China Before the Han Dynasty

:

William

Watson

litor

VNIEL

CHINA

«7-5L>

CHINA Until the last few years, the archaeology of China has been a matter of fragmentary knowledge, speculation, and uncertainty. Since the war, however, much new information has come to light and, above all, the results of research have been organized so as to be available to scholars in a field where previous books have become out of date more rapidly than in any other. A new picture is being built up of early China, which is now presented to the English

reader for the

first

time.

There are two reasons for

this spectacular

excavation in China had lagged far behind the West in the techniques of digging and recording, so that many of the finds valuable and often very beautiful were unlocated and undated in themselves and so of limited value to the archaeological historian. Now, however, controlled excavations are conducted there with standards of precision comparable to those expected in the West. Secondly, the results of this research have, especially since 1949, been more and more fully documented in learned periodicals. The task of assembling the evidence and comparing material relics from all over the vast territory of China is now much easier than hitherto. Sites previously excavated inadequately and objects already forming parts of museum collections are being reinterpreted and are gradually falling into place in the general pattern.

progress.

—

Firstly,

—

Mr. Watson's expert knowledge of Chinese him to keep pace with this advance.

enables

Much

of the information contained here has never before been published in English. To the new material, moreover, he has been able to apply the critical standards current

European and American archaeology, and book which the specialist will find an important addition to knowledge, and which will be a source of pleasure

in

so to produce a

to every reader interested in Chinese history

and

its

background.

See back flap for information on the author

Ancient Peoples and Places

CHINA

General Editor

DR.GLYN DANIEL

Ancient Peoples and Places

CHINA BEFOKE THE

HAN DYNASTY

William Watson

PHOTOGRAPHS LINE DRAWINGS AND 3 MAPS

77 65

FREDERICK

A.

PRAEGER

Publishers

New

York

•

Washington

THIS

IS

VOLUME TWENTY/THREE

IN

THE SERIES

Ancient Peoples and Places

GENERAL EDITOR: DRGLYN DANIEL

BOOKS THAT MATTER Published in

in the

United States of America

1961 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers

111 Fourth Avenue,

New

Second Printing [with All

York, N.Y. 10003

corrections)

1966

rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-14103

©

William Watson 1961

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION I

Palaeolithic sites

Microlithic Cultures in the

II

ii

THE PALAEOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC PERIODS The

22 28

Gobi

Desert, Mongolia and Manchuria

31

The Yang Shao Neolithic Culture The Kansu Neolithic Culture The Lung Shan Culture Neolithic Cultures in the Southeast

37 41

THE EARLIER BRONZE AGE: THE SHANG DYNASTY

48

54

Storage Pits

57 58 67

The Chronology of Shang

Sites

The Great Shang Tombs

69

Ritual Bronze Vessels

75

Bronze Casting

79 82

Arms Pottery

Augury The Shang II

7

94 99 State

THE LATER BRONZE AGE: THE CHOU DYNASTY

103

109

Tombs

114 120 122 126

Arms

131

Religion and Feudal Ceremonial Fortified Cities

Architecture

Iron

and the Chariot

I4O

IV

THE ART OF THE BRONZE AGE Motifs of the Sbang Period Innovations of the Early Cbou Period

The Middle Cbou Period Interlacery and local

Northern Styles

Bronzes of the Cb'u State Some Unorthodox Funeral Art

An

Independent Bronze

Art

I48

150 157 160 162 168 178

in

Yunnan Sculpture and fade Carving

180

184

TEXT REFERENCES

187

BIBLIOGRAPHY

192

SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS

204

THE PLATES

20$

NOTES ON THE PLATES

253

INDEX

261

1

ILLUSTRATIONS plates

2

i,

3

4 5

6

Earth impressions, Hsi Pei

8

Royal Shang tomb, Hsi Pei Musical stone,

ii

Chariot burial,

12

Stepped

13

15

Shang Bronze Shang Bronze Shang Bronze

16

Limestone

17

Shang Shang Shang Shang Shang

18 19, 20, 21

22 23

Kang Kang

Wu Kuan Ts'un Wu Kuan Ts'un

Shang tomb,

io

14

Ta

pit burial,

Ssu

Ta

Kung Kung

Ssu

ritual vessel, tsun ritual axe, yueh ritual vessel, tsun

figure

of seated

man

Bronze

ritual vessel, bo

bronze

ritual goblet,

bronze

ritual vessels, yu, chia,

ku

bronze

ritual goblet, chiieh

24

Oracle bones Early

26

Shang bone handle

27

Horse's head as bronze pole

Chou

bronze harness mounts

finial

vessels, ting,

30

Shang bronze ritual Shang carved white

3

Bronze

yu

ritual vessel,

kwng

clay vase

34

Shang bronze

35

Inscription from kuei

36

Bronze harness mount, and pole Bronze statuette of serving/man

37

li

ceremonial halberd, ko

25

28, 29

3 3,

at

7 9

32,

Pan P'o Ts'un, Shensi Flexed burial grave, Pai Tao P'ing, Kansu Storage pits, Pan P'o Ts'un, Shensi Pottery bowl, Pan P'o Ts'un, Shensi Funeral urns, Kansu Yang Shao culture

Excavations

ritual vessels, ting, kuei

finial

PLATES

38

Bronze bridle cheek'piece

39

Bronze axlccap and linclvpin from chariot

40

Bronze

41

Bronze openwork plaque

42

Bronze axe^head

43

Winged

44

Bronze plaque of tiger and deer

45

Bronze plaque of tiger

46

ko, Shou Hsien and inlaid bronze spearhead Bronze sword with Scythian^type hilt Bronze sword of Classical Chinese type Bronze sword and scabbard Iron bivalve axe mould, Hsing Lung Hsien Earth impressions of chariots, Liu Li Ko

47 48

49 50 5i

52

68,

ritual vessel, ting

tiger as

bronze handle

Bronze halberd,

Inscribed

53

Bronze

bell

54

Bronze mirror

55

Bronze

56

Gilt

57

Bronze

58

Bronze inlaid table-leg

59

Silver/gilt inlaid belt'hook

coffin

handle

openwork dagger handle tiger

man

60

Bronze

statuette

61

Bronze

flask, pien

62

Inlaid base,

63

64

Jade cup, Late Chou jade dragon

65

Late

66

Late

67

Late

69

Inlaid gilded'bronze belthooks

70

Inlaid bronze belthook

71

Carved wooden head, Ch'ang Sha Carved wooden monster, Hsin Yang Bronze spearhead, Shih Chai Shan

72 73

of serving hu

Chin Ts'un Chin Ts'un

Chou jade sword guard Chou ritual jade pi Chou jade slide

8

plates

74

Bronze ornament, Shih Chai Shan

75

Painting on

76

Lacquered

77

Painted design,

figures

1

Map

Ch'ang Sha Ch'ang Sha Hsin Yang

silk,

shield,

of modern

China showing

2

Palaeolithic stone tools, p.

3

Mesolithic tools, p. 31

sites,

p.

20

27

4

Neolithic stone axes and knives, p.

5

Pottery Kilns,

6 8

Yang Shao pottery, p. 43 Painted pottery, Kansu Yang Shao culture, p. 43 Pottery head, Kansu Yang Shao culture, p. 47

9

Map

7

10 11

12 13

14 15

16 17 1

19 20 21

22 23

24

Cheng Chou,

showing find' spots oj

34

p. 40

neolithic sickles, p.

Lung Shan pottery, p. 53 Sector C, Hsiao T'un Anyang, p. 65 Plan and section oj storage pit, Hui Hsien, Plan of great tombs, Hsi Pei Kang, p. 70 Great tomb, Wu Kuan Tsun,p. 73

68

Ritual bronze vessels of the Shang period, p. 77 bolts, pp. 82, 83 Emblematic characters, Shang period, pp. 84, 8$

Arrowheads and cross-bow

Bronze Bronze Bronze

Shang period, p. 86 of the Shang period, p. 86

halberds of the sacrificial knife

socketed axes, p. 87

Knife and spearheads, Late Shang, pp. 88, 89 Key to chariot burial, Ta Ssii K'ung, p. 91

Jade animal amulets, Ta Ssii K'ung, p. 93 Development of pottery, bronzes, stone axes and

26

oracle bones, pp. 96, 97 Bone pins of the Shang period, pp. 98, 99 Table of earliest form of Chinese writing,

27

Pottery of the Western

2$

p.

49

p. 101

Chou period, p. 112

28

Map

29

30

Plan of Chao Wang Ch'eng, p. Engraved decoration, Hui Hsien,

31

Plan of tombs, Pan

of Feudal States, p- 115

(

Po

1

23

p. 12$

Tsun,p. 128

FIGURES

32 33 34 35

36 37

38 39

Bronze

trigger

mechanism of cross-bow, p. 134

Li Ko, p. 13J Bronze swords, p. 138 Bronze sword with hand' and' serpent mark, p. 138 Bronze halberds, p. 140 Bronze spearheads, Chung Chou Lu, p. 141 Reconstruction of chariot, Liu

40

Iron edges for axe and spade, p.

