Shang Period Science, Technology, Inventions

Agriculture

As in later ages, agriculture was the base of economy during the Shang period 商しょう (17th-11th cent. BCE). Oracle bone inscriptions mention several types of ploughs (ji 耤, li 犂すき), as well as different types of fields, but the extent of cadastral survey and modes of field ownership are unknown.

Various types of grains are known, like glutinous millet (shu 黍きび) and black millet (ju 秬), but wheat (mai 麥むぎ) and dry-field rice (dao 稻いね) might have been cultivated, too, as well as hemp and mulberry trees for raising silkworms.

Wine (jiu 酒さけ) was widely used for banquets as well as for the many sacrifices delivered to ancestors (see Shang religion). The Shang apparently consumed so much wine that the kings of the Zhou dynasty 周しゅう (11th cent.-221 BCE) repeatedly warned not to become slaves of drunkenness.

For the same reason, cattle breeding played an important part in Shang agriculture. Animals were raised not only for consumption in the "metropolis" cities of Erligang 二里にり崗 and Anyang 安陽あんよう, but also to serve as sacrifices to the ancestral spirits.

Horses were bred for warfare, and also to draw chariots and carts. The Shang used as much as 10,000 cavalry troops in one campaign (Yin and Cao 1994: 102).

Bronze casting

While bronze casting was invented at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE in northwest China, the Shang period witnessed the industrialization of this technique with the help of clay moulds. Many Shang-period sites include workshops where the needs for ritual bronze vessels of the upper class were met. In southern places like Panlongcheng 盤ばん龍りゅう城じょう, Hubei, or Xingan 新しん干ひ, Jiangxi, musical instruments like bells (nao 鐃, zheng 鉦かね, ling 鈴すず, bo 鎛) and drums must be added to the range of bronze tools, as well as various fittings for chariots, and various working tools (shovels, hoes) and weapons (arrowheads, spearheads).

Figures 1a-c. Illustrations of bronze casting

Top: Foto of inner (xinxing 心しん型がた) and outer pieces (waifan 外そと範はん) of a mould for casting a bronze tripod. Middle and bottom: Drawing demonstrating add-on casting (buzhu 補ほ鑄い) of a leg and "soldering" (jiezhu 接せっ鑄い) of a leg on ready-made bodies of bronze vessels. From Li and Wan (1970).

Weapons, either ceremonial like axes (yue 鉞), or for real use like knives, swords, arrowheads, bow fittings or ge-type 戈ほこ dagger-axes were also made (see Shang military). Hoes (chu 鋤すき), mattocks (jue 钁), adzes (ben 錛) and spades (chan 鏟) were occasionally found, but the production of metal ploughs or other agricultural implements was not common. This means that the precious alloy of bronze was more or less reserved for use by the upper class, and not by commoners (Yin and Cao 1994: 99). The use of drills (zao 鑿) were common to pierce stones.

Instead of with bronze, quite a range of tools like spades, sickles (lian 鐮), knives (dao 刀かたな) or axes (fu 斧おの) was made of various types of stone.

Handicrafts

A great number of Shang-period sites includes workshops, which were often located outside the city. In these worksops, furnaces were found, models, moulds and rawlings.

In Gaochengtai 藁わら城じょう台だい, Shandong, and Liujiahe 劉りゅう家か河かわ in Pinggu 平谷ひらや close to Beijing, bronze yue-style axes with iron blade were found. According to chemical analysis, the iron originated in meteors (Wu 1994: 169; Taylor 1988).

Craftsmen were responsible to cut, polish and prepare oracle bones, and to cut in holes or cavities that were to receive a heating tool producing auspicious or inauspicious cracks for divination. When the divinatory process was over, the inquiry and its result was carved into the bone.

Workers polished and drilled stones and carved out, either as bas-relief (jiandiao 淺あさ雕), or as high relief (fudiao 浮雕), shapes and figures into precious stones like nephrite or jade, marble (dalishi 大理石だいりせき), "green crystal" (lüjing 綠みどり晶あきら), malachite (kongqueshi 孔雀石くじゃくせき), agate (manao 瑪瑙めのう), bone, or ivory. Craftsmen chiseled, drilled and sanded out figures of real or imaginary animals, and occasionally also anthropomorphical figures.

Soundstones (qing 磬かおる) made of dense mineralic stones belonged to the repertoire of Shang-period musical instruments.

Jade was a highly venerated material and served for many ritual objects like daggers or axes, square tubes (cong 琮), disks (bi 璧), rings (yuan 瑗), short, pointed "scepters" (gui 圭けい), long, sword-shaped "sceptres" (zhang 璋あきら), ring segments or "arcs" (huang 璜), or nearly closed rings (jue 玦). Alone in the tomb of Queen Fu Hao 婦ふ好こう which was excavated in 1976, more than 700 pieces of jade were found, among them of course also jewelry like pendants, rings, earrings, hairpins, and a thumb ring. Mineralic analysis showed that the jades in the tombs of Anyang hailed from Khotan in Xinjiang, Xiuyan 岫岩 in Liaoning, oder Nanyang 南陽なんよう in Henan.

Some bronze items were decorated with turquois stones (lüsongshi 綠みどり松石まついし), others plated in gold, particularly in the area of the Sanxingdui Culture 三星みつぼし堆うずたか文化ぶんか in modern Sichuan (Yin and Cao 1994: 122).

Apart from the very impressive bronze vessels, Shang-period tombs included huge numbers of ceramic vessels, part of which was glazed. Shang-period earthenware was based on models of the Longshan 龍山たつやま文化ぶんか (3200–1850 BCE), Yangshao 仰おおせ韶文化か (5000–2000 BCE) cultures, but refined and changed these earlier types and shapes. Many of the earthenware types were transformed into the material bronze. Craftsmen made use of models and wheel and so helped to standardize shapes, forms, and types.

The site of Erligang included a 1,400m²-large pottery workshop with no less than 14 kilns. Average ceramics was "gray pottery" (huitao 灰はい陶すえ), "red pottery" (hongtao 紅べに陶すえ), or "black pottery" (heitao 黑くろ陶すえ), while such of higher quality, made of kaolin, was whitish (baitao 白しろ陶すえ. They were burnt at temperatures higher than 1000° (Yin and Cao 1994: 108). Specimen of this type of proto-porcelain (yuanshi ciqi 原始げんし瓷器) were found in Yantai, Henan, and Panlongchen, but during the Anyang phase also farther in the north. Some scholars believe that the proto-porcelain hailed from the southern outskirts of the Shang realm (Campbell 2014: 92, 101).

Quite a number of ceramic vessels were perhaps not created for everyday use, but particularly for use as burial objects (mingqi 明器めいき, also written 冥めい器き "tools [made] for the darkness").

There is evidence of widespread sericulture in Shang China, as the term spinning and weaving are mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions. Traces of textile were found in the tomb of Fu Hao, where bronze vessels had been wrapped with fabric. From the Erlitou period 二里にり頭あたま文化ぶんか (2000–1500 BCE) on, the decoration on pottery was made by applying textiles on the still-soft surface. Some of the textiles showed an extreme density, with 72×26 strands per cm² (Wu 1994: 133).

Traces of lacquer are found in tombs, either from wooden vessels lacquered in red, or on the coffin, for example, of Queen Fu Hao. While the wood has decayed, the lacquer coating remains, at least partially (Yin and Cao 1994: 112).

Chariots which were introduced into China during the Anyang period, were often used as burial offerings. Yet all wooden parts have decayed, and only "shadows" remain. With the help of these and of the surviving metal fittings, the shape of chariots can be reconstructed. Chariots found in Anyang, Subutun 蘇そ埠屯, Shandong, and Laoniupo 老ろう牛うし坡 close to Xi'an 西安しーあん, Shaanxi, resemble each other very closely, which means that there was a type of standard chariot. The site of Xiaotun 小しょう屯たむろ in Anyang reveiled cart tracks with a width of just 1.5m, while that of the chariots was 2.2-2.4m (Yin and Cao 1994: 126-127). This means that there was a difference beetween chariots for war or hunting, and civilian carts.

Boats were not discovered so far, but are mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions.

Figure 2. Reconstruction of a Shang-period chariot

Source: Shi (1970), Vol. 1, 28 (Plate 10).

Construction work

Most Shang-period cities were protected by a city wall, some also with an outer moat. The city wall of Erligang was 7km-long and had 11 gates (Yin and Cao 1994: 105). The city of Panlongcheng was 290×260m large, with just four gates in an irregular wall. Anyang was not protected by a city wall (at least, no wall has been discovered so far). Another reason might be that there was a sufficient number of garrisons in Anyang for defense (see Shang military; Chang 1980: 134).

Excavations in Anyang laid free more than 50 buildings arranged in three complexes. These were temples, palaces, and perhaps administrative buildings.

Shang buildings and palaces as discovered in Anyang and Erligang were considerably huge constructions entirely made of perishable materials. The basement was pounded earth (hangtu 夯土), and the main pillars were protected from rotting by a stone (shichu 石いし礎いしずえ) or bronze base (tongchu 銅どう礎いしずえ). The palace of Erlitou was 108×100m long. The basement can be called a kind of terrace (tai 臺だい), a kind of construction already known in the Longshan and Liangzhu 良りょう渚なぎさ文化ぶんか (3400–2000 BCE) cultures.

The houses of the Shang period gradually went away from the mode of subterranean dwellings (xueju 穴居けっきょ) to overground buildings. The larger ones consisted of a great hall in the back, a courtyard for ceremonial use (ting 庭にわ), and side wings (wu 廡). The size of pillars indicated that the roofs might have impressive size.

Figure 3. Building foundation in Anyang

The drawings (top view and cross section) shows the positions of stone (shichu 石いし礎いしずえ) and bronze bases (tongchu 銅どう礎いしずえ) for the pillars of a buildings. The whole construction is inserted into pounded-earth sections. From Shi 1959: 48 (Plate 16).

Royal tombs as constructed in the last period of Shang were giant complexes with a deep shaft and longs ramps leading down into the burial chamber. The construction of the tombs alone must have required huge manpower.

Figure 4a-b. Building complex and shaft of a royal tomb in Anyang

The drawing to the left shows the whole building complex of Anyang. It is divided into a northern, a central, and a southern complex. The length of all three complexes is about 300m. From Shi 1959: 21 (Plate 4). The photo to the right showed excavators in work during the inspection of tomb M1001 in Anyang. The men are standing in upper parts of the tomb chamber, which has the shape of a cross with short legs. Ramps are coming down from all four sides, the photographer standing in one of them. From Gao (1962), Vol. 2, Plate VI.

Figure 5. Construction of a canal in the building complex of Anyang

Canal system in Anyang, top view, longitudinal sections, and cross section (right). The drawings shows the positions of wooden posts and the types of soil. From Shi (1959): 206 (Plate 81).

Figure 6. Tubes of a canal system in Yanshi

Segments of a water pipe constituting a canal system in the city of Yanshi. From Zhang (2015), fig. 7.

Surprisingly enough, the labour conscripts did not engage in waterwork, notwithstanding Karl Wittfogel's (1896-1988) theory of the hydraulic empire. The digging or irrigation canals or the erection of dams seemed not to be within the crucial tasks of the kings of Yin, like it became later one of the most important charges of the Chinese rulers.

The Chinese Calendar

Dating was an extremely important part of oracle bone inscriptions, not just because the court expected the results of harvest or other agricultural events, but also because sacrifices were due at fix days. For this reason, the calendar played an important role. The Chinese calendar was from the beginning a combination of a lunar calendar (yueli 月つき曆れき) with twelve months (cycles of the moon) with the solar year, determined by the summer and winter solstices.

The year consisted of four seasons, 24 "mini-seasons" or solar terms (ershisi jieqi 二に十じゅう四よん節氣せっき), and ten-day weeks (xun 旬しゅん). The days of each week were counted by a series of "numbers" called the Ten Celestial Stems (shi tiangan 十じゅう天てん干ひ). These numbers were also used as designations for branches of the royal house. The Ten Celestial Stems were combined with the "numbers" of another cycle, the Twelve Terrestrial Branches (shi'er dizhi 十じゅう二に地ち支ささえ) - or half of them -, resulting in a cycle of 60 combinations. These sufficed to count the days of two months or the years of an average human life. A year with 360 days includes six complete stem-branch-cycles. The full cycle is recorded on several oracle bones (Yin and Cao 1994: 113).

Figure 7. Writing exercise on a piece of bone

Exercise of carving (xike 習刻) the units of the sexagenary cycle (ganzhi 干支えと), rubbing of a shoulderblade. From Guo and Hu (1978ff.), Vol. 12, no. 38012, transcription Yao and Xiao (1989), Vol, 2, no. 38012.

Hints on the use of solar terms are found in the Confucian Classic Shangshu 尚書しょうしょ "Book of Documents", ch. Yaodian 堯典. Traces of an ancient calendar are seen in the text Xia xiaozheng 夏なつ小正おばさ "Small Calendar of the Xia" and the chapter Yueling 月つき令れい of the ritual classic Liji 禮れい記き.

The problem to reconcile the lunar with the solar year led to the decision to make use of long, 30-day months (dayue 大月おおつき), and short, 29-day months (xiaoyue 小月おづき). In early oracle bone inscriptions, a thirteenth month is used (shisanyue 十じゅう三さん月がつ), which served to fill the gap between the solar and the lunar year cycle. In the late Shang period, the "thirteenth month" was shifted from the end of the year to an intercalary position, as is common use in the traditional Chinese calendar, where it is called runyue 閏月じゅんげつ (Yin and Cao 1994: 114).

The combination of the solar with the lunar year resulted in an year cycle with a length of 365¼ days. The old calender was therefore called sifenli 四よん分ふん曆れき "Quarter Calendar".

The word nian 年とし (actually written 秊), today meaning "year", was the Shang word for harvest, and consists of the words 千せん "thousand" and 禾 "grain ear". The contemporary word for "year" was sui 歲とし and perhaps si 祀まつ, which actually means "offering". The word siji 祀まつ季き meant a quarter of a year, or a "sacrificial cycle", during which ancestral spirits were presented offerings according to a certain schedule (see Shang religion, Fig. 1).

The Shang used many different term for times of the day. This was important for the performance of certain sacrifices. Inscriptions mention the words day (ri 日ひ), night (xi 夕ゆう), noon (zhongri 中日ちゅうにち), dawn (dan 旦だん), dusk (hun 昏 or luori 落日らくじつ, written 各日かくじつ), morning (zhao 朝あさ), afternoon (ze 昃), grand meal (dashi 大食たいしょく) and lesser meal (xiaoshi 小食しょうしょく).

The Shang observed not just the starry sky, but also meterological phenomena, and recorded them acribically, and discerned between various strenghs of wind or rain or other types of precipitations.

Numerous records of eclipses of sun (rishi 日食にっしょく) and moon (yueshi), and discernd between partial (not recorded) and total eclipses (designated as 聞, i.e. 昏). Extraordinary phenomena like "new stars" are also recorded.

Arithmetics

The Shang used all numbers known in modern Chinese: single digits, and the digits ten (shi 十じゅう), hundred (bai 百ひゃく), thousand (qian 千せん) and ten thousand (wan 萬まん). Complex numbers like 2,656 are seen in inscriptions; the highest number found in oracle bone texts is 30,000 (Yin and Cao 1994: 116). The method of adding single digits by you 又また "and" was common (like "fifty and six" = 56). Counting was important for the control acreage, the number of cattle, or for astronomical calculations, and certainly also for construction projects.

Calculation in tens or in steps of five was widespread. The concepts of odd numbers (qishu 奇數きすう) and even number (oushu 偶數ぐうすう) was known, just like and multiples (beishu 倍數ばいすう). This was particularly important to express individual status by offering sacrificial animals or furnishing tombs with certain numbers of vessels or other objects.

Medicine

Oracle bone inscriptions include reports about various diseases of men, animals and crops. These might be first traces of a kind of "observal medicine".

The inquiries in divinatory texts speak often of aches in all parts of the royal body. Medical terms using the word "wind" are common. This shows an ealy use of the concept of winds as origis of diseases (fengji 風ふう疾やまし).

A story mentioned by the Daoist master Huangfu Mi 皇すめらぎ甫はじめ謐 (215-282) (Jiayi jing 甲乙こうおつ經けい) tells that chief minister Yi Yin 伊い尹いん (perhaps in the function of a medium) once prepared a medicine for king Tang the Perfect 成なり湯ゆ.

A tomb in Gaochengtai 藳城臺だい, Hubei, revealed leftovers of plants, which might have been medicine. The same tomb included a lacquered box containing a stone tool which was perhaps a medical instrument (Yin and Cao 1994: 118).

Some palatial buildings of Erligang, Yanshi 偃師, and Anyang included drainage tubes of earthenware, perhaps used to discard wastewater - an early proof of hygiene in private homes (Yin and Cao 1994: 119; Li 2011; Zhang 2015). The building complex in Anyang included a complex canal system, in which the walls were stabilized by wooden posts. Other evidence for hygiene is the use of the expressions mu 沐 and yu 浴よく in oracle bone inscriptions, both meaning to wash or to bathe.

Geographical knowledge

More than 500 place names are mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions. The repeated transfer of the royal seat to another place – historiographical sources speak of 13 transfers – shows that the Shang were familiar with the geography of a wide area in the Central Plain. Moreover, there was constant warfare between the Shang kings and recalcitrant regional lords, involving huge numbers of troops – between 3,000 and 13,000 (Yin and Cao 1994: 129) which made knowledge of distant regions necessary.

The Chinese script

The appearance of the Chinese script in King Wu Ding's 武たけ丁ちょう (trad. r. 1324-1266 BCE) reign is no proof that a kind of script was invented and used exclusively in Yin (today's Anyang, Henan) and from this time on, but doubtlessly, the decision to records the outcome of divinations was an important step in cementing important elements in what was to become Chinese culture.

The oldest traces of script on pottery were found in Linzi 臨淄 in the 1870s and Chengziya 城じょう子こ崖がけ, both Shandong, in the 1920-30s, and also in Anyang. In all instancs, characters served rather as markers than as script (Chang 1980: 241). Chinese writing thus had its roots in the marking of pottery for social identification. Unlike in the Near East (Sumer, Babylon, Egypt), where writing begain with the use of accounting, the earliest written texts in China were political in nature (Chang 1980: 247-248). Campbell (2018: 123) contradicts this assumption and holds that the Shang also compiled inventories, and not just records of divinations.

The first Chinese characters appear on hard materials as oracle bones and bronze vessels. Yet it must be assumed that the script was invented and used before on non-durable material like bamboo or wooden slips. The chapter Duoshi 多士たし in the Classic Shangshu holds that the Shang made use of archives (cedian 典てん). Precursors of the script can be seen in markers on pottery found in Neolithic sites.

The basic modes of putting together characters are fully developed in oracle texts: pictographs (xiangxing 象形しょうけい) or "pictures", ideographs (zhishi 指事しじ) expressing an idea, combinations of two characters (huiyi 會意かいい) forming a new one, combinations of shape and sound (xingsheng 形聲けいせい) expressing the field of meaning together with a pronunciation, and borrowing (jiajie 假借かしゃく) a character for another one.

The language of the oracle bone inscriptions, Early Archaic Chinese, is full of specific terms and makes use of characters that later disappeared. About 2,000 characters can be interpreted, while many others have an unknown meaning. The text is hardly to understand even if one has learned to read Classical Chinese.