Misplaced Pages

#441558

132-657: The Late Shang , also known as the Anyang period , is the earliest known literate civilization in China, spanning the reigns of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty , beginning with Wu Ding in the second half of the 13th century BC and ending with the conquest of the Shang by the Zhou in the mid-11th century BC. The state is known from artifacts recovered from its capital at

264-404: A philosophy that assumed there were innate differences between "civilized" and "uncivilized" peoples. "Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including

396-636: A state -based decision-making apparatus, a literature , professional art , architecture , organized religion and complex customs of education , coercion and control associated with maintaining the elite. The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization, a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on nearby civilizations such as Korea , Japan and Vietnam Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives

528-472: A "civilized" way of living. In the 19th century, the idea of European culture as "civilized" and superior to "uncivilized" non-European cultures was fully developed, and civilization became a core part of European identity. The idea of civilization can also be used as a justification for dominating another culture and dispossessing a people of their land. For example, in Australia , British settlers justified

660-450: A characteristic of early civilizations. This " urban revolution "—a term introduced by Childe in the 1930s—from the 4th millennium BCE, marked the beginning of the accumulation of transferable economic surpluses , which helped economies and cities develop. Urban revolutions were associated with the state monopoly of violence , the appearance of a warrior , or soldier, class and endemic warfare (a state of continual or frequent warfare),

792-404: A civilization as a complex system , i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analysed that work in concert to produce some result. Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social and cultural interactions among them. Any organization is a complex social system and a civilization

924-537: A civilization has often been understood as a larger and "more advanced" culture , in implied contrast to smaller, supposedly less advanced cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists , Neolithic societies, or hunter-gatherers ; however, sometimes it also contrasts with the cultures found within civilizations themselves. Civilizations are organized densely-populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with

1056-621: A combination of the astronomical evidence considered by Pankenier and radiocarbon dating of archaeological layers at Yinxu and proto-Zhou sites. Using this date and counting year-long ritual cycles in the last two reigns, the XSZ project assigned accession dates to the last two Shang kings of 1101 BC and 1075 BC. Oracle bones from the Bīn diviner group (late in Wu Ding's reign and early in that of his successor Zu Geng) mention five lunar eclipses , including

1188-443: A complex recording system consisting of knotted strings of different lengths and colors: the " Quipus ", and still functioned as a civilized society. Aided by their division of labour and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion , development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology. Assessments of what level of civilization

1320-636: A courtyard. Casting of bronze vessels began on a limited scale at Erlitou. During the Erligang period, casters developed a technique of stepwise casting that permitted shapes of arbitrary complexity. Human sacrifice was also practised in the Erlitou and Erligang cultures, though on a much smaller scale than seen at Anyang. Other inherited features included the use of jade, the dagger-axe as a standard weapon, burial practices, and pyromancy using tortoise plastrons and ox scapulae. The most prominent innovations of

1452-470: A critical threshold where collapse is inevitable. Politically associated with over-reach, and as a result of the environmental exhaustion and polarization of wealth between rich and poor, he concludes the current system is fast arriving at a situation where continuation of the existing system saddled with huge deficits and a hollowed-out economy is physically, socially, economically and politically impossible. Although developed in much more depth, Berman's thesis

SECTION 10

#1732757808442

1584-693: A division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps during the Mesolithic Natufian culture . It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labour predates plant and animal domestication. Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization

1716-400: A few more obscure names. However, the day-name assigned to an individual remained fixed, and that was day on which they most commonly received sacrifice. There is no consensus on how these cyclic names were assigned, but their unbalanced distribution makes it unlikely that they reflect days of birth or death. Due to the fall of Shang, no such rituals are recorded for the last king, and there is

1848-527: A four-ramped tomb, the only one found outside Anyang, where they were reserved for royal burials. This is interpreted by some archaeologists as indicating a local rival, while others believe the occupant was a favourite of a Shang king. Another cluster of sites is found in western Shandong and eastern Henan around the Anqiu site, which had been inhabited since the Longshan period. The cemetery at Tianhu, north of

1980-576: A king list that largely matches that of the traditional histories of Sima Qian and the Bamboo Annals . The inscriptions also give insight into royal concerns such as weather, the harvest, warfare with neighbouring polities, and mobilizing workers for warfare or agricultural work. The Late Shang shared many features of the earlier Erlitou and Erligang cultures , including the rammed earth technique for foundations of rectangular walled compounds. Bronze casting reached new heights of decoration and

2112-695: A new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche . This sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts", but a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II , Leo Strauss , having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization

2244-580: A polity has reached are based on comparisons of the relative importance of agricultural as opposed to trading or manufacturing capacities, the territorial extensions of its power, the complexity of its division of labour , and the carrying capacity of its urban centres . Secondary elements include a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and tort -based legal systems, art, architecture, mathematics, scientific understanding, metallurgy , political structures, and organized religion. The idea of civilization implies

2376-417: A progression or development from a previous "uncivilized" state. Traditionally, cultures that defined themselves as "civilized" often did so in contrast to other societies or human groupings viewed as less civilized, calling the latter barbarians , savages , and primitives . Indeed, the modern Western idea of civilization developed as a contrast to the indigenous cultures European settlers encountered during