41

Pottery of 6th' 4th centuries B.C., p. 146

42

Designs from Late Shang bronze

43

44

Jade amulets of Later Shang period, p. 155 Bronze pole finial of Later Shang period, p. i$6

45

Decorative motifs from bronzes, p. 160

46 4j

48 49

50 51

$2 53 57 $5

56 57

$8 $9

10

Plan of great tomb, Ku Wei Tsun,p. 130 Plan of shaft grave, Ch'ang Sha, p. 133

1

43 vessels, p. 151

Harness cheek'piece of bronze, p. 161 vessel, Hsin Cheng, p. 162 Dragon motifs, Hsin Cheng, pp. 162, 163

Design from bronze

Dragon diaper motif, Hsin Cheng, p. 164 Bronze hu, Chao Ku,p. 166 Bronze tau, Chia Ko Chuang, p. 167 Design from bronze vase, p. 168 Decoration from bronze hu,p. 169 Dragon and tiger designs, p. ijo Bronze vessels and bells, Sbou Hsien, p. 171 Bronze openwork ornament, p. 172 Bronze belt'hooks, pp. 172, 173 Decoration from lacquered box, p. 173 Decoration from lacquered toilet box, p. 174

60

Silver inlaid design, p. 174

61

62

Painted pottery, Shao Kou, p. 175 Design from lid of bronze tou, p. 176

63

Bronze

64 6$

Figures from musical instrument, p. 179 Decorated socketed bronze axe, p. 181

66

Decoration from bronze drum, p. 183

67

Limestone owl, p. 185

68

Ritual jades of the Shang period, p. 186

inlaid belt'hook, p.

177

1

Introduction

Unlike

some nations

described in the books of

the present series, the Chinese people

is

not difficult to

Yellow river from time immemorial. Even the Palaeolithic race, whose bones have been found there, shares some physical peculiarities define historically. It has occupied the valley of the

with the present inhabitants. While the archaeologist may point out culture'traits which connect with other regions, he discovers

no evidence of

movements from without of a size and coherence likely to determine thenceforth the racial and cultural constitution of the land. The manner and the time of the tribal

colonisation of the great Central Plain of north China, sup'

posing such a thing were ever a definable historical event,

is

beyond knowledge and conjecture alike. Within the larger sphere of eastern Asia the Chinese people as we know it today is better defined by language and culture than in anthropological terms. In general a distinction of the physical type may be observed north and south of the Yangtze river,

a boundary

tural division

which corresponded

between the

relatively

in early times to a cul'

advanced

civilisation

of

and the more primitive south. The popular and brown^eyed, is com/ paratively taller and much of it has the Mongol characteristics of yellow skin, slanting eyes and prominent cheek-bones. But other individuals are lighter of skin, with rounder eyes and flatter cheek/bones. In the south the average height is less, the skin is browner and the Mongol characteristics are rarer. We may assume that the periodic infiltration of tribes from the Central Plain

tion north of this line, black'haired

the north into the settled region of the river valley, a constant

theme in the rulers for

early histories

thousands of

which caused anxiety to Chinese had begun long before these

years,

1

China barbarians appeared as a threat to the half of the second millennium B.C.

Shang

The

state

result

in the second

of this contact

is

some groups of the north Chinese them to the Turkish, Tibetan and

reflected in physical traits in

population which

Tungusic

races.

relate

In the south anthropologists speak of a similar

admixture of elements belonging characteristically to the peoples of south-east Asia. In both areas

it is

assumed

that these extran/

eous racial elements fused with an autochthonous Chinese stock,

though the definition of a pure Chinese

strain

seems to

elude anthropologists, and, fortunately for the theme of this

book, has no bearing on cultural noticeable today are

no

is

The

distinctions

greater than those existing in

and

race of multiple origins, local differences. It

history.

clear,

similarities

any great

preponderate over

however, that the expansion of the

Chinese southwards in the past (culturally the process may be observed from Neolithic times) displaced as well as absorbed peoples of somewhat different ethnic character.

Lolo of south-west China surviving

at

The Miao and

the present day as

'national minorities' are unsinicised remainders of a population

which once covered

whole of the southern region. History records that peoples allied to these, no longer distinguishable from the Chinese population, once occupied territory farther east than their present home. Neolithic and Bronze Age civilisation first arose in China in the region extending westwards from the coast approximately between the 35th and 40th parallels of latitude, comprising the lower and middle course of the Yell ow river as far as its abrupt northward turn on the boundary ofShensi province, the

thence extending westwards along the the river basins of central

zone

is

well defined.

The

Kansu. a lluvial

To

Wei

river valley into

and south this plain of Hopei is bounded the north

by quasi/steppe land on the north, while the northern tracts of Shansi, Shensi and Kansu pass into desert. Kansu is mountain^locked to west, and south, and the succession of east-

12

Introduction

west mountain ranges (Pei Ling Shan, Ch'in Ling Shan, Huai Ling Shan) continuing eastwards through Shensi and

Honan marks

the southern limit of this primary cultural area.

In the south-east, where the mountain line ceases, the land drained into the river Huai, and here the lowlying

around the lower Yangtze, rich in lakes and marsh,

is

tracts

are easily

from the Central Plain. The region we have defined coincides approximately with the distribution of the loess, a fine, compact and permeable soil, fertile and easily worked, which is believed to have been carried accessible

by wind from hither Asia during the Pleistocene period

as a

concomitant of the climatic changes which produced the

Age. In Kansu it lies in great depth, often exceeding 200 feet, and in places is eroded into fantastic narrow ravines. The regime of erosion and the sudden heavy rains which cause it, cease as we pass eastwards through Shensi pro' vince, and from the junctions of the Wei with the Yellow river begins the Central Plain proper. Here the loess has been redeposited by soil/sated rivers which ever tend to raise their beds above the level of the plain and spread their fertilising floods. Th is^ is the regio n where uncontrollable flooding has caused periodic disasters" throughout Chine se history aird where the greater possibilities of irrigationhave helped the farmer with the problem of watering the porous loess. On the

glaciations of the Ice

—

loess ter ritory

of both kinds

nortFT^hjna, though we

flouri shed the Neolithic cultures

shall note differences

remains found in the area of primary Plain.

The

loess

of _

between the

and in the Central

natural route of expansion lay in the south/east

towards the mouth of the Yangtze.

The T'ai

western edge of the Central Plain follows the line of the

Hang

divides

range,

off the

province of Shansi. rain

which descends from

the far north

high parallel valleys which

The same

grassed

continues westwards into Shensi.

constitute

and the

and welWatered To judge from the ter/

13

China occurrence of sites, this upland area was Neolithic farmers; although no ley, it

less

frequented by the

and bar/

less suitable for millet

was more favourable than the plain

was the home of the Chou people,

for grazing horses.

It

the ultimate conquerors of

the Shang.

South of the Shensi plateau the line of the Ch'in Ling Shan beyond the Wei river begins the succession of high mountain chains which bar the

way

of Szechwan, whose

rivers

lithic culture

mountain/locked,

to the

area

flatter

The Neo'

drain into the Yangtze.

of Szechwan connects with a tradition extending

along the Yangtze valley, and borders with the Neolithic tradition

of the Central Plain only

at its

To

province and the Huai river basin. impenetrable separate

mountains

of

a region of frequent

north,

and in

low

early times

inimical to agriculture

the west rise the

Anhui all

but

Yunnan and Sikang which

China from Burma and

The s outh angLiOji th/east is

extension into

the Tibetan plateau.

China beyond the Yangtze wooded than the

oi

hills, still better

probably covered with dense

and l ong

r esistant

forest

to the penetration

of

from the north Civilisation spread slowly there from the middle of the first millennium B.C. Only in the last century B.C. were Chinese armies moving freely on the

cultural influences

.

southern seaboard.

The purpose of

this

book is to give a brief account of the China as revealed by archaeological

material culture of ancient study.

It is

well to recognise at the

cession of Stone, Bronze

start that

and Iron Ages and

are less clearly definable in

China than

their subdivisions

in Europe,

where

system of archaeological classification was evolved. often have occasion to point this contrast with the

We

this

shall

West. If

as a

farming economy pra ctised

exclusively with stone tools, then

we may say that large tracts Age long after the discovery

Neolithic ^culture

is sit fined,

of China remained in a Neolithic

H

sue

the familiar

Introduction

of bronze and even survived for some time

become the normal material of the country.

parts

the early

economic

What

is

for tools in the

after

had

iron

most advanced

more mysterious in the light of West, iron itself was slow to

history of the

replace bronze in the manufacture of weapons. Bronzccasting first

appears in a form which would correspond in the West to a

advanced stage of the technique, having many points comparable to the 'Late Bronze Age' of Europe; and iron was relatively

cast some centuries before it was forged, thus confounding our Western preconception of the natural development of this technique. The period here designated the Later Bronze Age

Age

comprises also a stage equivalent to the Early Iron

of

Europe.

Western archaeologists were surprised

of these

learn

to

departures from the cultural sequence established by long study

They were sometimes inclined by supposing that China had been subjected

in the West.

to

account

to the

for

it

same kind

of acculturation from without that so often determined the course of events in Central and Northern Europe. Here in^

from the higher civilisations of Near East and the Mediterranean, at particular times and by determinable routes, created fairly well defined and intelli'

fluences spreading ultimately

the

gible

cultural

successions.

