Scholarly opinion is divided on the question of whether the cultural remains of Erlitou Periods III and IV belong to the early Shang. This paper carries the analysis of the remains from these two periods one step further, emphasizing a group of new cultural elements, including li-cauldrons, wide-mouthed zun-beakers, curled lip round-bottom pen-basins, and narrow-mouthed long-necked weng-jars and jia-tripods. These artifacts are compared to similar remains from Zhengzhou Erligang and the obvious similarities between the two are pointed out. The Erlitou III and IV group of cultural elements exhibits a tendency to replace and assimilate that group of cultural elements originally presented in Erlitou Periods I and II, thus making clear that the differences and changes between the remains of II and III have epoch-making significance. A similar phenomenon can be observed to take place in the cultural features of the Central Plains with the change in dynasties between the Shang and Zhou and between the Zhou and Qin periods. It is proposed that the changes appearing between the Period II and Period III remains reflect a contemporary social change. Since the foundations of a large palace were discovered among the Period III cultural remains from the Yanshi Erlitou site, and since this site agrees with the location of Tang's capital Xi Bo, as recorded in surviving literature, Erlitou Periods III and IV may already belong to the Shang dynasty. On the basis of this analysis we have reason to believe that during the time of Cheng Tang the development of the culture of the Shang tribe reached a major turning point. At the time of its establishment the Shang kingdom appears on the Central Plains as an early slave state possessing a certain level of civilization. The discovery and identification of the cultural remains of the early Shang will be significant in the exploration of pre-Shang or Xia culture.

The Zhengzhou Shang dynasty site is the location of an early Shang city, vast in area and abundant in archaeological remains, which was discovered by Chinese archaeologists in the middle and lower Yellow River basin during the early fifties. Within the site there is a Shang dynasty rammed-earth wall extending north-south in a rectangular shape and having a circumference of 6960 meters. These are the earliest Shang wall remains discovered to date.

Based on the stratigraphy and vessel types discovered in the course of excavating the four sides of the wall, it is certain that this wall is slightly later than the late Erlitou period, and that construction on it began before the lower strata of the Shang Erligang period, the “Yin Ruins” at Anyang. The discovery of the Zhengzhou Shang site was definitely not accidental. It represents an important stage in the development of ancient Chinese rammed-earth wall architecture. The method of construction places it in a continuous line of development from the rammed-earth wall of the Henan area middle and late Longshan culture and the late Erlitou rammed-earth platform foundation to the rammed-earth foundations of the palaces of the Yin Ruins at Anyang.

The grand scale of the Zhengzhou Shang wall, and the fact that inside and outside the wall were found palace foundations and workshops for the production of bronze, bone, and ceramic articles as well as numerous widespread storage pits, wells, ditches, house foundations, and tombs, and that many bronze, jade, primitive porcelain, pottery, stone, bone, and clamshell artifacts have been excavated here, including also some carved ivory pieces, pottery sculpture, and inscribed bones and pottery, lead us to conclude that the Zhengzhou Shang site was one of the early Shang capitals. Whether it is to be identified as Ao or Bo we cannot now say. In any case, the discovery and excavation of this site has supplied direct evidence of the greatest importance for the history of early Shang politics, economics, cultural, and military affairs.

Twenty-two bronze nao-bells dating to the late Shang and early Western Zhou periods have been unearthed from the five southern provinces of Hunan, Jiangsi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian. Of these, sixteen were from Hunan, three from Zhejiang, and one each from the remaining three provinces. These bells can be classified into four categories: type A has an animal mask decoration (eleven examples); type B has a cloud pattern (three examples); type C has nipples (only one example); type D has stalks (mei, seven examples).

The nao is a bell that can produce two tones. It can be used in sacrificial offerings as well as war. Because most of these bells have been discovered at the top, mid-section, or foot of mountains or on the banks of a river, we surmise that they may have been used in contemporary sacrifices to the mountains and streams, wind and rain, and stars, etc. Based on the periodization of the style of their shape and decoration we conclude that type A may be as early as late Shang, type B can be assigned to the end of the Shang, type C is from the beginning of the Zhou and type D belongs to the early Western Zhou. They developed from type A to B to C to D and then to the yong-bell. The characteristics of southern nao bells are: they are large, thick and heavy; most have whorls on the circular handle; many animal masks and cloud and lightning patterns are formed from thick lines among the decoration; the entire body is usually covered with decoration; most appear singly, and they were set up on their stands with the mouth facing up. In contrast, northern nao-bells are very small, they have no whorls on the handle, their decoration is simple, and they are unearthed in groups of several together.