2508-722: A range of 60 to 70 m (200 to 230 ft). Some weapons were based on imported designs, such as the máo spearhead, which first appeared at Yinxu in period II and appears to have been developed in the Yangtze region, while daggers with animal-head pommels and some dagger-axes have precursors in Northern zone cultures. Although the Shang probably had a small standing army, typical campaigns required levies of three or five thousand men, usually provided and led by lineage leaders. Several inscriptions mention troops raised and led by Wu Ding's consort Fu Hao . The most common number of troops

2640-445: A religious priestess, and were used in her many rituals). Along with the jade and bone objects, Fu Hao was buried with 6 dogs, and 16 human sacrifices. Inside the pit was evidence of a wooden chamber 5 metres (16 feet) long, 3.5 metres (11 feet) wide and 1.3 metres (4.3 feet) high containing a lacquered wooden coffin that has since completely disintegrated. The tomb of Fu Hao provides the most insight into her life, her relationship with

2772-533: A ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture , mining , small-scale manufacture and trade . Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The word civilization relates to the Latin civitas or ' city '. As the National Geographic Society has explained it: "This

SECTION 20

#1732757808442

2904-544: A similar distance to the south. In the immediate surroundings of the capital, the Huan River valley experienced a substantial increase in population and growth of regional centres during the Huanbei and Late Shang periods. The Guandimiao site west of Zhengzhou , near the southern end of the core area, is a well-preserved village, which apparently specialized in the production of pottery. Many Shang sites have been found in

3036-571: A similar manner Fu Jing was also thought to have served in the military based on the presence of many weapons and military equipment in her tomb. Oracle bones also revealed records of at least six hundred women participating in the military during this era. Remarkably, after her death Fu Hao was buried in a tomb on her land across the river from the main royal cemetery, even though usually the royal families were buried together. She died well in advance of King Wu Ding, who constructed her tomb at his capital Yin . Because of its location, Lady Hao's tomb

3168-737: A single record that might refer to the second-last king, so they are conventionally referred to by the names they were given in later accounts, such as the Historical Records . The prefix 帝 Dì (emperor) in these names is thus anachronistic. The oracle bones also identify six pre-dynastic ancestors : 上甲 Shàng Jiǎ, 報乙 Bào Yǐ, 報丙 Bào Bǐng, 報丁 Bào Dīng, 示壬 Shì Rén and 示癸 Shì Guǐ. Using ten different criteria, including epigraphy , prose style, diviner names and bone preparation, Dong Zuobin assigned oracle bone inscriptions to five periods I–V corresponding to rulers. Later workers have subdivided some of his periods to refer to

3300-544: A site near Anyang now known as Yinxu and other sites across the North China Plain . One of the richest finds was the Tomb of Fu Hao at Yinxu, thought to belong to a consort of Wu Ding mentioned in Shang inscriptions. Most Shang writing takes the form of inscriptions on oracle bones used for divinations on behalf of the king. Shang ritual focussed on offerings to ancestors, enabling modern investigators to deduce

3432-443: A smaller number of bronze inscriptions and carvings on other materials. Some of the pictographs suggest that the Shang also employed brush writing on bamboo and wooden slips like those known from later periods, but none of these materials have survived. The oracle bone script consists of an early form of Chinese characters , with each graph representing a word of early Old Chinese . Over 4,000 graphs have been catalogued, though

3564-455: A species of developed humanity is capable". This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume A Study of History , which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of

3696-667: A start date around 1200 BC or earlier. Using the statement in the "Against Luxurious Ease" chapter of the Book of Documents that his reign lasted 59 years, the XSZ Project estimated its start date at 1250 BC. Ken-ichi Takashima dates the earliest oracle bone inscriptions to around 1230 BC. The oracle bones describe the Shang world in terms of three concentric regions. At the centre was the capital and ritual centre Dàyì Shāng ( 大邑商 'Great Settlement Shang'). Shang control or influence extended to four tǔ ( 土 'lands') named after

3828-411: A surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization , irrigation and crop rotation . It is possible but more difficult to accumulate horticultural production, and so civilizations based on horticultural gardening have been very rare. Grain surpluses have been especially important because grain can be stored for a long time. Research from

3960-494: A volume unmatched elsewhere in the world at that time. Workshops in the capital produced ceramics and carved stone and bone for a variety of ceremonial, decorative or utilitarian purposes. Besides writing, new features of the Late Shang included horse-drawn chariots, massive royal tombs and human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale, both in divination rituals and in royal burials. The traditional account of early Chinese history

4092-513: Is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against superficial and misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations. Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including

Late Shang - Misplaced Pages Continue

4224-453: Is any complex society characterized by the development of the state , social stratification , urbanization , and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems and graphic arts ). Civilizations include features such as agriculture , architecture , infrastructure , technological advancement , currency , taxation , regulation , and specialization of labour . Historically,

4356-436: Is believed by some archaeologists to be the oldest known town in present-day Europe. The 8.2 Kiloyear Arid Event and the 5.9 Kiloyear Inter-pluvial saw the drying out of semiarid regions and a major spread of deserts . This climate change shifted the cost-benefit ratio of endemic violence between communities, which saw the abandonment of unwalled village communities and the appearance of walled cities, seen by some as

4488-516: Is concerned with the study of artifact remains of non-human civilizations to reconstruct and interpret past lives of alien societies if such get discovered and confirmed scientifically. Fu Hao The Tomb of Fu Hao was unearthed intact in 1976 at Yinxu by archaeologist Zheng Zhenxiang , with treasures - known as her 700+ jade objects (Fu Hao was a collector, so some were already antiques), and also her collection of more than 500 bone objects, such as oracle bones (they were from her role as