The development of

China did not depend on such

To

Chinese archaeologists

it

culture in

parcels of external influence.

appears unnecessary to

stress

the

evidence against diffusionist views which brought civilisation to

China from Egypt, Mesopotamia

We

should also note

China

that

is

of early

confined to information which the archaeologist

can provide, and disregards the

much

or the Caucasus.

at the outset that a description

literary tradition, necessarily

can contribute to cultural history. For example, we get a jejune picture of the lives of the Nee lithic and Bronze Age farmers unless we take into account

forgoes

peasants'

that the latter

songs

which were anthologised

in

literary

and

15

China

Ching, the 'Book of Odes' present form betwe^ n_jbe-4iirath and

usually moralised dress in the Shih

w ork

This fifth

reached

The

rpnmnVs R.r

must in period,

its

part reflect

material

.

is

basically traditional an<

much earlier The harvest and

customs descending from a

some possibly from Neolithic times. village festivals which it celebrates conjure

mating customs and

up pictures of colourful life in well'organised rural communities. But the archaeologist and historian is naturally shy of drawing on facts recorded at so comparatively late a time, to illustrate the background of cultures which his excavated evidence places in a much earlier period. But in the interest of strict history there is a compensating advantage. If the archaeologist the theory that the spiral patterns

on

is

silent before

certain Neolithic pottery

represent the movements of a fertility dance, he can on the other hand point out that archaeological research lends no support to the tradition of a highly civilised Hsia dynasty which begins

die dynastic succession of traditiona Tjii&tpry. for

He

can question,

example, the statement sometimes ma3e that the

dynasts by their conquest of Central

China

Chou

in the eleventh

century B.C. were responsible for introducing the use of the

plough, or the practice of burying the great under high mounds, or,

on more general grounds,

that the peoples of the

Chou

con/

federacy were mere barbarians before their conquest of the

Shang brought them

into contact with a higher civilisation.

The mention of the Hsia

dynasty, the very existence of which

some modern Chinese historians have questioned, introduces us to an aspect of Chinese historical writing which is at once the delight and the despair of any who attempt to reconstruct the beginnings of Chinese civilisation. In the last few centuries

of the

Chou

from the

fifth

period and under the earlier to the

first

centuries B.C.,

Han

dynasty,

i.e.

Chinese historians were

dominated by a view of the past consecrated in the philosophy of Confucius and his followers. From the beginning, it was held, all

16

China had been

ruled by emperors.

The

list is

headed

Introduction

by a group of rulers of impossible longevity, credited with the seems drily logics.

mundane

and

which Western mytho/ turned into Emperors and ministers

heroic feats of culturcheroes,

rationalised in a spirit

in comparison with

Persons of myth are

engaged in practical administration. Thereafter follow the 'Three Dynasties' of Chinese historians, the houses of Hsia,

Shang and Chou. The exact

dates attributed to all the emperors

when

were not questioned before the second century B.C.,

the

Ssu^ma Ch'ien recorded that his sources did not vouch for their accuracy before a date corresponding to 841 B.C., which remains the earliest year of the exact chronology. The political theory of Confucian historians required that historian

China should have

at all

times been subject to a single ruler.

which so much doubt attaches, was contemporary with that of Shang rather than its predecessor, though the excavated inscriptions by which the historicity of the Shang state was fully corroborated, give no hint of Hsia. The differing accounts of the legendary period It is

possible that the Hsia dynasty, to

reflect theories current in the last

dox

list

few centuries B.C. The ortho'

beginning with T'ai Hao, from 2852 B.C. They are correspond in various ways with a group of Three

names nine prcHsia

rulers,

said to have occupied the throne

made

to

Sovereigns and a group of Five Rulers, the names of these

from the dynastic ones, and regarded appellations. The Three Sovereigns were mostly differing

Fu

as

personal

identified as

Hsi, inventor of writing and cooking and patron of hunt/

Shen Nung, the farmer^god; Sui Jen, inventor of fire. Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor, may figure among them. All or some of these, and other legendary personages, are found variously combined in different texts. ing;

LOne may

surmise that tribes inhabiting different parts of the

country contributed the

stories

of

their

ancestral

gods and

animistic lore to the general stock of Chinese legend, although

small traces remain of local connexions^Huang Ti and

Yen Ti 17

China (the latter identified

Nung)

with the farmeivgod Shen

connected in legend with

rivers in the

Shensi, where they are said to have spent their youth.

Ti had a

fight

with a

'rebel'

Yu

Ch'ih

are

western province of

Huang

in the neighbouring

province of Shansi. Slight hints are traced of connexions of others of the legendary rulers with east

of the Yellow

river

and the Huai

correspond

allegiances

China, the lower basin

river valley.

These local

approximately to the two cultural

found in north China in the Neolithic period. Indications of geography preserved in Chinese flood legends not unnaturally point to the region around the mouth

traditions

of the Yellow

river.

The emperor

Yii, regarded as founder

of

is credited with mastering a flood which whole country with destruction and with the invention of systems of river control. The same feat is credited

the Hsia dynasty,

threatened the

to the founder of the following dynasty of references to another flood/hero called

Shang. Scattered

Kung Kung are confused,

leaving us uncertain whether he started the flood, stopped

it

or

it. Kung Kung is remembered best Chuan Hsiu for control of the empire. In ran his head against Pu Chou, the mountain

unintentionally aggravated for his fight

with

the struggle he

which

in Chinese

myth corresponds

to the

heaven/supporting

central pillar of the Shamanistic cosmologies east

of east and south/

Asia. This pillar was bent, and consequently the heavens

were

tilted

from

east to

lower in the north-west, causing the

move

stars to

north-west and the rivers to flow in the opposite

direction.

The

conventional history generally takes no account of

creation myths, but part of one such

myth was adopted and

assigned a place at the beginning of the story. This

emperor

Kao Hsin who

tells

of the

accepted the services of P'an

Ku,

described as a 'dog of five colours', in overcoming the bar/ barians of the south. P'an

Kao 18

Ku

was rewarded with

the gift of

Hsin's wife, and their descendants peopled the southern

Introduction

region.

The

accounts of P'an

Ku vary like all the other stories.

He is also said to have emerged from chaos and in dying to have given birth to the universe. Part of his history

Hunan, once eventually

the

localised in

is

tribes

who

south-west.

The

home of the non/Chinese Miao

were displaced

farther

the

to

admission of this alien myth into the Chinese pseudo/history

was probably a counterpart to the expansion of Chinese power and civilisation at a relatively late date into the 'unopened* region south of the Yangtze river. (in the pseudchistorical

schemes the legendary

rulers

might

be assigned a remote place in space as well as time, being described as celestial emperors controlling the four quarters of

They were sometimes

heaven.

paired with four spirits

who

Han art symbolised by the White Tiger of the west, Green Dragon of the east, the Red Bird of the south and the Dark Warrior of the north, this last being oddly reprc appear in

the

sented as a serpent in copulation with a tortoiseTVWhen the

Five Rulers are associated with the Five Elements of earth, fire,

water,

wood and

metal they appear annexed to a natural

philosophy which marks the beginning of Chinese science.

The were

at

bureaucratic character with

pains to

endow

which

legendary figures

attitude to the past taught

is

official

historians

in keeping with the

by Confucius

After his death

.

in 479 B.C. his followers continued to interpret selected passages interest of their own moral and political teaclv Confucius himself had taken the early dyn asts of the house

of myth in the ing.

of

Chou

as

hi s exemplars,

and trom

the earlier legendary

Shim (two of the five Rulers LJqjl Shunts simple peasant virtue had caused him to be adoptedby ao as his success or and he thus fitly sy mbolised

je mperors

chose !^ao and

special prais e.

Y

the promotion by merit in the public service sg-arojentlv advocated. It

making

that

Yao was

ancestor of potters,

is

which Conlucius

characteristic ol

regarded

among

Chinese myth/

other things as the

and Shun of foresters.

19

-MAS-

tS

Fig.

1

The

modern

provinces

and

location

MONGOLIA 1

(north-east

CHINA, PROVINCES OF HEILUNG' CHIANG, KIRIN, LIAONING, JEHOL) 2 DJALAI

20

NOR

chief

sites

named

in

text

4

ANG ANG HSI KU HSIANG TS'UN

5

LIN HSI

3

SHARABAKH'USU

MANCHURIA

of

6 HSING

LUNG HSIEN

SUIYUAN 7 shui t'ung 8

kou

sjara osso gol

Introduction

Soon an and

arose,

interest in material relics set

persisted in

of the great days of

the pattern for the antiquarianism

China

to the present time.

This

Chou

which has

interest attached

almost exclusively to the bronzes and jades associated with the

which Confucianists advocated as a guarantee of political stability. The volume of Chinese antiquarian writing on such objects, and usages connected with them, exceeds official ritual

anything of the kind in other

literatures.

