Compare
and Contrast
Name: Joshua C.
Date: March 16 2015
Period: 1
Subject: History
Teacher: Mrs. Hansen
Topic: Chinas Dynasties
Compare
The Dynasties below made Historical things
Shang Dynasty
Qin Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty
made Historical
things such as the
Bronze Axe
The Qin Dynasty
Made Historical
Things such as the
Terracotta
Soldiers and the
Great Wall Of
China
The Zhou Dynasty
made Historical
things such as the
Western Zhou
Ceremonial Bronze
Cooking Vessel
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty
made Historical
Pottery such as a
the
East Han
Seismograph
Contrast
Shang Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
1500 BC - 1027 BC
The Zhou Dynasty Lasted
Longer than any other
Qin Dynasty
221
BC - 206 BC
Dynasty
1027 BC - 256 BC
The Dynasties lived in different parts of China
Han Dynasty
202 BC - 220 BC
Chinas Dynasties (Reading)
(Shang Dynasty)
The
Shang Dynasty
or
Yin dynasty
according to
traditional historiography
, ruled in the
Yellow River
valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the
Xia dynasty
and followed
by the
Zhou dynasty
. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the
Classic of History
,
Bamboo Annals
and
Records of the Grand Historian
. According to
the traditional chronology based upon calculations made approximately 2,000 years ago
by
Liu Xin
, the
Shang ruled from 1766 to 1122 BC,
but according to the chronology
based upon the "current text" of
Bamboo Annals
, they ruled from
1556 to 1046 BC.
The
XiaShangZhou Chronology Project
dated them from c.
1600 to 1046 BC.
Archaeological work at the
Ruins of Yin
(near modern-day
Anyang
), which has been
identified as the last Shang capital, uncovered eleven major Yin royal tombs and the
foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both
animal and human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of
bronze
,
jade
,
stone
,
bone
,
and
ceramic
artifacts have been obtained. The workmanship on the bronzes attests to a high
level of civilization.The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of
Chinese
writing
, mostly
divinations
inscribed on
oracle bones
turtle shells, ox
scapulae
, or
other bones.
More than 20,000 were discovered in the initial scientific excavations
during the 1920s and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. The
inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and
religious practices to the art and medicine of this early stage of Chinese civilization.
(Traditional Accounts)
Many events concerning
the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various
Chinese classics
,
including the
Book of Documents
,
the
Mencius
and the
Commentary of Zuo
.
Working
from all the available documents, the
Han dynasty
historian
Sima Qian
assembled a
sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his
Records of the Grand Historian
.
His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king
is given. A closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the
Bamboo Annals
.
The
Annals
were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history and the
authenticity of the surviving versions is controversial.The name
Yn
is used by Sima Qian
for the dynasty, and in the
Bamboo Annals
for both the dynasty and its final capital. It
has been a popular name for the Shang throughout history, and is often used specifically
to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still
referred to almost exclusively as the Yin (
In
) dynasty. However it seems to have been
the
Zhou
name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the oracle bones,
which refer to the state as
Shng
(), and the capital as
Dy Shng
( "Great
settlement Shang").
(Course of the dynasty)
Sima Qian's
Annals of the Yin
begins by describing the
predynastic
founder of the
Shang lineage, Xie also appearing as Qi as having been miraculously conceived when
Jiandi
, a wife of
Emperor Ku
, swallowed an egg dropped by a black bird. Xie is said to
have helped
Yu the Great
to control the
Great Flood
and for his service to have been
granted a place called Shang as a fief.Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was
founded 13 generations later, when Xie's descendant
Tang
overthrew the impious and
cruel final
Xia
ruler in the
Battle of Mingtiao
. The
Records
recount events from the
reigns of Tang,
Tai Jia
,
Tai Wu
,
Pan Geng
,
Wu Ding
,
Wu Yi
and the depraved final
king
Di Xin
, but the rest of the Shang rulers are merely mentioned by name. According
to the
Records
, the Shang moved their capital five times, with the final move to Yin in
the reign of Pan Geng inaugurating the golden age of the dynasty.Di Xin, the last Shang
king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by
Wu of Zhou
.
Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou
rebels in the decisive
Battle of Muye
. According to the
Yi Zhou Shu
and
Mencius
the
battle was very bloody. The classic,
Ming
-era novel
Fengshen Yanyi
retells the story of
the war between Shang and Zhou as a conflict where rival factions of gods supported
different sides in the war.
After the Shang were defeated, King Wu allowed Di Xin's son
Wu Geng
to rule the
Shang as a
vassal
kingdom. However, Zhou Wu sent three of his brothers and an army to
ensure that Wu Geng would not rebel. After Zhou Wu's death, the Shang joined the
Three Governors' Rebellion
against the
Duke of Zhou
, but the rebellion collapsed after
three years, leaving Zhou in control of Shang territory.
(Descendants)
After Shang's collapse, Zhou's rulers forcibly relocated "Yin diehards" () and
[11]
scattered them throughout Zhou territory.
Some surviving members of the Shang
royal family collectively changed their surname from the ancestral name Zi () to the
name of their fallen dynasty, Yin. The family retained an aristocratic standing and often
provided needed administrative services to the succeeding Zhou dynasty. The
Shiji
states that
King Cheng of Zhou
, with the support of his regent and uncle, the
Duke of
Zhou
,
enfeoffed
Weiziqi (), a brother of Di Xin, as the Duke of
Song
, with its
capital at
Shangqiu
. The Dukes of Song would maintain rites honoring the Shang kings
until Song was conquered by
Qi
in 286 BC.
Confucius
was a descendant of the Shang
[12]
[13]
[14]
Kings through the Dukes of Song.
The
Dukes of Yansheng
are in turn the
descendants of Confucius.The
vassal state
of
Guzhu
, located in what is now
Tangshan
,
was formed by another remnant of the Shang, and was destroyed by
Duke Huan of
[17]
Qi
.[15]
[16]
Many Shang clans that migrated northeast after the dynasty's collapse were
integrated into
Yan
culture during the
Western Zhou
period. These clans maintained an
[18]
elite status and continued practicing the sacrificial and burial traditions of the Shang.
Both Korean and Chinese legends state that a disgruntled Shang prince named
Jizi
, who
had refused to cede power to the Zhou, left China with a small army. According to these
legends, he founded a state known as
Gija Joseon
in northwest Korea during the
Gojoseon
period of ancient Korean history. However, the historical accuracy of these
legends is widely debated by scholars.
(Qin Dynasty)