4620-671: Is found in the Historical Records (1st century BC) compiled by Sima Qian . In this account, after a series of sage rulers , China was ruled by a succession of dynasties, the Xia , Yin (or Shang ), Zhou and Qin , culminating in the Han dynasty of Sima Qian's own time. In the early 20th century, the earlier parts of the textual account were challenged by the Doubting Antiquity School led by Gu Jiegang . At about

4752-709: Is in substantial agreement with the later accounts, especially for later kings. According to this implied king list, Wu Ding was the twenty-first Shang king. Ritual records name a deceased Shang king (or royal relative) using one of the day-names of the 10-day Shang week, with a distinguishing prefix. The prefix used depended on the relationship to the current king, with near predecessors denoted by kinship terms such as 兄 Xiōng (elder brother) or 父 Fù (father). The names of more distant predecessors employed prefixes such as 大 Dà (greater), 中 Zhōng (middle), 小 Xiǎo (lesser), 卜 Bǔ (outer), 祖 Zǔ (male ancestor), 武 Wǔ (martial) and

4884-529: Is particularly remembered for being the earliest recorded large-scale ambush in Chinese history. With up to 13,000 soldiers and important generals Zhi and Hou Gao serving under her, she was the most powerful Shang general of her time. This highly unusual status is confirmed by the many weapons, including great battle-axes, unearthed in her tomb. While Fu Hao's achievements were notable and unique, other women in this period were also active in military roles; in

5016-410: Is similar in some ways to that of Urban Planner, Jane Jacobs who argues that the five pillars of United States culture are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism and

5148-402: Is some evidence that Shang houses had torches to illuminate the night hours. The Shang named each day with a pair of terms of obscure origin (later known as Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches ) representing the position of the day in concurrently running cycles of 10 and 12 days respectively, yielding a 60-day cycle . For example, yǐwèi ( 乙未 ) was day 2 of the 10-day cycle and day 8 of

5280-409: Is sometimes defined as "living in cities". Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade. Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state . State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class , normally concentrated in the cities, has control over much of

5412-565: Is that person's broadest cultural identity. It is precisely the protection of this cultural identity that is becoming increasingly important nationally and internationally. According to international law, the United Nations and UNESCO try to set up and enforce relevant rules. The aim is to preserve the cultural heritage of humanity and also the cultural identity, especially in the case of war and armed conflict. According to Karl von Habsburg , President of Blue Shield International ,

Late Shang - Misplaced Pages Continue

5544-502: Is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating

5676-399: Is the only royal Shang tomb to have been left unnoticed and unlooted, giving unique insights into her life and the burial practices of the time. The King later made many sacrifices there in hopes of receiving her spiritual assistance in defeating the attacking Gong, who threatened to wipe out the Shang completely. This shows his great favor towards Hao and after her death, he had her married to

5808-538: Is the start of the Gonghe Regency in 841 BC, early in the Zhou dynasty , a date first established by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian . Attempts to establish earlier dates have been plagued by doubts about the origin and transmission of traditional texts and the difficulties in their interpretation. More recent attempts, including by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project , have compared

5940-422: Is to say, the meaning of "wife" in some contexts may actually refer to a position as priestess. Fu Hao owned her land. According to the oracle bones, she offered the king remarkably valuable tributes many times. Although the Shang king had control over ritual matters, which constituted the most important political activity of the day, oracle bone inscriptions show that Wu Ding repeatedly instructed Fu Hao to conduct

6072-566: Is why the most basic definition of the word civilization is 'a society made up of cities.'" The earliest emergence of civilizations is generally connected with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia , culminating in the relatively rapid process of urban revolution and state formation , a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite. The English word civilization comes from

6204-579: The Journal of Political Economy contradicts the surplus model. It postulates that horticultural gardening was more productive than cereal farming. However, only cereal farming produced civilization because of the appropriability of yearly harvest. Rural populations that could only grow cereals could be taxed allowing for a taxing elite and urban development. This also had a negative effect on rural population, increasing relative agricultural output per farmer. Farming efficiency created food surplus and sustained

6336-523: The Dabie Mountains , is one of the southernmost sites with Late Shang features. The site also shares features with the many distinct local cultures surrounding it, and may be the lineage cemetery of a local Shang lord. Of the polities located by Shima Kunio, the most frequently mentioned are to the northwest of Anyang, in the upper Fen River valley and the east bank of the Yellow River to

6468-686: The Ji River , centred on Daxinzhuang , and the adjacent shores of the Bohai , centred on Subutun . These were centres of salt production and harvesting of pearls and shells, as well as mining of copper and lead. Another concentration occurred to the west of the Taishan massif, in the valley of the Si River . These areas also feature aristocratic graves, some of them ramped tombs with human sacrifices like elite tombs at Xibeigang. The site at Subutun features

6600-824: The Neolithic and Mesolithic stage of the cultures of many of the peoples they encountered. Nonetheless, developments in the Neolithic stage, such as agriculture and sedentary settlement, were critical to the development of modern conceptions of civilization. The Natufian culture in the Levantine corridor provides the earliest case of a Neolithic Revolution, with the planting of cereal crops attested from c. 11,000 BCE. The earliest neolithic technology and lifestyle were established first in Western Asia (for example at Göbekli Tepe , from about 9,130 BCE), later in