Yet

it

seems that

nothing approaching a historical classification of antiquities

was attempted before the twelfth century. The methods of archaeological research developed in Europe in the nineteenth century reached

which overthrew

China

as part

of the

the old order in

intellectual revolution

China only

half a century

ago.

HOPEI

11

KO CHUANG)

HAN TAN (CHAO WANG Ch'eNG)

KANSU TA0 KOU PTNG MA CHIA YAO

12 PAI 1 3

UN

25 HSIN TS

9 T'ANG SHAN (CHIA 10 CHOU K*0U TIEN

26 HUI HSIEN

27 CHENG CHOU 28 SHENG CH*IH HSIEN 29 LOYANG 30 HSIN CHENG 31 HSIN YANG

SHANTUNG

14 HSIN TIEN 15

PAN SHAN

32

ch'eng tzu yai

16

MA Ch'aNG

3 3

LIN TZU

34 ch'u

SHENSI 17

PAN

fu

KIANGSU

P*0 TS'UN

YEN TUN SHAN

TU TS'UN 19 CH'ANG AN 20 TOU CHI T*AI

ANHWEI

SHANSI

HUNAN

18 P'U

21

LI

35

36

YU

37

22 TING TS'UN 23 SHANG TS'UN LING

anyang (hsiao kang, wu kuan k'ung)

38

t*un, hsi pei ts'un,

ch'ang sha

YUNNAN

HONAN 24

SHOU HSIEN

ta ssu

SHIH CHAI SHAN

FUKIEN 39 T'AN SHIH

40

SHAN

HONG KONG 21

— Chapter

The

Palaeolithic

CHOU K'OU tien

I

r"T HE f

JL

to

and Neolithic Periods

CHINESE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE best known the western world is Chou K'ou Tie n, where the first

skull of Pithecanthropus pekinensis ,

222&.

1

It is

situated

PeJoag_Man, was found in

26 miles south-west of Peking, where the

easternmost extension of the Western Hills sinks into the

Hopei

plain.

Immediately west of the village

60 metres high,

much of which

has

now

a

rises

hill,

about

been destroyed by

quarrying. In the earlier Pleistocene period the general level

of the plain was some 60-70 metres above the modern surface,

Chou K'ou Tien

and the

hill is the

remains of one of the

pockets of limestone which were scattered over sures in the rock

filled

it.

Large

fiV

with stony rubble and

was excavation in these deposits that brought to animal and human bones, together with the signs of

red clay. light

were gradually

human

It

roughly fashioned stone tools burnt bones

habitation

,

and the ashes of hearths. The connexion of the human fossils with the products of man immediately gave the site a unique interest, for previously the finds of human bones of comparable age (for example, the Swanscombe skull from the middle

Thames estuary) had not been so directly related and other evidence of human activity. It is now generally agreed that the Chou K'ou Tien deposits from which

gravels of the to artifacts

the

human

date, as

therefore

h alf a

bones were recovered are not of lower Pleistocene believed, but of the middle pleistocene, and

was once

of approximately the same age

million year — as the s

earliest

—estimated

human

bones and

at

about

artifacts

discovered in England, Europe and Africa. Pithecanthropus pekinensis, or Sinanthropus, had much the same primitive physiognomy as his near/contemporaries in Europe and Africa. His head differed from a modern skull

22

The

by

low forehead and small

its

capacity,

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

which was about two'

of the modern brain/box. His jaw chin fleeting. heavy eyebrow ridge

thirds of the average size

was prominent but

his

A

depressed the upper edge of the eye sockets into an irregular

He

line.

stood upright, with a stature of about 1-56 metres,

different from the average of the modern population of same region. Some of his minor physical characteristics have persisted in the same region through a period of time equal to an appreciable fraction of the whole duration of the human race. He shares his broad nos e, high cheek/bone s and a shovel'shaped depression on the inner face of his incisors with the modern population of Mongolia and northern China. In the Chou K'ou Tien remains no variation of the physical

little

the

type

noticeable throughout the 50/metres depth of deposits

is

known

as Locality 1,

which

are

thought to represent a period

of some hundreds of thousands of years.

of the skull

it

From the conformation

has been surmised that Sinanthroput was capable

of articulate speech.

He

evidently enjoyed corporate

life.

In the

of fortyfive individuals represented by the bones found

total

thus far at the

site

both males and females are present. Fifteen

of them were children.

The

materials

which

Sinanthropus used for

making

were chiefly a hard ^reen sandstone, limestone quartzite, flint

Tnd

all

chert,

less

suited

to

shaping

by

,

his tools

quartz and

percussion

than

of which only small quantities were present in

The forms of the flint and chert tools are, however, enough to those made from the less tractable stones to

the deposits. close

show tools

that the differences

difficulty

of working a

15,

of which the

arise

merely from the greater

less suitable material,

different cultural tradition.

and

between them and the Palaeolithic

of Europe and Africa do not

first is

but spring from a

Tools were found in Localities 13,1 and the last the latest, both

the oldest

corresponding to the middle Pleistocene. Locality 13, which seems not to have been regularly occupied, produced a single

23

China piece, a small chopping'tool earliest sign

made from

a pebble,

which

of man unearthed so far in China. The animal

which accompanied

is

the

fossils

was inhabited at a time following the establishment of the modern river system in the Yellow river basin. Near the tool lay some it

indicate that Locality

broken stones foreign to the deposits

and Fig. 2a

1 3

the rock fissures,

filling

few burnt bones.

a

stone topjs found at Chou K'ou Tien came where they lay n earthe human bones. Many of them are so roughly shaped that only the foreignness of their material and the frequency of their characteristic shapes demon'

The bulk of the

from Locality

1,

that they

strate

The commonest

not natural products.

are

up to six or seven inches in round or oval, on which a crude cutting edge has been contrived by striking off irregular stumpy flakes. One side is generally left smooth it is often the pebble sur^ face to give a good grip for the hand. The flaking may extend to as much as two thirds of the perimeter of the tool, and flakes may have been struck from both sides of the edge, though this last is rare. An occasional specimen is more carefully shaped form

is

length,

a heavy, flatfish stone,

more or

less

—

—

by the removal of regularly spaced, smaller (but biting) flakes

from both

consequently has a zigzag

sides

deep'

of the working edge, which

line.

In addition to these 'core'tools* Locality

Fig 2b

still

1

produced nunv

erous smaller pieces, scrapers and points measuring an inch or

two in

which

length, in

struck from a larger generally received

the tool

lump of

further

stone.

trimming

is

formed from a

Such at

'flake/tools'

the edge,

flake

have

which

is

thereby strengthened, the fractu resurface of the original flake

being

left

smooth.

Some of

show signs of use. The climatic environment

these

in

more

refined

implements

which Peking man

lived

may

be judged from the kinds of animal bones found lying close to the

24

human

relics in

Locality

1.

They included

those of the

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

water-buffalo, grazing animals such as buffalo, deer

and a and sheep;

and wild pig and rhinoceros which could only be

at

sabre-toothed tiger, water/loving species such as an otter

home

in

thick vegetation, though the species of camel suggests that more arid terrain

was not

far distant. It

seems that a north temperate

climate prevailed, with fairly long winters,

Peking

man

Pleistocene

it is

probable that

lived at the time of one of the interglacials o f the

period,

possibly

the

earliest

Giinz'Minde]

or

which corresponds in Europe to the early phase of Acheulian culture of skilfully fashioned flint 'hand/axes'. But the Acheulian tradition of stone^working, which is found as far eastwards as southern India, is distinct from the tradition represented at Chou K'ou Tien. The latter is more closely related to a stone industry found in north-western India, in which a 'choppeMool' of less regular design takes the place of the hand^axe. This broad division of techniques may reflect a racial division of ancient humanity inhabiting opposite ends of Asia. As far as the level of intelligence inv plied by the two techniques is concerned there is no reason to set one above the other, particularly if we compare the Chou K'ou Tien tools with the early Acheulian (Abbevillian) of France, and make allowance for the difference of materials used. Locality 15 is a fissure about 70 metres from Locality 1. Its filling of earth and rock debris contained traces of ash, many animal bones and a number of tools of a new kind. The tools are made of a smootlvtextured flint, 'sinian chert', of which interglacial,

the

only some rare pieces occurred

Locality

at

1.

Both the forms

of the tools and the species of animals represented by the bones suggest that Locality 15

is

the later

site,

though

it is still

dated

geologically to the middle Pleistocene.

Many

tools

made from

small

flakes

were recovered

at

Fig. 2c

Locality 15. Their skilful retouching and more purposeful

shapes are a sure sign of technical progress. Roughly synv metrical points are

trimmed

at the

edge by minute decp'biting

25

China flakes ('step/flaking'), or

by narrow and shallow

flakes re/

Europe in the more evolved stage of the Acheulian culture. Sometimes the trimming is carried over both sides of the point. few tri' angular flakes have been struck from cores of flint on which the back of the piece destined to be struck off received some preliminary shaping there is no sign of this degree of fore/ sembling the 'pressure/flaking'

practised in

first

A

—

thought

among

the tools of Locality

i.