The northern border of Shang culture moved south during the Yinxu period. At the same time bronzes belonging to the Northern complex spread through a vast region to the north of the Shang cultural area.

The appearance of Northern bronzes, characterized by specific types of short swords, fu battle-axes and daggers -- which we may take to represent the Northern bronzes of Period 1 -- must predate the Yinxu culture. During the early Yinxu period they exerted a fairly consider able influence. Analysis of the bronzes unearthed from the Fu Hao tomb reveals that, at the time of Wu Ding, the Shang were already using some Northern bronze articles. The Shang artisans not only copied Northern bronzes, they also adopted their chemical composition to improve traditional Shang tools and weapons.

On the other hand, bronzes from the Shang culture area exerted a similar influence on Northern bronzes. Some of these influences were limited to relatively close areas, whereas the ripples of other influence extended far into the distant regions. For example, the Northern “beak halberd” the creation of which was influenced by the Shang ge-halberd, was diffused as far as the Minusinsk Basin. The origin of the bronze bow-shaped article, however, which has, in the past, been taken as strong evidence for the extension of Shang influence as far as this basin may very well be in the region to the north of the Shang culture, and the Yinxu style bow-shaped bronze may, on the contrary, have been a variant of the Northern article which developed during the early Yinxu period. The influence of the authentic Yinxu style bow-shaped article only extended as far as the area of Jibei . The lobeless, geometric-patterned, hollow-socketed fu-axe, which developed from the hollow-socketed fu of the Erligang to Yinxu periods, may have early on exerted an influence as far as the southern edges of the Eastern Siberian forest.

A reexamination of the ties between the Karasuk and Yinxu cultures is needed. The theory that Seima bronzes exerted an influence on the Yinxu culture must be abandoned.

At the time of the Shang's arrival at Yinxu their material culture was characterized by: (1) oracle-bone inscriptions; (2) bronze decor in Loehr Styles IV and V; (3) bronzes inscribed with societal emblems and ancestral “dedications”; (4) particular ceramic forms; (5) rammed-earth house foundations; and (6) pit graves lined with wooden chambers. These features appear for the first time in association with Tomb 5, that of Fu Hao, the consort of Wu Ding. Shang cultural data at Yinxu earlier than the Tomb 5 period are scarce and scattered. They involve: (1) the architectural remains at Xiaotun before the rammed earth house foundations; (2) earlier Shang tombs (M188, 232, 333, 388); and (3) an earlier Shang tomb at Wuguancun Locus North. Conspicuous cultural changes took place from Pottery Period I (prior to the Tomb 5 period) to Pottery Period II (Tomb 5 period), including: (1) expansion of the area of occupation; (2) oracle-bone inscriptions, rammed-earth house foundations, and large tombs, all evidently associated with the royal house; (3) Period II pottery becomes predominant and Loehr's bronze Styles IV and V come to replace I-III, with inscriptions becoming numerous. It is suggested that the series of changes that occurred with the onset of the Tomb 5 period resulted from Pangeng's move of his capital to this site. If this is so, then the period of the three kings from Pangeng to Xiaoyi must be found within the period of Tomb 5 rather than within the Pottery Period I.

The late Shang represents a peak in bronze culture, and was the culmination of a long period of development. The words of the Duke of Zhou in the “Wu yi” chapter of the Shang shu that “The kings who arose after [Zu Jia], during their (whole) life enjoyed ease …. After this there were none who had any chance of reaching a high age…” is not sufficient to be relied upon. Nor is it appropriate to evaluate the entirety of Late Shang history solely on the basis of the large number of oracle bones from the reign of Wu Ding. The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, through an analysis of the contents of oracle-bone inscriptions from the Middle Late Shang, i.e., from Lin Xin to Wen Wu Ding, that there was continued progress in the fields of society, economy, and culture and in the political and military affairs of the ruling house.

Agriculture under the direct control of the Shang ruling house, including all sorts of agricultural activities, continued as before, and in some cases advanced beyond that of the previous age. In the area of handicrafts, metal casting, the “hundred craftsmen,” organizations of craftsmen and the official position of Director of Craftsmen all appear in the oracle bones. In terms of archaeology, the number, shape, manufacture, decoration, and inscriptions of bronze vessels reached a new plateau. The palace architecture and the geographical extent of residences at Yinxu were greatly expanded.

This paper tries to study the typology, terminology, and functions of the jades of the Shang dynasty by using an archaeological approach based mainly on archaeological materials from scientific excavations. This contrasts with the old method which relied upon questionable textual evidence and less well-documented jades in public and private collections. The main points of the paper are as follows:

(1) Ceremonial jades: Some jades of the Shang dynasty were ceremonial not practical objects, but the system of six jades called rui yu (auspicious jades) in the three Books of Rites is a fabrication devised by the Confucian scholars of the period of the late Zhou and early Han dynasties, who used what they could find of the surviving jade objects and customs of use and supplemented old texts and oral traditions with their own imaginations so as to make the system perfectly rational according to Confucian standards. In our excavations, we have not found a single case in which the jades were grouped in a set of six, nor have we found any evidence to verify the uses mentioned in the Books of Rites.

This paper takes the position that the “late Wu Ting” or “Period II” dating for M5, now accepted by many scholars, cannot be reconciled with the advanced typological and stylistic qualities exhibited by so many of its bronze vessels, and that therefore the reading of the M5 bronze inscriptions as “Fu Hao” and the viewing of this as the name of a single individual woman, the consort of Wu Ting, constitute a methodology which must be rejected. Instead, the inscriptions could be read as “Fu Tzu,” with Tzu ( ) recognized as the feminization of the Shang surname Tzu ( ). Since this name would have been inherited by all daughters of the Tzu clan, there would have been at any one time a sizable number of royal women of various ages appropriately titled “Fu Tzu” ; and the necessity of identifying the Fu Tzu of the M5 inscriptions only with a woman named in the Wu Ting oracle bones can be eliminated. It is, moreover, likely that even in the Wu Ting oracle-bone inscriptions the references to “Fu Tzu” actually concerned several different ladies of the royal clan—daughters or aunts of the king, as well as consorts (the royal clan being endogamous).

Both the paper and the author's presentation.

The paper deals with the oracle-bone inscriptions referring to Fu Hao (or Zi), indirectly addressing the question whether this Fu Hao is the same person as the one mentioned in the bronze inscriptions from M5 at Anyang. The combined researches of Shima Kunio and Yen I-p'ing have already established that all but one of the 262 Fu Zi oracle inscriptions so far known are from Tung Tso-pin's Period I. The only doubtful instance remaining is Jiabian 668, dated by Shima to Tung's Period IV. The main reason for this dating was the shape of the graph used for the character wu. On Jiabian 668, this graph is rendered as , whereas according to the received opinion it should, in Period I, have been 1, or 8. Chang Ping-Ch'üan, however, had also observed the graph in Period I oracle bones. Therefore he agreed with Hu Houxuan's opinion that Jiabian 668 ought to date from Period I. Among Tung Tso-pin's criteria for dating oracle bones, calligraphic style was decidedly the weakest, and it should not be made the basis for far-reaching arguments.

There is a logical flaw in dating Jiabian 668 to Period IV and at the same time assuming that Fu Hao was Wu Ding's consort. Neiteher Wu Yi nor Wenwu Ding could have referred to her as fu, but would have had to address her as mu, or bi, or gaobi. Yen-I-p'ing's hypothesis that Jiabian 668 was inscribed when Fu Hao had already long been dead did not take this into account.

(N.B. A version of this paper has now been published in Kaogu 1983.8:716-725.)

Of the bronze vessels discovered in 1976 when the Fu Hao tomb at Anyang was excavated, 190 were inscribed. The inscriptions were of 9 types. The most common, occurring on the most complete inventory of vessels, was the inscription Fu Hao (or Zi ), found on 109 vessels. The next most common was the inscription Si Tu Mu, occurring on 26 ritual bronzes, including one pair each of the square hu-jars, round jia-tripods, and round zun-beakers, one set of 11 gu-goblets, and one set of 9 jue-beakers. There was also a pair of large square zun-beakers inscribed with 4 characters, one line containing the characters Si Tu Mu, all written backwards, the other containing the character gui; including these there are 28 examples. The dating of these vessels is essentially the same as that of those vessels inscribed Fu Hao. It is very seldom that we find such a large number of vessels with the same inscription unearthed from the ritual bronze vessel horde of a single tomb. Bronzes with this inscription have been recorded since the Song dynasty and a bronze with this type of inscription was excavated from a Shang tomb at Xiaotun before liberation. There is also a bronze yue-axe with this inscription that currently exists. The study of this group of bronzes is very important.

In analyzing the inscription Si (Hou) Tu Mu Gui, one possible interpretation is that Tu Mu was the cognomen (Zi )of Fu Hao; another, is that it referred to a person close to Fu Hao in position. The inscription can be explained as Tu Mu, whose day name was Gui, or Mu Gui, whose name was Tu. She may have been another queen of Wu Ding, perhaps the Mu Gui sacrificed to in the Zu Geng and Zu Jia inscriptions, i.e., the Bi Gui who was the legitimate consort of Wu Ding in the Di Yi and Di Xin cyclical sacrifice records. Assuming this hypothesis is correct, then objects belonging to consorts Bi Xin and Bi Gui of Wu Ding have already been discovered. Since the discovery of the Fu Hao tomb, some scholars have put forth the theory that Mu Wu mentioned on the large inscribed Si Mu Wu ding-tripod may be Wu Ding's consort, Bi Wu. If the conclusions reached above can be established, then ritual bronze vessels belonging to all three of Wu Ding's consorts have been discovered. This fact is significant both for the study of the Shang ritual system and of the ritual bronzes.

(N.B. A version of this paper has now been published in Kaogu 1983.6:537-41.)

Fu Hao (or Fu Zi ) appears in the oracle-bone inscriptions from Anyang. The name is often seen in Period I inscriptions (from the time of Wu Ding) and occasionally in Period IV inscriptions (from the time of Wu Yi and Wen Ding). The two are separated by four kings (Zu Geng, Zu Jia, Lin Xin, and Kang Ding), perhaps by as much as one hundred years. Does the Fu Hao in both periods refer to the same person? How can we explain this phenomenon?

In the oracle-bone records of people and their activities there are cases where one figure is active in different periods. These names are often also place names, and these figures possess a populace and products. These names are probably what is termed “Clan-Territory titles” (a term found in the Gu shi kao, as quoted in the “Zheng yi” commentary to the Zuo zhuan). Based on their clan name they served hereditarily as officials. These clan names occur in historical literature, as in “In the past, our former kings were for generations Lords of Millet (Hou Ji ), serving under the Yü and Xia “(Guo yü “Zhou Yü” ); or “The Zhong and Li clans generation after generation ordered heaven and earth, … the Sima clan for generation after generation was in charge of the history of Zhou” (Shi ji, “Taishigong zixu” ).

This paper presents the results of a series of experiments attempting to determine the methods of selection, preparation, and use of turtle shell and cattle bone materials for divination during the Late Shang period. Specific topics covered include selection, preparation, drilling of burning-pits and application of heat, the reading by the diviners of the resulting cracks, the function of the historian's first writing the divination data on the bone before it was inscribed, the reason the cracks and divination data were carved into the bone and why pigment was applied to them, the actual inscription-carving technique, the result of experiments on methods of softening bones and shells, and preparing bronze and jade inscription-carving knives. I have examined excavation reports and earlier publications by scholars in the field and compared them with my own results in order to gain more complete understanding of the actual process of Late Shang oracle-bone divination. In the course of carrying out these experiments, I have made a number of discoveries which I hope may fill in some of the gaps that still exist in oraclebone studies after eighty-three years.

This paper takes issue with the widely prevailing assumption that the “charge” (ming ci) in a Shang oracle inscription must always be understood as a question. I hold that we must distinguish between what the diviner is saying in the charge, and what he is doing in the whole divination rite. What he is doing is not always seeking information; and even when he is doing this, what he says is usually not a question. I present various arguments and examples to show this, e.g.:

(1) Li Hsüeh-ch'in's research proves that the oracle language possessed grammatical forms, such as final particles and final negatives, for marking a sentence as a question. Therefore, I hold, our first assumption should be that when a diviner does not use these forms, he does not intend his sentence to be understood as a question.

(2) When two sentences in the same inscription -- e.g., charge and prognostication -- are alike in form (both of them being without final negatives or particles), it is a mistake to construe one of them as a question and the other as a statement. But a prognostication must be a statement.

The method of divining by yarrow stalk in accordance with the scheme of 64 hexagrams did exist in the Yin Dynasty. Numerical strings of three and six lines on oracle bones recently unearthed provide the new evidence for the above statement and many scholars have discussed it. My paper contributes the following new points:

(1) Comparing the 64 hexagram names in the Ma-wang-tui manuscript with those appearing in the so called Kuei-tsang () recorded by later scholars, we find some similarity on both sides. This indicates that the Kuei-tsang is not a legendary matter.

(2) Some Hsin-tien period wares found in Kansu also show the numerical marks such as . This also suggests that such trigram images had been used by still earlier people.

(3) The graph for nine “” was found on one oracle bone from Ch'i-chia . It shows that the Western Chou people had advanced the way of divining and thus the emphasis on Yin of the Yin people had been developed into the emphasis on Yang .

(4) I try to interpret, with reference to the sentences of Chou-yi, the divining hexagrams which appear on the bamboo strips found in T'ien-hsing-kuan , Chiang-ling . As the symbol of was still employed by the Ch'u people, it seems that they were following the way of the Yin people in the emphasis on Yin.

The authors see their paper as an attempt to analyze Shang meteorology through statistics, but explicitly not to reconstruct Shang weather. It is essentially an amplified study of the oracle-bone record along the lines pioneered by Wittfogel in his “Meteorological Records from the Divination Inscriptions of Shang” (1940), which has been followed up by contributions from Chinese scholars, notably Hu Houxuan. Compiling the data into a graph, the authors, whose research is still preliminary, conclude that during Shang times, there was more rainfall, that it took place during every month of the year, and that the weather was warmer.

This paper assembles three oracle-bone inscriptions divined at the same time from the Wu Yi-Wen Ding period. Two are identical, being a paired divination inquiring into whether the event ri yue you shi was or was not auspicious. The third asks whether, in light of this ri yue you shi, it would be auspicious to sacrifice to Shang Jia.

Since 1925, when Wang Xiang , first proposed th at the character yue should be read as xi, his position has been accepted by Liu Chaoyang De Xiaoqian , Chen Mengijia , Zhang Peiyü , Xu Zhentao , the Zhongguo Tianwenxue jianshi bianxiezu , and the Zhongguo Tianwenxueshi zhengli yenjiu xiaozu

Yue was first interpreted as yue in 1933 by Shang Chengzuo . Those subscribing to this reading include Dong Zuobin , Chen Zungui , Yü Xingwu Liu Chaoyang, Chen Mengiia, Joseph Needham, Zhao Quemin and Chen Banghuai .

Among these scholars Liu Chaoyang holds that “there is no distinction between xi and yue,” while Chen Mengjia believes that the phrase “ri yue you shi” can also be read “ri xi you shi,” hence they accept both interpretations.

In the Shang, time was represented by a system of combining shi gan (ten stem signs) and shi-er zhi (twelve branch signs), a complete cycle taking sixty days.

Many interpretations, some dating back to the Han period, have been made as to the meaning of the signs. I question the suitability of these theories and, using the original meaning of the characters together with different words of similar sound propose the possibility of a systematic interpretation. Shi gan symbolize stages in the development of a barley seed from germination in the earth to fruition, while shi-er zhi are taken to be stages from the conception of a child up to acceptance into the family. The cycle of the two sets of signs represents the idea of the diffusion of two forces within the cosmos: that which gives life to plants and all living things and that which gives them form and substance. Attention is also drawn to the relationship of the former with sun-worship and to that of the latter with moon-worship.

All translations or interpretations of the Shang oracular texts are ultimately founded on the way in which one understands the system of the early Chinese writing and its underlying principles. This writing system cannot be fully understood unless the study of the graphic structure of each writing unit is combined with that of all other factors that can be observed from the point of view of semantic content and phonology. A short discussion of these three aspects or factors in the writing system is intended to show that any graphic analysis from the very beginning needs to consider the word that is represented by the graphic unit and to determine it in meaning(s) and pronunciation(s), grammatical function(s), and its relationship with other words, whether cognates, synonyms or homonyms, liable to be used as loan units ( ). The graphic analysis must not only explain the pictographic aspects of the graphs, but also determine the possible phonetic, semantic, or etymonic roles played by any of its constituent parts. In this respect, processes like polyphony, polysemy, graphic convergence and confusions, and loan graph substitutions all require vigorous scrutiny from the point of view of the phonology of the Shang language. Besides using information from later bronze texts, classics, and early dictionaries, it is important to let the Shang data speak for themselves.