6732-573: The Royal Cemetery at Ur is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique. Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single " world system ", a process known as globalization . Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic –

SECTION 50

#1732757808442

6864-658: The Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire , Persian Empire , India and China, were well established 2000 years ago when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations. The first evidence of such long-distance trade is in the ancient world . During the Uruk period , Guillermo Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan. Resin found later in

6996-455: The Yellow River and Yangtze basins in China (for example the Peiligang and Pengtoushan cultures), and from these cores spread across Eurasia. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest civilizations developing from 7,400 years ago. This area has been evaluated by Beverley Milton-Edwards as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of

7128-677: The silurian hypothesis , however, considers whether it would "be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record" given the paucity of geological information about eras before the quaternary . Astronomers speculate about the existence of communicating with intelligent civilizations within and beyond the Milky Way galaxy, usually using variants of the Drake equation . They conduct searches for such intelligences – such as for technological traces, called " technosignatures ". The proposed proto-scientific field " xenoarchaeology "

7260-646: The "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a difference in political ideology, although they note that this lack of tolerance is likely to lead to an eventual rejection of (true) democracy. In Identity and Violence Sen questions if people should be divided along the lines of a supposed "civilization", defined by religion and culture only. He argues that this ignores

7392-548: The 12-day cycle, and thus day 32 of the 60-day cycle. The 60-day cycle seems to have been widely used among elites in northern China during the Late Shang period. Most scholars assume that it continued uninterrupted through the succeeding Western Zhou period up to a solar eclipse recorded in 720 BC, which provides a secure correspondence with Julian days . A 10-day period ( xún 旬 ) also functioned as an early Chinese week in expressions such as 'three xún and one day', meaning 31 days. (Shang day counts tended to include both

7524-581: The 1760s, again from French. The first known use in French is in 1757, by Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau , and the first use in English is attributed to Adam Ferguson , who in his 1767 Essay on the History of Civil Society wrote, "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation". The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in

7656-503: The 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau , particularly his work about education, Emile . Here, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accord with human nature , and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original discursive or pre-rational natural unity" (see noble savage ). From this,

7788-460: The 19th century were taller than their "civilized" American and European counterparts. The average stature of a population is a good measurement of the adequacy of its access to necessities, especially food, and its freedom from disease. Writing , developed first by people in Sumer , is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or

7920-656: The Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusading movement as

8052-519: The Erligang walled settlements were abandoned and new regional developments from the culture arose. By this time, the sophisticated bronze casting techniques developed by Erlitou and Erligang had spread to, and been further developed by, a string of local cultures along the Yangtze river, from Sanxingdui in the Sichuan basin to Feijiahe near Dongting Lake and Wucheng in the Gan River valley. In

SECTION 60

#1732757808442

8184-515: The European colonization of the Americas and Australia. The term "primitive," though once used in anthropology , has now been largely condemned by anthropologists because of its derogatory connotations and because it implies that the cultures it refers to are relics of a past time that do not change or progress. Because of this, societies regarding themselves as "civilized" have sometimes sought to dominate and assimilate "uncivilized" cultures into

8316-637: The Fen river also appears to have been allied to the Shang. The Lijiaya culture on the north–south stretch of the Yellow River shows a mix of Shang and Northern Zone features. People of the nearby Ordos Plateau and adjacent areas of the Loess Plateau in western Shanxi had exploited horses since Paleolithic times. This area may have been the source of Shang horses and chariots, perhaps as tribute gifts. The name Mǎfāng ( 馬方 'horse fang' ) mentioned in

8448-423: The French civilisé ('civilized'), from Latin : civilis ('civil'), related to civis ('citizen') and civitas ('city'). The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias 's The Civilizing Process (1939), which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the early modern period . In The Philosophy of Civilization (1923), Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions: one purely material and

8580-497: The German word Kultur , "culture", for what many call a "civilization". Spengler believed a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Cultures experience cycles of birth, life, decline, and death, often supplanted by a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol. Spengler states civilization is the beginning of the decline of a culture as "the most external and artificial states of which

8712-487: The Late Shang – writing, horse-drawn chariots, massive tombs and human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale – all appeared at about the same time, in the reign of king Wu Ding . The Shang script is believed to be an indigenous development. In contrast, the sudden appearance of horses and chariots similar in form to those used across the Eurasian steppe, with all the associated technology, is thought to represent an import from

8844-578: The Wei valley, who went on to conquer the Shang. Beyond their central domains, Shang kings maintained their networks of subordinates and allies through a series of military campaigns. Campaigns and raids also supplied captives to be sacrificed in Shang rituals. The bronze foundries at the capital produced a variety of chariot fittings and weapons. The Shang dagger-axe was designed for hand-to-hand fighting on foot. Some 980 bronze arrowheads have been found, compared with 20,400 fashioned from bone. The Shang bow had

8976-494: The Wu Ding period, but disappear from the record in later reigns. Excavations from the northwestern zone present a mix of cultures. The Jingjie site in the Fen River valley consists of three elite burials with a mix of Shang and Northern Zone artifacts. Many of the bronzes bear an emblem that has been interpreted as Bǐng 丙 , a name mentioned as an ally in oracle bones from the reign of Wu Ding. The Qiaobei site further down

9108-534: The active pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment . In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French Revolution , "civilization" was used in the singular , never in the plural, and meant the progress of humanity as a whole. This is still the case in French. The use of "civilizations" as a countable noun was in occasional use in the 19th century, but has become much more common in