No human

bones were

found, but since the stone technique appears to be a further

development of the technique practised makers may have belonged inhabited by

men

cated by the

fossils

at

a time

to the

when

from Locality

serruvarid conditions

with desert

at

same

Locality

race.

The

i,

their

site

was

the temperate climate indi' i

still

had given way

to cooler,

close.

Throughout his long o ccupation o£jh^jiatural caves at Tien Sinantbropus was a hunter anaaTe mainly venison The great number of split boneThe left*in his midden show nis liking for marrow and some split human limb bones and skulls treated in the same way suggest that he was not averse from cannibalism. He was capable of killing the swift gazelle and wild horse, a hunt which presupposes a capacity for group organisation. His social life was of a brutish kind. He has left no relics which hint that he practised any art or

Chou K'ou .

magic, or even

The

from Locality Fig. 2d

show

that he buried his dead.

signs of technical advance perceptible in the stone tools 15

are repeated at a site in Shansi province, near

Ting Ts'un. The geological stratum from which chert tools and three human teeth were recovered is a gravel bed belonging to a series widely distributed in northern China. It lies below the red and yellow soils of the loess, of which the great central plain of China is composed, and is held to be equivalent to the period in which the filling of the Chou K'ou Tien fissures was accumulated.

The

suggest a time rather later

26

found in the gravel than the occupation of Locality 1

species of animal bones

The

Fig. 2 Palaeolithic stone tools: a, b,

K'ou Tien,

at

locality

15; d,

Chou K'ou Tien and

e,

Chou K'ou

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

Tien, locality 1;

c,

Chou

Ting Ts'un. Scale 1:3

closer to the date

of Locality 15, and

same direction. The human teeth from Ting Ts'un (one incisor and two molars) are intermediate between those of Sinanthropus and modern man. The incisor has the shovel/shaped depression on its inner face. The most fully formed stone tools are some thick the forms of the stone tools point in the

2.7

China points of triangular section

and about 6 inches long. They have

a superficial resemblance to the hanoVaxes of the West, but the

working of the stone is less well controlled than in the best Acheulian specimens. The remaining tools are smaller, neatly struck flakes with one trimmed edge. In some cases there

is

a suggestion, as at Locality 15, of preliminary

executed on the core before the flake was struck

The chance which a

has preserved for us at

deposit of animal

stratified

fossils,

human

accumulated over long periods in the

munity

is

life

work

off.

Chou K'ou Tien bones and

artifacts

of a distinct conv

not encountered again in the archaeological record

before the Neolithic period.

Between the

Chou K'ou Tien and

thropus at

latest relics

of Sinan'

the earliest trace of food'

producers along the course of the Yellow river some hundreds

of thousands of years must have passed. In contrast to the corresponding period in Europe, which

man and

ian

lithic,

in

Here the

the

China latest

famous

cave/artists

is

the age of Mouster/

of the Upper Palaeo'

the later Palaeolithic cultures are

little

known.

division of the Pleistocene period, equivalent to

the great series of

Wurm

glaciations elsewhere,

is

marked by

the deposition of the loess over the northern half of the country.

One

can imagine nothing more discouraging

for

human

life

than the regime of powerful dry and cold winds which geo^ logists believe to

have carried the blanket of

glacial regions lying far to the north/west.

animal

them OTHER

life

the

must have

little

all

but vanished

its

some human handiwork

LITHIC

the vital technique of stone

general trend in eastern

At

Shui

from

peri'

Vegetation and

long ages, and with

groups of men.

This severe climate had

PALAEO' SITES

for

loess

Tun^jCou

milder intervals however, and

shows that working was taking the same Asia as is to be observed in the West. attributable to this period

in the Ordos, the tract of desert lying

within the greatnorthward loop of the upper Yellow River, flint

28

implements were excavated together with animal bones

— The

and the

c narcoal of camp-fires

the surface are

and near

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

from a point 12 metres below of the loessic soil. The tools

to the base

made of simply chip£ed_£ebbles, more

refined than the

flakes.

«a little

These

are the relicTbf hunters

or, more rarely, of long handiwork of S inanthropus.

of small game, notably wild

ass,

At Sjara Osso Gol on the southern borOrdos region, signs of habitation were discovered some 50 metres below the present grassland, in a geological environment which points to a terrain of small lakes and jand d unes. Here the yield of an imal bones was specially rich. Species of ostrich, elephant, rhinoceros, deer, horse and goat all witness to a relatively damp climate and to well/forested land antelope and ostrich.

Fig.

3a

der of the

as well as prairie.

The

majority of the sto ne tools , flake points

and scrapers trimmed on a single face, are smaller than those found at Shui Tung Kou and are more skilfully made. Among them were found small, roughly conical cores of chert from which narrow parallel-sided blades about an inch long had been skilfully struck in succession. No examples of the small blades themselves were found, but they are sufficiently attested

by the parent

microliths

—

first

cores.

They

are similar to the tiny tools

manufactured in Europe in the Magdalenian

Upper

Palaeolithic period and thereafter in which preceded the rise of the Neolithic. In the West these blades were mounted in rows in handles of bone and wood, and we may suppose that the same idea was

culture of the late

the Mesolithic cultures

followed in China.

A

stone industry comparable to that of Sjara

Osso Gol,

though without the microliths, was practised by the inhabitants of a cave situated near the summit of the hill of Chou K'ou

Upper Cave Man* is represented by the skeletons of individuals all of the modern type, Homo sapiens. Bone and

Tien. ten

*

horn implements accompanied the flints, and some ground and drilled stone beads painted red with haematite, bone pendants, perforated and polished shell ornaments

show an 29

China

advance of

The

sensibility over his Sinanthropus predecessors.

of haematite around one of the skeletons indicates a deliberate burial, indeed is the e arliest instan ce of a funeral rite scattering

which was to persist in China through the Neolithic period and into the Bronze Age. There is proof too of trade over considerable distances. The h aematite must have come trom Lu ng Kuan, beyond the mountains a h undred mile s to the north. The marine shells must have travelled at least 120 miles/ from the nearest part of the coast, and one large freslvwaler species is thought to have been brought from beyond theYellow river, over 200 miles away. The skulls have mixed features, some Mongoloid and others declared to be akin to modern Esquimaux and Melanesians. This latest material recov ere d at Chou K'ou Tien is taken to mark the end of the Palaeolithic p eriod. Its date can only be roughly estimated, lying perhaps between lo^ooo^ndjsitQQO

jears^BX. Thereafter, and before the civilisation

human at

rise

of the bronzcusing

of central China in the second millennium B.C.,

activity is recorded in finds

small surface

sites scattered

of stone tools and potsherds

through the vast region of desert

and grassland of Mongolia, Manchuria and the Ordos. The archaeologist's great problem is to determine whether such traces

of habitation in

this

northern region are

with the Neolithic cultures of China tribes

who

—the

all

contemporary

relics

of hunting

copied the pottery of their farming neighbours

in part are older than any of the farming communities.

—or It is

tempting, perhaps rational, to assume that these surface finds are the traces

of long/enduring hunting communities

ultimately affected by the farmers of the

Yellow

who

were

river, possibly

some of them themselves providing the farming population. So far however archaeologists have found no predecessors for the farmers of the Yellow river valley, jiojgj t es on the Central Plain to bridge jh e gap between Upper Cave Man an cTthe 5koli thic

30

villages.

We

cannot even arhrm that the

sites

on

the

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

3 Mesolithic tools: a, stone flakes and core, Sjara Osso Gol; b, stone flakes, Ta Li Sha Yuan Region, Ordos; c, bone harpoon, stone knife, gravers and arrowhead, AngAng

Fig.

Hsi. Scale 1:2

Gobi there

desert precede the Neolithic villages in time, is

not a similar gap

The Gobi hal fof

desert

Mong olia

is

all

that

over Mongolia and Manchuria.

which now for the

and

stretches across the sout hern

MICROLITHIC

most part an uninhabitable region

CULTURES IN THE GOBI

of sniiting sand. But numerous depressions on

its

surface are

surrounded by ancient consolidated dunes which show that

many more

lakes existed there formerly than survive at the

present time. Rain was more abundant and the desiccation which has now driven out plants and animals had not reached

so

far.

The

sto ne

impl ements of prehistoric

man

DESERT,

MONGOLIA AND MANCHURIA

are generally

found on or near the ancient dunes, marking habitation or

31

China

camping

places once located near water.

The Sino'Swedish

327 sites between Man^ churia and Sinkiang. Even allowing for the long period of expedition of 1927-35 discovered

time which the

sites

may

cover, the density of population

was considerable by

they reflect

hunting peoples.

On

which

the standards of primitive

many of the

sites flint

microlithic tools

were found mixed with polished or partly polished stone tools and often fragments of pottery, which all the world over are the hallmarks of Neolithic culture, or

at least

denote close contact

with farming communities. But the apparent contemporaneity

of Mesolithic and Neolithic techniques may in some instances

The

wind of the sandy terrain probably tended to gather the material in pockets on the surface this phenomenon has been noted elsewhere and mixed together relics of different ages which in other geological circumstances would have been preserved stratified at different levels. Only at Shabarakh Usu, one of the 180 sites discovered by the American Central Asiatic Expedition of 1922-30, could it be be illusory.

erosion by

—

affirmed that

Neolithic

r emains

were

at

—

a h igh er level than

the.

