did
knowledge of some of the advances of the ancient Near East cross the Eurasian
steppe and stimulate or spark similar developments in China? Are similarities all
the result of a common logic of socio-political-technological development, or are
some the result of diffusion? Most Chinese historians and archaeologists seem to
think that it is more to China’s credit the less their ancestors learned from others
and the more they discovered or invented themselves. They point to marks on
neolithic pots as possible early stages in a writing system to refute the notion that
the idea behind writing (that marks can represent words) might have been trans
mitted by illiterate peoples across the steppe. They demonstrate how distinctive
Chinese bronze mould-casting was in order to cast doubt on the notion that the
idea behind metallurgy (that rocks can be smelted into a strong and malleable
substance) could have been transmitted in a similar way. Nor do they like to draw
attention to the strong probability that wheat, the chariot, the domesticated horse, and the compound bow spread from west Asia.
Questionable assumptions about the worth of civilizations lie behind these
patriotic efforts to make China as independent a civilization as possible. Surely
the ancient Chinese would not somehow be more worthy of admiration if they
had refused to adopt useful ideas they learned about second or third hand for fear
of cultural contamination. Chinese civilization is obviously not an off-shoot of
any of the ancient civilizations of the Middle East in any meaningful sense, since
its language, script, cosmology, and art are too distinctive. Still what made China
one of the great civilizations of the world was not its isolation or purity, but the
way the complex of ideas, social forms, skills, and techniques which coalesced in
ancient times gave China the capacity to grow, adapt, and expand.
3 6 A n i m a l a n d H u m a n I m a g e r y i n B r o n z e V e s s e l s
In the art of the ancient Middle East, including Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, representations of agriculture (domesticated plants and animals) and of social hierarchy
(kings, priests, scribes, and slaves) are very common, matching our understandings of the social, political, and economic development of those societies. Thus it is somewhat puzzling that images of wild animals pre dominate in Shang art.
The zoomorphic images on Shang bronzes range from clearly mimetic low- or high-relief images of birds, snakes, crocodiles, and deer, to imaginary ani mals like dragons, and to highly stylized taotie designs that allude to animals but do not directly represent them. It is much less common for bronze implements to have images of human beings, and these rare human images are generally associated with images of animals. Since bronze vessels were used in sacrificial rituals as containers for food or drink, most observers assume the decoration on them symbolized some thing important in Shang political and religious cos mology. Unfortunately, texts that discuss the meaning of images exist only from much later periods.
Some animal images readily suggest possible meanings. Jade cicadas were sometimes found in the mouths of the dead, and images of cicadas on bronzes are easy to interpret as images evocative of rebirth in the realm of ancestral spirits, as cicadas spend years underground before emerging. Birds, sim ilarly, suggest to many the idea of messengers that can com municate with other realms, especially ones in the sky.
More problematic is the most common image, the taotie. To some it is a monster - a fearsome image that would scare away evil forces. Others imagine a dragon - an animal whose vast powers had more positive associations. Some hypothesize that it reflects masks used in rituals, others that it carries over the face-like imagery on neolithic jades from the Liangzhu area. Still others see these images as hardly more than designs. By tracing the evolution of the taotie over the course of the Shang, it is possible to show how the vivid, highly animal-like images of late Shang evolved from thin line and dot designs of early Shang. Perhaps the taotie came simply to be associated with the Shang kings and the order they presided over, respected and admired because it was an emblem of power and focus for identity more than for any association with real or imagined animals.
Those who wish to find significance in the fact that Shang imagery made so much use of animals (much more than plants, for instance) have tended to associate it with animal sacrifices, totemism, or shamanism. Since animals were slaughtered to be offered in sacrificial ceremonies, the argument goes, the deco ration on the vessels used in the ceremonies probably alludes
This bronze axe blade (13 by 14 inches), found in the entrance ramp of a late Shang tomb at Sufutun in Shandong, may have been used for the execution of some of the forty- eight sacrificial victims found there. The face, depicted by perforation, bears some resemblance to more standard taotie forms yet seems at the same time distinctly human.
to eating, killing, and the transformation brought on by death. Others point to signs that ancient tribes or clans saw them selves as descended from particular animals (totemism) and may have worshipped particular animals or birds. Shamanism is brought in because men and animals are sometimes associ ated on Shang bronzes. As practised elsewhere in north Asia or in south China in later times, shamans commonly relied on animals to help them communicate with the spirit world. In this interpretation, images on bronzes of men in the mouths of animals depict shamans submitting to the powers of the ani mals who aid them in their trances.
China in ancient times was undoubtedly no less diverse a place than China in more recent times, and these explanations need not be mutually exclusive. There are enough regional dif ferences in design to suggest that animal and human imagery may have had different meanings in different times and places. Even in the late Shang period the foot/e did not have the same absorbing interest to the southern artist that it had in Anyang. But images of distinguishable birds and animals proliferate in the south, suggesting that they carried meanings there not commonly given to them in the Anyang area.
A n i m a l a n d H u m a n I m a g e r y i n B r o n z e V e s s e l s 3 7
Rubbings of laotie decoration on Shang bronzes. Examples a to d are from central Shang sites, in chronological order; e is from further west in Sichuan province. Over time, as can be seen in a to d, taotie designs evolved from simple lines and dots to high relief and more prominent eyes, horns, and claws, rather than developing from more animal-like to more abstract. The treatment in the last example from the Sichuan area is in marked contrast, suggesting considerable cultural differences between the regions.
Man and animal are fused in an unusual way in this Shang bronze ritual vessel, 13 inches tall. The vessel takes the shape of a bear or tiger with mouth open and poised to swallow a man. The man seems not at all concerned, but rather to be holding on to the animal as a child would hold on to its mother. Other animals, including a deer, serpents, cattle, and dragons, are incorporated into the decoration of the sides.