9240-453: The agricultural lifestyle, overlain with the ritual schedules they created. Divinations were concerned with the immediate past and present. The longest unit of time used was the lunar month, until the reigns of the last two kings, when ritual cycles roughly a year long were counted. Therefore, modern scholars have had to painstakingly assemble larger-scale Shang chronology from tens of thousands of inscriptions. The most common terms for parts of

9372-458: The amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The scale is only hypothetical, but it puts energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist. The current scientific consensus is that human beings are the only animal species with the cognitive ability to create civilizations that has emerged on Earth. A recent thought experiment,

9504-462: The ancestors of the current king, as in this inscription from the reign of Wu Ding: 己未卜禱雨自上甲大乙大丁大甲大庚大戊中丁祖乙祖辛祖丁十示率羝 Crack-making jǐwèi (day 56). Praying for rain to (the ancestors) from Shàng Jiǎ (to) Dà Yǐ, Dà Dīng, Dà Jiǎ, Dà Gēng, Dà Wù, Zhōng Dīng, Zǔ Yǐ, Zǔ Xīn, and Zǔ Dīng, the ten ancestors, (we will) lead-in-sacrifice (?) a ram. From such evidence, scholars have assembled the implied sequence of kings and their genealogy, finding that it

9636-627: The areas of Hebei the north, especially around the modern city of Shijiazhuang . Taixi (in Gaocheng ) seems to have been a strategic outpost near the northern frontier. In its Upper phase, the Erligang culture had expanded into Shandong, displacing the Yueshi culture . Late Shang material culture expanded further, confining the indigenous Zhenzhumen culture to the eastern part of the Jiaodong peninsula . Large concentrations of settlements occurred along

9768-408: The basic word order is subject–object–verb , with adjectives and adjectival phrases preceding the nouns they modify. The script provides little information on the sounds of the language, but several cases in which a character is borrowed or modified to write a different word are consistent with current theories on the sounds of Western Zhou Chinese . Shang notions of time were based on the rhythms of

9900-427: The cardinal directions. Many divinations were concerned with harvests or weather in named tǔ , or smaller areas within them. The extent of Shang control, based on shifting alliances and fluctuating military power, is difficult to delineate, and probably varied over time. The term fāng ( 方 'sides, regions') was used in a metaphysical sense, to refer to the four directions and associated supernatural powers. It

10032-464: The city to a Middle Shang period. Encouraged by the partial confirmation of Sima Qian's account of the Shang, archeologists embarked on a search for earlier capitals. Postwar excavations uncovered earlier urban centres in the area just south of the east–west stretch of the Yellow River. Erlitou, in the valley of the Luo River , flourished in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC. It was succeeded in

10164-532: The collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington , the 21st century will be characterized by a clash of civilizations , which he believes will replace the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that were prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, this viewpoint been strongly challenged by others such as Edward Said , Muhammed Asadi and Amartya Sen . Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that

10296-532: The conquest state". Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, the writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other. However, writing is not always necessary for civilization, as shown by the Inca civilization of the Andes, which did not use writing at all but except for

10428-531: The day were based on the motions of the sun or on social events: míng ( 明 'brightness', i.e. dawn), dàcǎi ( 大采 , around 8 a.m.), xiǎoshí ( 小食 'small meal'), zhōngrì ( 中日 'midday'), zè ( 昃 'afternoon'), dàshí ( 大食 'large meal'), xiǎocǎi ( 小采 , around 6 p.m.) and zhuó ( 斲 'cleaving'), the point during the night when the next day began. In the inscriptions, these terms are almost always associated with past events, with future events usually discussed in terms of days. There

10560-597: The destruction of cultural assets is also part of psychological warfare. The target of the attack is often the opponent's cultural identity, which is why symbolic cultural assets become a main target. It is also intended to destroy the particularly sensitive cultural memory (museums, archives, monuments, etc.), the grown cultural diversity, and the economic basis (such as tourism) of a state, region or community. Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete units. Early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler , uses

10692-634: The development of state structures, in which power was further monopolized by an elite ruling class who practiced human sacrifice. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various "cradles" from around 3600 BCE beginning with Mesopotamia , expanding into large-scale kingdoms and empires in the course of the Bronze Age ( Akkadian Empire , Indus Valley Civilization , Old Kingdom of Egypt , Neo-Sumerian Empire , Middle Assyrian Empire , Babylonian Empire , Hittite Empire , and to some degree

10824-746: The displacement of Indigenous Australians by observing that the land appeared uncultivated and wild, which to them reflected that the inhabitants were not civilized enough to "improve" it. The behaviors and modes of subsistence that characterize civilization have been spread by colonization , invasion , religious conversion , the extension of bureaucratic control and trade , and by the introduction of new technologies to cultures that did not previously have them. Though aspects of culture associated with civilization can be freely adopted through contact between cultures, since early modern times Eurocentric ideals of "civilization" have been widely imposed upon cultures through coercion and dominance. These ideals complemented

10956-409: The early Iron Age , contemporary civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for increasingly complex transactions. In a village, the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat and

11088-482: The energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities" and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, with the possible exception of some early civilizations in Peru which may have depended upon maritime resources. The traditional "surplus model" postulates that cereal farming results in accumulated storage and