'

Mesolith ic~

Fig.

3b

The most ch aracteristic of the Gobi stone to ols are the micr oliths made from small flakes struck serially from thej^re^ ""Besides flint and chert they were made of jasper and other coloured finegrained stone. The flakes were neatly trimmed to make points and blades of irregular shapes. They are a little finer than the microliths of much earlier date found at Sjara Osso Gol and like them were probably intended to be set in rows t o edge cutting tools or to barb spears. The cores remain^ mgtrom the flaking of the tiny blades were mostly cylindrical or and Mongolia and Manchuria.

conical, the cylindrical ones spread throughout the region

the conical predominating in east

Such cores are characteristic of the Mesolithic cultures of Europe and North Africa, but whereas in the West the flakes obtained from them were often trimmed into neat geometrical

32

The shapes

—

crescents, triangles

and

trapezes

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

—those of eastern Asia

have no such regular outlines.

The

southern limit of the distribution of the microlithic

lie along the IsTan Sha n, Alas han and Yin Shan which s eparate the Gobi desert tro ni the drainage ruountains, basin of the Yellow river and its tributaries The sites are found, however, beyond the mountains and the river in the Ordos region and eastwards in Manchuria beyond the con'

sites

appears to

.

siderable barrier presented

An

Hsing

have checked

'human

by the north/south range of the

mountains. More than geographical obstacles must their spread to the south.

rather than natural', as

was

If the barrier

Cheng Tck'un

suggests,

we

must suppose that it was raised by the farming communities of the Yellow river valley, and that the Mesoli thic hunters of the jGobi were their contemporaries. Once settled farming was established in the Central Plain c ultural separation of peoples

north and south of the mountain line

is

understandable.

The

boundar y which emerges in history as the conflict of the Bronze Ape states of northern China with the turFulen? n omadic tribesmen ot the Mongolian grasslands was already cultural

cjr

awn

in Neolithic times.

The

material of Neolithic type found together with the

flaked implements

and

microliths in

Mongolia and Man'

churia consists of polished or partly polished stone axes and pottery .

The polished

fincjs parallels

some

pieces

Fig. 4

which and north-west, though

axes are chiefly of the rounded type

in Siberia to the north

resembling the axes of northern

China with

squared cross'section have also been collected. Apart from rare perforated stones

which some

weights for digging

interpret rather dubiously as

sticks, there is

no evidence

polished rectangular or c rescentic stone kni ves

pany

neolithic remains everywhere in

China are u nknown beyond river basin.

This

for tillage.

w hich

The

acconv

northern and central

the northern margin of t he

fact alone suggests that settled

Yellow

tarming was

33

China

LZD

?3

Ff£. 4 Stone axes and knives of the Neolithic period: a,

Kiangsi;

b,

Cb'ing Lien Kang, Kiangsu;

g,Jih Chao, Shantung;

Honan;

j,

Liaoning;

h,

Ch'eng

Tzu

Sbang Lu Ts'un, Honan; I,

Ch'ih Feng

c, d,

k,

Ch'ing Chiang,

Pan P'o Ts'un

Yai, Shantung;

i,

Shensi; t,f,

Yang Shao,

Lu Shun Yang

Hung Shan, Jebol.

Scale

1

T'ou Wa,

:6

never practised in th enorthern region^ and tends to disp rove the theory thatthe nornlio^stoclc/nusing Torical times descends

from a

full

found there in h is^

farming, economy which

degenerated int ono madism as the grasslands

The

pottery

found on the Mongolian

became desert. hand/m ade

sites is all

and differs somewhat in the northern and southern zones. In Outer Mongolia is found a reddish or grey ware plain for the most part but sometimes bearing incised or stamped geometric designs Southwards in Inn er Mongol ia similar r ough sher3s appear along wi th others of more refTned make, which add ,

.

34

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

pigment^ and applied bands o f pie/crust orna/ oFdecoration.^A few specimens of the methods ment to the l egs of tripod bowls have been collected. This superio r pottery burnishing,

and

r ed

particularly the tripods,

which

parallel the ubiquitous ting

of the Neolithic of northern China, undoubtedly i

reflect the

nfluence of the farming culture of the Yellow river valley.

The rougher ware

is

generically similar to pottery

found in

Siberia.

At

end of the northern region the few sites so far of mesolithic and neo/ lithic elements. At Djalainor, close to the Hsing An range on its Manchurian side7 were found flint and q uartzite tool s of the the eastern

investigated reveal a similar mixture

Gobi

type

and a

single squared piece

polished ax es were absent .

Two

pieces

of polished stone , but

of deer

antler,

one with

an annular groove and another bored with two holes

at right

angles have been tentatively regarded as hafting attachments for stone axes in the

The

lake villages.

manner

the

mountain

West

in the Swiss

remains of some interwoven willow sticks

have been thought to be a fishing villag e.

practised in the

fish trap,

and indication of a lakeside

At Ku Hsiang T'un on the Manchurian side of

there

were iurther signs of l akeside ha bitation in

the geological strata.

At Ang Ang Hsi

in Heilungchiang,

?ig>3 c

northern Manchuria, some barbe d harpoon/heads were ex/ cavated, quite similar to those used in the latest Palaeolithic

and the Mesolithic of western Europe. They furnish even better evidence for the imp ortance of fishing. Here a small polished axe resembles those^made in the West for hafting by means of a socket of deer antler. No specimen of such a socket was re/ covered but the existence of other handles of bone makes it likely that such a device was in use. In some other fundamental respects the material from Man/ churia and eastern Mongolia differs from the characteristic equipment of the Gobi sites, and points to a connexion with the north/east. At Ang Ang Hsi tria ngular a nd leaf/shaped

35

China arrowheads^ were found in quantity, some with hafting tangs,

trimmed by neat pressure flaking of a kind not en^ countered farther west in Mongolia. There was an abundance of coarse grey an d reddish pottery among it some intact vessels. ThTvUiagersburied theirde ad under heaps of earth near their in cluding in the graves pottery vessels, bo ne and settl ement s tone tools and in one instanc e a dog. Both the cultural remains and the geological strata which contained them point to a later date than that at Djalainor, and suggest that the Ang Ang Hsi settlement belongs to the Neolithic period. Farther south, at_Lin-HsLin Jehol province a similar though more advanced ppjtcry_was found, some of it wheelturned, and here cropping is attested by spatulate stone hoes and part of a stone and

all

,

,

"

reaping knife.

Over sign of there

is

this

whole

s ettled

no

trace

area

wjiere

agricultural

microlith s are found there

life.

is

no

In the Yellow river valley

o t a population slowly evolving an agricul tural the far ming

economy/ tor between^^UppwX^ye__Man' and

villages of the iuiTNeolithic the archaeological recoroLis blank.

The germ of the

Neolithic_revolution the knowledge of crojv ,

ping and cattle^raising may, indeed must, have c ojne thro ugh

from some other part of Asia It is asking that such a fundamental revolution as had already occurred in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East should have happened independently a second time in China. The passage of ideas, whether the form of a tool the northern region

too

.

much of coincidenceto assume

method of making

knowledge of the advantages of food production need not leave cultural remains on its path. There can be no question of the migration in t o China of large numbers of farming tri bes bringing with them a_complete cultural complex Had this happened it would be difficult to explain how the Neolithic culture of the Yellow River valley and the Central Plain came to be divided into distinct tradi/ tions, one reaching to the nortlvwest and the other to the north/ or the

.

36

it,

or

The east.

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

This regional difference corresponds in a general way we have noted between the Gobi and Man/

with the division churia,

which may mean

Neolithic period altogether.

that

roots

its

The two

go back beyond the

neolithic traditions over/

China, and the north-eastern is there demon/ But they both are possessed of a fully developed

lap in central strably later.

agricultural

economy. Neither

yields to the other in the excel/

lence of pottery, the large size of villages or skill in polishing

does either appear to be the parent of the other. 2

Nor

stone tools.

The Neolithic culture of central and north/ western China is named Yang Shao after a village in Sheng Ch'ih Hsien, Honan province, where Andersson first identified it in 1922. ,

Its

remains are characterised by grey and reddish potter y; a

rectangular

LITHIC

CULTURE

with p ainted decoratio n; th ick polished stone o blong with a r ectangular or rounded/

fin er^ pottery

jixes which

THE YANG SHAO NEO'

are generally

section ;

o blong reaping knives made of thin

plaques of stone polished a nd pierced fui liafting; stone and clay spindle whorls;

The

and t anged arrowheads

of polished stone.

is confined to the loess area and main a broad east-west line along th e^ middle Yellow river in onan an d southern Shansi,

distribution of the sites

follows in the

course of the

H

and the valley of the^ Wei river leading across the middle of Shensi into the upper basin ol the Yellow river and its tri/ butaries in Kansu. From central Honan, where the sites are most frequent, the Yang Shao area extends south into the

Honan

plain towards the upper waters of the river Huai,

northwards either side

Shansi. jarrpers

sites

occur in the

flat

and well/watered

and

tract lying

of the boundary between the provinces of Hopei and

In choosing places for settlement the a voided^

keeping to the

mountainous and even

w ell/drained

and

Yang Shao

upland

territory,

rich agricultural soil of the

plain near rivers.

