Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-07T21:46:10.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Cracking the secret bones: literacy and society in late Shang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Li Feng
Li Feng
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
Get access

Summary

With the arrival of the late Shang with its political center relocated to the south of the Huan River in Anyang, the study of Early China has gained another footing – contemporary written evidence. We are now able to understand the past not only through the material remains it has left behind and to a limited degree through the retrospective documentation produced by later generations, but also through the eyes of the protagonists of history. The perspectives offered by such written evidence, though not without bias (as is true for all records which are the products of the human mind), are unparalleled in the sense that they are both the eyewitness record of the time they speak about, and also the least ambiguous presentation of events and institutions that are usually not directly evident in the material remains. In the case of the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, particularly because they were the divination records of the Shang kings, they offer especially rich information about the concerns and activities of the king and the operation of the Shang royal court. But there are other areas in which we can only expect that they remain silent.

Type
Chapter
Information
Early China
A Social and Cultural History
 , pp. 90 - 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Keightley, David. “The Shang,” in Loewe, Michael and Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 286–288.Google Scholar
Keightley, David. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Keightley, David. “Marks and Labels: Early Writing in Neolithic and Shang China,” in Stark, Miriam T. (ed.), Archaeology of Asia (Malden: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 177–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keightley, David. The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China (ca., 1200–1045 BC) (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000).Google Scholar
Bagley, Robert, “Anyang Writing and the Origin of the Chinese Writing System,” in Houston, Stephen D. (ed.), The First Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 190–249.Google Scholar
Chang, K. C., Shang Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Allan, Sarah, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China (Albany: State University of New York, 1991).Google Scholar
Boltz, William G., The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1994), pp. 38–41Google Scholar
Boltz, William G., “Literacy and the Emergence of Writing in China,” in Feng, Li and Branner, David (eds.), Writing and Literacy in Early China: Studies from the Columbia Early China Seminar (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011), pp. 51–84Google Scholar
von Falkenhausen, Lothar, “Issues in Western Zhou Studies: A Review Article,” Early China 18 (1993), 146–147, 167Google Scholar
Keightley, David, “Marks and Labels: Early Writing in Neolithic and Shang China,” in Stark, Miriam T. (ed.), Archaeology of Asia (Malden: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 184–185Google Scholar
Bagley, Robert, “Anyang Writing and the Origin of the Chinese Writing System,” in Houston, Stephen D. (ed.), The First Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 190–249Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Edwin G., “The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times,” in Keightley, David (ed.), The Origins of Chinese Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 411–466Google Scholar
Keightley, David, Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscription of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of Canifornia Press, 1978), pp. 12Google Scholar
Pankenier, David W., “A Brief History of Beiji (Northern Culmen), with an Excursus on the Origin of the Character Di,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 124.2 (2004), 229–235CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allan, Sarah, “On the Identity of Shang Di and the Origin of the Concept of a Celestial Mandate,” Early China 31 (2007), 1–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Aihe, Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 28–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allan, Sarah, The Shape of Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 25, 54–56Google Scholar
Chang, K. C., Shang Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 158–209Google Scholar
Keightley, David, “The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese Political Culture,” History of Religions 17.3–4 (1978), 214–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keightley, David, “The Shang,” in Loewe, Michael and Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 286–288Google Scholar
Keightley, David, The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China (ca., 1200–1045 B.C) (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000), p. 58Google Scholar
Fiskesjö, Magnus, “Rising from Blood-Stained Fields: Royal Hunting and State Formation in Shang China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 73 (2001), 48–192Google Scholar
Keightley, David, “The Late Shang State: When, Where, and What?” in The Origins of Chinese Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 540–543Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×