11220-497: The exact number depends on which are considered graphic variants. A little over 1,200 words have been identified with certainty, but this set includes the core of the Chinese lexicon. A further 1,000 characters consist of identifiable components, but have no agreed interpretation. Most of the unknown characters are thought to represent proper names. The grammar of the language is broadly similar to that of Western Zhou bronze inscriptions and received texts. As in later forms of Chinese,

11352-438: The failure of a "creative minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere economic or environmental causes. Samuel P. Huntington defines civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species". Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory , looks at

11484-485: The first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times , and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism . The notion of human history as a succession of "civilizations" is an entirely modern one. In the European Age of Discovery , emerging Modernity was put into stark contrast with

11616-586: The following: 七日己未斲庚申月又食 On the seventh day jǐwèi (day 56) cleaving into gēngshēn (day 57), the moon was eaten. Most scholars identify this eclipse with one that astronomers have calculated to have occurred on the evening of 27 December 1192 BC. Some of the identifications vary, but most scholars identify these five records with eclipses spanning the period from 1201 to 1180 BC. This interval implies an approximate end date for Wu Ding's reign. Estimating an average reign length of about 20 years (based on securely dated Zhou rulers), David Keightley proposed

11748-485: The food surplus through decreasing rural population growth in favour of urban growth. Suitability of highly productive roots and tubers was in fact a curse of plenty, which prevented the emergence of states and impeded economic development. A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides producing food for a living: early civilizations included soldiers , artisans , priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in

11880-409: The growing gulf between rich and poor. Cultural critic and author Derrick Jensen argues that modern civilization is directed towards the domination of the environment and humanity itself in an intrinsically harmful, unsustainable, and self-destructive fashion. Defending his definition both linguistically and historically, he defines civilization as "a culture... that both leads to and emerges from

12012-671: The growth of cities", with "cities" defined as "people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life". This need for civilizations to import ever more resources, he argues, stems from their over-exploitation and diminution of their own local resources. Therefore, civilizations inherently adopt imperialist and expansionist policies and, to maintain these, highly militarized, hierarchically structured, and coercion-based cultures and lifestyles. The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by

12144-408: The land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute , redistributive taxation , tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early human cultures functioned through a gift economy supplemented by limited barter systems. By

12276-543: The later 20th century, sometimes just meaning culture (itself in origin an uncountable noun, made countable in the context of ethnography ). Only in this generalized sense does it become possible to speak of a "medieval civilization", which in Elias's sense would have been an oxymoron. Using the terms "civilization" and "culture" as equivalents are controversial and generally rejected so that for example some types of culture are not normally described as civilizations. Already in

12408-594: The living standards of the populace. For example, although the Middle Ages is often portrayed as an era of decline from the Roman Empire, studies have shown that the average stature of males in the Middle Ages (c. 500 to 1500 CE) was greater than it was for males during the preceding Roman Empire and the succeeding Early Modern Period (c. 1500 to 1800 CE). Also, the Plains Indians of North America in

12540-581: The many others identities that make up people and leads to a focus on differences. Cultural Historian Morris Berman argues in Dark Ages America: the End of Empire that in the corporate consumerist United States, the very factors that once propelled it to greatness―extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth―have pushed the United States across

12672-518: The middle part of the millennium by the Erligang culture, centred on a large walled city at Zhengzhou and expanding across an area stretching as far south as the Yangtze River . Chinese archaeologists usually identify the Erlitou and Erligang cultures with the Xia and early Shang dynasties respectively, despite the lack of direct evidence. Around 1300 BC, for reasons that are still unclear, most of

12804-436: The most special rituals and to offer sacrifices to the ancestors. The Shang dynasty had two most important activities: ritual matters and battles; Lady Hao played extraordinary roles in both at that time. Fu Hao is known to modern scholars mainly from inscriptions on Shang dynasty oracle bone artifacts unearthed at Yinxu . From these inscriptions and from the presence of weapons in her tomb, it can be determined that Fu Hao

12936-480: The north, intermediate pottery types from before the rise of the Late Shang have been found at sites such as Xiaoshuangqiao and Huanbei. Several features of Late Shang material culture were already present at Erlitou and further developed during the Erligang period. These include the rammed earth construction technique for walls and foundations, which had been used since the neolithic Longshan culture , and rectangular walled compounds containing pillared halls around

13068-527: The northwest. In a band of highlands stretching from the edge of the Tibetan plateau, through the Ordos Plateau and on to the northeast lay a series of cultures that transitioned in the early second millennium BC from an agricultural economy to a mixed agropastoral or fully pastoral economy. These cultures served as an interface between the plains cultures and those of the Eurasian steppe, and had been

13200-453: The only known bronze foundry outside of Yinxu producing Shang-style vessels. The site features elite burials similar to those at Yinxu, with many human sacrifices. However, its pottery and other burials show local styles. Laoniupo seems to have become more independent of the Shang core over time, but then declined suddenly, possibly due to the rise of the Zhou, at this time residing further west in

13332-606: The oracle bones may have referred to a polity in this area. Laoniupo in the Wei valley dominated the route from the Wei valley to the Dan River , which flows into the Han River to the south. The nearby Qinling mountains held extensive copper deposits. The site had been an outpost of the Erligang state, and became a powerful state during the Late Shang period, with close connections to Yinxu. During Yinxu Phase IV, Laoniupo possessed

13464-475: The other material and ethical . He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress". Related words like "civility" developed in the mid-16th century. The abstract noun "civilization", meaning "civilized condition", came in

13596-447: The other three phases can be related to Dong's five inscription periods. The dating information from periods I to IV is too limited to assign inscriptions to a particular year of a king's reign. In contrast, the standardized ritual schedule and recording of cycle counts in period V permits estimates of the lengths of the last two reigns, though these have ranged between 20 and 33 years. The earliest securely dated event in Chinese history

13728-658: The pits from which the oracle bones had been dug. The Academia Sinica undertook archaeological excavation of the site until the Japanese invasion in 1937, resuming in 1950. A permanent work station was established on the site in 1959. The city covered an area of some 25 km (9.7 sq mi), focussed on a complex of palaces and temples on a rise surrounded by the Huan River on its north and east, and with an artificial pond on its western side. Further caches of oracle bones were discovered nearby. The area immediately to

13860-498: The rapid development of hierarchies , and the use of human sacrifice . The civilized urban revolution in turn was dependent upon the development of sedentism , the domestication of grains, plants and animals, the permanence of settlements and development of lifestyles that facilitated economies of scale and accumulation of surplus production by particular social sectors. The transition from complex cultures to civilizations , while still disputed, seems to be associated with

13992-568: The reigns of individual kings. It has also become common to assign pieces to groups of diviners, who were active at different times. Archaeologists have defined four phases I–IV based on studies of stratigraphy and pottery types at various locations in the Yinxu site. For most of Yinxu I, the site was a small settlement. The first large buildings appeared in the later part of the period, together with oracle bone inscriptions, large-scale human sacrifice and chariot burials. This part of Yinxu I and all of

14124-451: The remains of a walled city of about 470 ha (1,200 acres) were discovered across the Huan River from the well-explored Yinxu site. The city, now known as Huanbei , contains a palace-temple compound, in which the foundations of two compounds have been excavated. Huanbei was apparently occupied for less than a century and deliberately destroyed by fire around the time of the construction of the Yinxu complex. Chinese archaeologists now assign

14256-402: The royal family, and her military role and achievements - as the objects she was buried with provide clues to her activities and interests. What is known is that King Wu Ding cultivated the allegiance of neighbouring tribes by marrying one woman from each of them. Fu Hao (who was believed to be one of the king's 64 wives) entered the royal household through such a marriage and took advantage of

14388-456: The same time, archaeological discoveries confirmed the historicity of the last nine Shang kings, and found earlier cities in the Yellow River valley. In 1898, the scholar Wang Yirong realized that the markings on ancient bones being sold by Chinese pharmacists were an early form of Chinese characters . By 1908, Luo Zhenyu had traced the bones to the village of Xiaotun on the northwest outskirts of Anyang in modern Henan province. The area

14520-514: The semi-matriarchal slave society to rise through the ranks to become one of King Wu Ding's three consorts. She may have come from the border or from the Steppe , as suggested by the assortment of weapons in her tomb. The other two wives were Fu Jing ( 婦妌 ) and Fu Shi ( 婦嬕 ). Fu Jing was the primary queen while Fu Hao was the secondary queen. Fu Hao was also the mother of Prince Zu Ji . Oracle bone inscriptions show concern for her well-being at

14652-408: The south of the palace district contained craft workshops and the residences and cemeteries of the Shang elite. The rest of the city consisted of lineage-based settlements or neighbourhoods, with graves close by residential areas. More workshops, handling bronze, pottery, jade and bone, were concentrated in at least three production zones: south of the palace district, east of it across the river, and in

14784-401: The start and end days of an interval.) The incantation xún wáng huò ( 旬亡禍 ) '[in the next] ten days [there will be] no disasters' was commonly divined on the last day of each ten-day period. There was no corresponding term for a 12-day period. Diviners regularly recorded the appearance of a new moon, often assigning it a number. Most scholars believe that the first moon for ritual purposes

14916-594: The surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or bureaucracy . Morton Fried , a conflict theorist and Elman Service , an integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social inequality . This system of classification contains four categories. Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property , or private ownership of

15048-486: The tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled. From the days of the earliest monetarized civilizations, monopolistic controls of monetary systems have benefited the social and political elites. The transition from simpler to more complex economies does not necessarily mean an improvement in

15180-839: The territorial expansions of the Elamites , Hurrians , Amorites and Ebla ). Outside the Old World, development took place independently in the Pre-Columbian Americas . Urbanization in the Caral-Supe civilization in coastal Peru began about 3500 BCE. In North America, the Olmec civilization emerged about 1200 BCE; the oldest known Mayan city, located in Guatemala, dates to about 750 BCE. and Teotihuacan in Mexico

15312-433: The three greatest kings before him. The tomb was unearthed by archaeologists in 1976 and is now open to the public. The tomb itself was only a 5.6-by-4-meter (18 by 13 ft) pit that contains a smaller, 5-meter-long (16 ft), 3.5-meter-wide (11 ft), and 1.3-meter-high (4.3 ft) wooden structure within. The inside was packed with burial sacrifices and wealth which signified Lady Hao's prodigious position. She

15444-406: The time of the birth. The activities of priestess and ritual matters of China only exist in the Shang dynasty, so some evidence is vague. Since each Chinese character like Fu ( 婦 ) often has variable meanings, even with the oracle bones of Shang deciphered, it is possible that women like Fu Hao were originally priestesses instead of the king's wives; she just happened to marry the king later. That

15576-406: The traditional histories with archaeological and astronomical data. At least 44 dates for the Zhou conquest of the Shang have been proposed, ranging from 1130 BC to 1018 BC. Most recent authors propose dates between 1050 and 1040 BC. David Pankenier, by attempting to identify astronomical events mentioned in Zhou texts, dated the conquest at 1046 BC. The XSZ Project arrived at the same date, based on

15708-548: The vector through which bronze metallurgy reached the North China Plain in the early second millennium BC. Other novel features of the Late Shang include bronze mirrors and animal-headed bronze knives derived from these northern-zone cultures. The earliest attestation of the Chinese language dates from the Late Shang period. The vast majority of surviving Shang texts are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones , with

15840-562: The west of the city. The Anyang site had no city wall, and a canal or moat around the central district became blocked in the later reigns, suggesting that the Shang felt no danger of invasion. On the other side of the river, 2.5 km (1.6 mi) to the northwest, a royal cemetery was found on the Xibeigang ridge. Shang kings were buried in large ramped tombs with extensive human and animal sacrifices. The royal tombs had been systematically looted, but in 1976 an undisturbed medium-sized tomb

15972-416: The west. The Qiāng 羌 , who are often captured and sacrificed in Shang rituals, are believed to have lived in this area. In Wu Ding's time, the Zhou, possibly at that time residing in the Fen valley, were mentioned as an ally, but in later inscriptions are referred to as Zhōufāng 周方 , indicating that they had become more independent or even hostile. Several other northwestern allies are mentioned in

16104-518: The wheel, the building of the earliest cities and the development of written cursive script". Similar pre-civilized "neolithic revolutions" also began independently from 7,000 BCE in northwestern South America (the Caral-Supe civilization ) and in Mesoamerica . The Black Sea area served as a cradle of European civilization. The site of Solnitsata – a prehistoric fortified ( walled ) stone settlement (prehistoric proto-city ) (5500–4200 BCE) –

16236-498: The world, incorporating earlier cultures into the technological and industrial society of the present. Civilizations are traditionally understood as ending in one of two ways; either through incorporation into another expanding civilization (e.g. as Ancient Egypt was incorporated into Hellenistic Greek, and subsequently Roman civilizations), or by collapsing and reverting to a simpler form of living, as happens in so-called Dark Ages. There have been many explanations put forward for

16368-561: Was 3,000, who would be organized into right, centre and left units: 丁酉貞: 王作三師右中左 On dīngyǒu (day 34) divined: the king will form three armies, right, centre and left. Each body of 1,000 footsoldiers would typically be accompanied by 100 archers and 100 chariots. Each chariot carried a driver, an archer and a spearman, all presumably specially trained and drawn from the petty elite class. Civilization A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English )

16500-405: Was a general in charge of several military campaigns for the Shang dynasty. In her military role, she was responsible for conquering enemies and neighbours of the Shang dynasty. The Tufang ( 土方 ) had fought against the Shang for generations until they were finally defeated by Fu Hao in a single decisive battle. Further campaigns against the neighbouring Yi , Qiang and Ba followed; the latter

16632-530: Was also used for specific neighbouring groups that might be subordinate polities, allies or enemies, in some cases changing their status over time. At least 40 different fāng are mentioned in inscriptions. Shima Kunio attempted to map their positions based on travel time between divinations. The core area of the Late Shang state lay in the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains , stretching from around 200 km (120 mi) north of Anyang to

16764-506: Was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism . Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of livelihood , settlement patterns, forms of government , social stratification , economic systems, literacy and other cultural traits. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that "civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took

16896-557: Was buried with a large and varied quantity of weapons signifying her important martial status, since only warriors and generals were buried with such objects. Additionally, Fu Hao was entombed with hundreds of bronze, jade, bone, and stone objects such as figurines, vessels, and mirrors, many of which were rare objects from around the kingdom. These objects are some of the best preserved from that time period. The sacrificial bronze vessels and tortoise shells inscribed prepared by Fu Hao discovered in her tomb are further evidence of her status as

17028-414: Was discovered in the southwest part of the palace district. Many of the grave goods recovered were inscribed with the name of Fu Hao , a military leader and consort of Wu Ding known from the oracle bone inscriptions. The Tomb of Fu Hao yielded some 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) of bronze vessels, weapons and tools, as well as hundreds of jades and other worked stones, bone carvings and pottery. In 1999,

17160-771: Was one of the largest cities in the world in 350 CE, with a population of about 125,000. The Bronze Age collapse was followed by the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, during which a number of new civilizations emerged, culminating in a period from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE which Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age , presented as a critical transitional phase leading to classical civilization . A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 CE in Western Europe , and from this beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around

17292-446: Was quickly recognized as the last capital of the Shang dynasty and named Yinxu 'ruins of Yin' from the name Yīn ( 殷 ) used by Sima Qian for the Shang dynasty and by the Bamboo Annals for the dynasty and its last capital. However, the name does not appear in the oracle bones, which refer to the state as Shāng ( 商 ), and its ritual centre as Dàyì Shāng ( 大邑商 'Great Settlement Shang'). In 1928, Dong Zuobin located

17424-441: Was the first after the winter solstice . The ritual schedule became increasingly elaborate. By the last two reigns, a full cycle of the five rituals took 36 or 37 xún , approximating the length of a solar year . At around this time, diviners also began to record dates in terms of the number of ritual cycles in the current reign and the current position in the latest cycle. The oracle bones record sacrifices to previous kings and

#441558