In Shensi and" Kansu the erosion of the thick loess deposit has formed at intervals deep,

mazy

ravines with vertical walls

37

—

a

China

sometimes to heights of hundreds of

rising

have been found on streams.

impossible to be certain that the apparent eleva'

It is

tion above the valley is

feet. Here sites above the flood plain of the

terraces well

today, though

it

bottom was is

as great in ancient times as

it

probable that the peculiarity of loess

was much the same then as it is at the present time. Both the primary and the redeposited loess are equally fertile, erosion

but the difficulty of watering

fields in the ravined region of must have been a serious handicap to the and the dissected terrain an obstacle to com/

the primary loess agriculturalist,

munication.

We shall note divergencies in the neolithic material

from the two

areas

which

reflect this difference

of environment

and suggest that the western branch of the Ya ng Shao culture distinction was comparatively isolated and conservative which to some implies a cult ural division within a broader

—

tradition.

The

picture of neolithic

the remains

is

life

lived in settled

sometimes choosing

in the plain this could only

—

the study of

communities in undefended or hgh dydefe nded

villa^ejjie^rjivejs,

level

which emerges from

one familiar to archaeologists. Groups of farmers

mean

to escap e the seasonal flooding.

millet (Setaria

italica

slightly rising

ground

a few feet above the general

Their chief grain_ was

(L) Beauv), traces of which have been

Wang Yung Ching Ts'un in Shansi and Pan P'o Ts'un in Shensi. How far rice cultivation entered into the Yang Shao economy we cannot say at present, but sojne-ikfci, grain impressions on a potsherd unearthed by Andersson at Yang Shao Ts'un prove that it was not unknown We must recovered at

.

suppose the organisation

Yang Shao which

villagers

the planting

and

capable of the^r ar efnl irrigation ofrice^ fields

call s for.

"These lithic

villages differed

from comparable ones in the

late

Bronze and Iron Ages of southern England chiefly by

38

Neo'

period of southern Russia or even those of the Late their

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

must some have equalledt hat of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia In

greater size: the populousness

of the Yellow

river valley .

cases the neolithic village seems to

have been even greater in

modern villages standing near their sites. The remains found at Hua Yin Hsi Kua n P u in Shensi w ere spread over an area of more than 9 00,000 square metr es, representing presumably an a^lomeration'oN^lages. The neolithic strata at some sites reaches a depth of JTnetres. But only one village site,jit Pan P'o Ts'un near Si^an in Shensi province, has been excavated so far wit h the thorou ghness which affords a toler/ extent than the

c

ably comnlrt e pictureoi the village scene.

At Pan

P'o Ts'un r ound a nd o blong hut foundations were

uncovered,

set

c lose together

ancient land surface.

one place

and lying a lew

Some" of

feet

Plate 1

below the

the foundations overlapped,

superimposed one over the other were evidence of long occupation, new buildings having been

at

five floors

erected over the ruins of the earlier.

had

The

timbers of the huts

naturally all perished, but traces of the post holes preserved

in the soil told something of their structure.

measured about

The round

huts

around the edge of the sunken floor a wall about a foot high made of clay mixed with grass, and the floor had been sealed with a coat of limy earth. Outside the wall a circle of post holes indicated 5 metres in diameter;

one

still

retained

Plate 2

supports for the eaves of the roof. Posts had stood inside the

house in rows of three on either side of a central clay^built Stove^ These provided the

main support

for the roof,

which

is

wood on the underside, and together with the circle of slenderer posts set around the wall suggest an over/all conical shape, the steeply sloping sides reaching almost to the ground at the eaves. Two rows of

thought to have been planked with

slender posts at the entrance the door to be set

house.

The

showed how

this

shape required

some distance inside the perimeter of the which strewed the floors of most of the

clay debris

huts seems to have been the outer covering of the roof. Storage

39

China

and oven s were fo rmed inside the houses by excavating int he soil and lining the reces s with fine clay. They can be seen against both walls of the larger rectanguhrEuilding shown on Plate 4. Near t he h ouse s were found a number of s torage, pits, some roundecTat the bottom and with narrow mouths, "others, which appear to belong to the later period of the site, were some 6 metres deep and lined with a layer of burnt clay. The gitsjwere filled with grey habitation earth in which were mixed fragments of p ottery. stone__tools, ashes and animals' bones. In one part ofthe village were found the remains of six claybuilt kilns, five of them consisting of cylindrical chambers about a yard wide and three yards long, provided with flues to conduct the flame from the fire in the forward end ofthe kiln to the firing chamber at the back. In one of the kilns stood s paces

Plate 4

FfrS

several unfired coarse pots.

The

pottery

found

at

Pan P*o Ts'un

is

are

deep

jars

with slightly everted rim

rounded^ bottoms, tripod bowls

Fig.

5 Pottery

Shan Pi;

b,

kilns approx.

40

kilns at

Cheng Chou:

(ting)

a,

characteristic

The

wares ofthe centre ofthe Yang~5hao area.

bowls with_flat_px and amphorae wit h

,

Yang Shao

culture at Lien

Late Shang period, at Pi Sha Kang. Diameters of pottery 1

m.

ofthe

principal shapes

—

— The

narrow nec k and pointed

The

base.

fi

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

ware

nest

is

red, well

which must have required, a a heat te mperature of iooo degrees centigrade or more levigated, ot a hardness

firing^

—

attainable in the kilns described.

almost eq ually fine in texture,

t

The

hough

softer.

easily

pottery

light^g rey

is

In the cgarse r

reddish arid grey potteries the cl ay is mixed with coarse sand . The h ard red pottery is often b urnished and p ainted with fteo/

Plate 5

metric patterns in black res em bling those found farther east,

thoug h the schemati cje^igns_ofjLfishj n ^

l

JL^anPo head

Ts'u n areexceptional.

hnm.in

fi nn

E lsewhere only a timid

introducedTThe r ougher pots

occasionally

is

fl

f

i

T tmi4-

bird's

are plain

or incised with s imple geometr ic pattern, or i mpressed by cords or matting .

The

analysis

of local divergencies in Yang Shao pottery has

not yet been taken very

shapes and ornament

looked it is

may

for in its earliest

Fig.

6

but since the variation of pottery

far,

indicate

where the culture

form and in which directions

it

is

to be

spread,

important to note what local jljffgrences are already appar/

ent. It

is

clear that

judged by

its

pottery the

Yang Shao

does not present the same unified character as

is

of the migrating cultures which spread through the of Europe

at the

culture

found in some forest

zone

The local Yang Shao culture

beginning of the Neolithic period.

variation in the pottery suggests that the

developed in northern China and argues against any pro/

found influence from outside.

The most

branch

that of the western extremity of

THE KANSU

where sites are distinguished as belonging to a 'Kansu Yang/shao* culture, or the Pan Shan culture. It is best known from the painted fu nerary urns from four ancient cemeteries

NEOLITHIC

distinct

is

the area,

on hills—the Pan Shan in the Ning Ting district of Kansu. They were first collected by Andersson in 1923. After his discovery, the sites were exploited by the local inhabitants and yielded the splendid funerary urns which began to reach Western museums a generation ago. The large urns are nearly

CULTURE

Fig. 7

41

China flat base, with an ouMurned low lip or and generally furnished with lug handles

globular in shape, on a a short tubular neck, Plate 6

neck or on the

at the finest

described from

their shapes,

pigment tion,

Their red_ fabric

Pan Po Ts'un; but On them

is

similar to the

their decoration, like

quite distinct.

and manganese in combina/

iron

brown

used to produce black, red and

applied on the burnished surface in a rich variety of

spiral,

terns

is

is

sides.

wave/shaped, rhomboid and

of great beauty.

The ornament

the lighter colour often outlined

many is set

other geometric pat/ in zones

by a darker

and

panels,

with dog/

line

—

serrations on the inner side the 'death pattern!, as Andersson named it in recognition of the funerary character of the vessels. The urns, like all the Yang Shao ware, are hand made, though trued at the mouth on some turning device

tooth

snnpler than a fast/revolving potter's wheel.

The

excellence

of the pottery and the splendour of the decoration makes these urns the most attractive product of the Chinese Neolithic.

Andersson's researches established a chronological painted pottery cultures in Kansu. After the

he places another termed

Ma

series

of

Pan Shan group

Ch'ang, from a

site

in the T'ao

which seems to derive from it, its pot shapes and painted patterns marking a degeneration of the tradition which produced the great funerary urns. The Ma Ch'ang vessels were also made for burial, but at Ma Chia Yao, a short distance away, a habitation site was discovered. few potsherds of the Ma Ch'ang type were unearthed here, showing that the two

river valley,

A

sites

were roughly contemporary. The great bulk of the pottery, shapes and decoration are

much

Yang Shao ware of the Central reproduce it exactly. The latest stage

Plain,

however, was different and closer to the painted

its

though they do not is that of the Hsin Tien graves, whose painted pottery shows a further decline. few bronze orname nts from these graves prove that

A

the painted pottery tradition survived at least into the beginning

of the Bronze Age.

