EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science
Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC) Notes taken on November 20, 2014 by Edward Tanguay |
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Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC)
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first clearly archeologically attested dynasty
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with Shang Dynasty the historical record matching up with the archeological evidence
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alternate name is the Yin Dynasty
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the first source of significant written records
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oracle bones
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inscriptions in bronze vessels
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once you have writing, you can match it up with the historical record in a rigorous way
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the nature of Chinese writing
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symbol of East looks like a sun coming up behind a tree
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the issue that Chinese symbol writing looks like pictures is a contentious issue in Chinese scholarship
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one argument is that Western alphabets are based on logocentrisms while Chinese alphabets are based on pictures
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the argument goes: this is why Europeans tend to be more logical and analytical
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Chinese have pictures and so tend to think more holistically
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taken to an extreme, this is a ridiculous argument
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some Chinese characters clearly have picture origins
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very quickly, though, this just becomes an abstract concept that means East
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people don't see the symbol anymore of the sun rising in the east
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similar to the English word "breakfast" which comes from the idea of "breaking one's nightly fast"
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but when I say, "Let's go have breakfast", you don't think of breaking your fast anymore
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the same in Chinese: once you are a literate person, you are just reading words as people do who read European languages
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so we don't want to get to eccentric about how different and Chinese writing system is, it's a writing system like any other writing system
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one important feature, though, is it is not directly phonetic
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there are many theories about why Chinese became unified at a very early date in history and remained unified
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"I personally think it has to do with the writing system"
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so you have people's who speak completely different dialects, but when they read the language, they can read it in their own dialect
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in this way different peoples are connected to the written system in a way that is different than, let's say, if you are reading Latin and you are a German speaker, if you are a German you can't read a Latin document from the Pope in German
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however, people living in the outback areas of China receiving an official notice from the central government can each read it in their own dialect
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Shang chronology
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King Tang - 1554 BC
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defeated the evil king of the Xia and founded the Shang dynasty
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Wu Ding (1250-1192 BC)
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Di Xin (1105-1046 BC)
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23rd generation
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dissolute, evil, mean to people, lost in drink
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was defeated by his own army
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oracle bones
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makes up much of the information we have from Shang
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turtle shells
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shoulder blades of oxen
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discovered in 1898, "dragon bones" used in traditional medicine
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they were being dug up by farmers and sold to pharmacies
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we now have hundreds of thousands of them
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they were divination records
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records of attempts to communicate with the ancestors
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tend to be about things that are not under human control
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harvest
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war
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weather
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dreams
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sickness
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child bearing
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there were attempts by Shang kings to get some insight into what will happen in the future
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so we have these records at least of what the Shang royal line was concerned about
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Shang Pantheon
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Shang Di
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"Lord on High"
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the supreme god in the Shang pantheon
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non-ancestral
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seems to be an independent god
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originally a sky god
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referring to a region around the north pole in the sky
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important because all the other stars go around it
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ancestors
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the past Shang ancestors
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the further back, the more revered
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nature deities
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rivers
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mountains
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Shamanism
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king is the political ruler and a kind of spiritual god
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spirits communicate through crack patterns in bone
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take a hot poker, stick it on the bone and it cracks
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the pattern from the cracks reveals what the answer from the spirits is
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the king is the only one who can interpret that pattern
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Shang bronze vessels
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evocative shamanic imagery
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animalistic spirits
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shamanistic figures transforming or being embraced by animals
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sacrifice
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food and drink
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animals and humans
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large numbers of war captives were sacrifices in exchange for
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favors
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avoiding bad luck
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announcements
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if an important person is getting married
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you don't communicate with the ancestors without making some sort of offer to them
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need keep them happy
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entombing the dead
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elite tombs were very large
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prepared physical body
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there was a process which they went through to turn a dead person into a spirit
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tombs vary wildly in elaborateness
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showed a very stratified culture
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would put human sacrifices in the tomb
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luxury items, food and tools
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a good part of the gross national product went into the ground with dead people
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dynasties:
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Shang Dynasty (1554-1045 BC)
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ruled in the Yellow River valley, the first source of significant written records
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earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones