Shang – From 18 to 21

Reflection of the Shang Dynasty through Bronze and Bones

For my initial post, I read content on bronze casting. Luckily, throughout the week, most of my classmates concentrated on bone carving. Reading their blog posts incentivized me to consider ideas on a grander, broader scale and naturally compare between the two means of record-keeping. One such question that continually arose was the difference between bronze and bone, in terms of technique, usage, and societal understanding.

What I found interesting was that the passages about bronze casting highlighted the how, the intricacies of creating the final bronze products, such as the division of labor and technical skill, while those about bone carving emphasized the why, the purpose. The engravings in bronze were formed by utilizing negative space of specifically-made contraptions. Both bone and bronze seem to carry importance in the realm of divinity. However, they were used differently. The bronze was often included in rituals and burials, and the bones were used to communicate with predecessors and formulate predictions.

I ended this week with more questions than when it started, but I learned about the Shang Dynasty’s interpretation of afterlife and their investments in animals and metals.

Things I Learned this Week

The techniques of bronze casting and bone engraving.
The purpose of each.
The Shang Dynasty valued records and history, as shown by ancestral communication and record-keeping.

Bibliographic References

Hansen, Valerie. “Chapter 1: The Beginnings of the Written Record”. In The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800, 18-55. Seconded. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.

Keightley, David. “Chapter 1: The Oracle Bone Inscriptions of the Late Shang Dynasty”. Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600, edited by W. deBary et al. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1999.

Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Horowitz, Joshua. “Literacy in Ancient China”. In People and Their Stuff: A History of China in Objects Now Preserved in North America. URL: http://scalar.tdh.bergbuilds.domains/hst137/chapter-1-the-shang-dynasty

Ledderose, Lothar. “Casting Bronze the Complicated Way” Chapter 2 in Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1998. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Bronze and Labor from the Shang Dynasty

I focused on the additional reading about the bronze material used as inscription. In an excerpt from Lothar Ledderose’s Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art, during the Shang era, the technique of casting bronze was unique, complicated, and counterintuitive. Unlike the rest of the world, China created designs by utilizing negative space formed from clay molds, into which the bronze was cast. High artistic and technical skill was required by the artisans of the Shang dynasty. This unusual technique favored the development of a social system, the division of labor. The compartmentalized feature of Chinese bronze casting with many smaller steps supports standardization and coordination with other laborers. I think this division of labor can also be considered in the creation of the Great Wall: many people are involved, and each person has his own designated job to help bring the wall to completion.

**Ritual wine vessel**, approx. 1300–1050 from Shang dynasty (1600–1050 B.C.E.). China; Henan province. *Courtesy of the Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection*.

Similar to last week’s passages, the readings from this week show how the culture of the time period is displayed through the creations of the people. I anticipate this motif to be carried throughout the semester.

Bibliographic References

Hansen, Valerie. “Chapter 1: The Beginnings of the Written Record”. In The Open Empire: A History of China to 1800, 18-55. Seconded. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.