4*

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

20 cm.

Fig.

6 Yang Shao

Pottery.

the Central Plain.

The

painted howls a, c are characteristic of

The amphora d

is

found mainly

in

Shansi. Scale

approx. 1:6

A

problem which

relationship of the

Plain.

The

the pottery.

still

Kansu

awaits satisfactory solution

is

the

painted ware to that of the Central

contrast between the

The Kansu tombs

two

regions goes further than

contained small chisels of jade

43

— China

and cylindrical marble beads which are not found elsewhere, though the jade rings and crescentic pendants can be paralleled by stone and clay versions of neolithic date in central China. These objects are in fact an intimate link with the culture of the Central Plain, for they survive there into the Bronze Age and are then

made of jade:

and buang'crescmttcosmic symbols, and

they are the paring

ritual forms which are later interpreted as which were made and buried with the dead down

to

Han

times. Plate

3

Kansu

body was laid on the right side with the legs bent, and jfacing a row of pots in which meat and grain were placed; or the body was laid prone, or the bones were gathered after the "body had de/ cayed, and reburied. The burial customs of the eastern Yang Shao province are known best from Pan P'o Ts'un. Here the adults were buried lying extended on the back in rectangular pits which were sometimes lined with wooden planks, and There

is

also a difference in the burial

rite.

In

the

children were buried in large clay urns. This difference in the

was to survive into the Bronze Age. Yang Shao sites of the eastern type extend westwards along the valley of the Wei river, and on the upper reachej of the river in Kansu they are situated only about two score miles east from the site of Ma Chia Yao. Between the two areas that of Ma Chia Yao which links with the Pan Shan/Ma Ch'ang complex, and the sites of Li Hsien and Tien Shui Hsien marking the penetration of the eastern tradition into Kansu passes the watershed dividing the T'ao river from the upper waters of the Wei. Although thirty years have passed since Andersson made his survey, still not enough is known of the exact chronology and distribution of the two variants of Yang Shao culture to assess the importance of this boundary. Apart from the unique funeral urns of Pan Shan and Ma Ch'ang the domestic pot'

funeral

rite

—

teries, for all their

44

broad

similarity, reveal tantalising differences

The

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

fflS&M

Fig 7 Painted pottery of the Kansu Yang Shao

Shan

type; e,f, i,j,

Ma

Ch'ang

culture: a, \>,g, h,

type. Scale approx.

Pan

1:16

45

China they are compared closely. The ware of the eastern Yang Shao is red while that of Ma Chia Yao is buff. The former combines black and red paint in the ornament, and the latter uses them apart. Only the eastern pottery makes use of a white slip. The Ma Chia Yao bowls are painted inside and on the outer lip, and those of the east only on the outer sides. The geo/ metric motifs of the decoration, mainly lines and concave

when

Fig. 6a, c

sided triangles in both areas, are distinct in &1- 7b

spirals

are not

and summary

known

and animals of the

birds

in the Central Plain, nor the

narrow mouth which were found

The

style.

similarity

at

Ma

The running Kansu ware

tall

urns with

Chia Yao.

of some of the decoration of the Chinese

painted ware to that of some Far Western potteries

is

equally

puzzling. For example, burial urns of the southern Russian

Tripolye culture with their ornament of elaborate black

spirals,

urns with black and red spirals excavated at the Bronze site

Age

of Trialeti in the Caucasus, and similar pots from the

Bronze

Age

city

of

Anau

in Turkestan,

all are

surprisingly

Pan Shan and Ma Ch'ang urns. But the theory of a great migration which introduced these urns and with them Neolithic culture into China from the Far West has been very like the

by Andersson himself. Andersson points out that such parallels of decorative motifs between the Chinese and the Western pottery are closest in the Ma Ch'ang stage and not in the Pan Shan stage, although it is sceptically received, not least

the earlier: 'In the Ma Ch'ang time, when the decorative style was already in decline, there developed strong parallels on the one hand to Anau, and on the other to Tripolye. With our present limited knowledge it is premature to discuss where these cultural impulses first arose and how they migrated across Central Asia.fWe are left to conclude that the small beginnings

of the painted pottery tradition of China may have been in/ spired from the West, but its flourishing period, that of Ma

Ch'ang and 46

the

Yang Shao

sites

of the Central Plain, was an

The

8 Painted pottery

Fig.

Shao

culture.

Ht. 6\

bead. ins.

Palaeolithic

and Neolithic Periods

Kansu Yang

Scale 1:3

independent growth, the work of Chinese and not of imrruV grants

from

The

the

WestrJ

dates estimatea

by Andersson

remain uncontested, and

for the painted potteries

are not likely to

be

made more

precise

until much more has been excavated and perhaps the techni/ que of Carbon 14 measurement can be applied. He placed the

Pan Shan stage between 2200 and 1700 B.C., and the Ma Ch'ang stage from 1700 to 1300 B.C. The YangJShao of the Central Plain, since it overlaps in time with Ma Ch'ang, would occupy the

first

half of the second millennium B.C.; but

it

must

Then it was supplanted by the Shang Bronze Age, when painted pottery was

have ended by about 1500 B.C. culture of the

abandoned. 3

The

earliest

known.

If the

date of the eastern painted pottery

Pan Shan

inclined to think,

we must assume

earlier in the river valleys

This

is

intrinsically

and Ch'ang

stage preceded

a local

isolated

Ma

stage

it,

as

is

still

un^

Andersson

is

that Neolithic culture arose

of Kansu than in the Central Plain.

The Pan Shan urns may be development, not much earlier than the

improbable.

and no more than contemporary with the

47

China

Yang Shao

beginning of the the

THE LUNG SHAN CULTURE

Yellow

on

culture

From Honan

to the east

and

north/east stretches the

of a different Neolithic tradition, the

Honan

the middle course of

river.

Lung Shan

domain

culture. In

can be shown to be later than that of Yang number of sites in this densely inhabited part of Shao, for at a the Central Plain Lung Shan pottery has been found strati' fied above Yang Shao remains and below the Bronze Age level. The Yang Shao and the Lung Shan cultures and a more primitive tradTtioh in south-east China comprise the main divisions of Neolithic China. These are based primarily on differences in the potteries found on their sites. If stone tools, at least it

methods of burial or types of habitation the cultural

map

is

are taken as criteria,

considerably changed.

The

distribution of

variants of these features does not coincide with the geographical

of the most characteristic

limits

potteries. Before

we

proceed

with the description of Neolithic culture lying outside the

Yang

Shao sphere we may glance at the geographical distribution of one important implement which disregards pottery frontiers: Fig.g

stone reaping'knives. fossil

These might be regarded

as the type

of the Chinese Neolithic.

In the only considerable study of this kind which has been

An

undertaken knives:

wide.

4

all

Chilvmin

distinguishes three types of such

of which are about 6 inches long and 2 or

The roughest kind, approximately

a notch for hafting at each narrow end. the line of the painted pottery river valley

as

F&4

Honan.

and

sites

3

inches

oblong, has generally

Its

distribution follows

from Kansu, along the

the middle course of the

Yellow

Wei

river as far

A thinner, better polished knife of crescentic shape,

pierced with a hafting hole or

two

holes set close together in the

middle and generally nearer to one edge, covers the north/east, from southern Manchuria, through Hopei and Shantung and

Honan

as far as the

upper waters of the Huai

southern part of this province.

48

A

river in the

few have been found in

The

Oblong with notched ends

:

Fig.

9

100 l.mhn.l

(10°

100 I

200 I

300 I

400 I

500 I

Scale of Miles

^

Crescentic perforated: 105'

o

a

Oblong perforated

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

I15

c

120°

I25

c

Distribution of neolithic sickles

49

China Shansi and northern Kansu, but

it is

only in

Honan that the first. The t hirds

area of the second type coincides with that of the

type of reaping'knife

is

oblong, but thinner, more regular and

and

two

better

ground than the

holes.

This type occurs over an area which embraces the whole

first

distribution of the other

it is

two with

pierced with one or

the exception of

Shantung

and the extreme north-west.

While

the crescentic knife

culture of the north/east

is

characteristic

and the

finer

of the

Lung Shan

oblong type of the Yang

Shao culture, their geographical distribution takes them well beyond the areas in which the most characteristic potteries of these cultures are found.

The

crescentic knife occurs with pot/

tery of the south/east Neolithic in Kiangsu province and the

oblong type spread

as far south as the

oblong knife survived into the Bronze

Yangtze.

Age

The

pierced

in the hands of

way of life, and was

farmers following their unaltered neolithic eventually copied in iron.

The lies

distribution of sites attributed to the

Lung Shan

culture

through the coastal region from Hopei to Chekiang and

extends inland into

Honan. Some of the

villages

were of sizes

comparable to those of the Yang Shao communities, but generally they seem to have been smaller, ranging from a few

hundred to a hundred thousand square metres, and occupying low knolls or river terraces. Their houses were little different from those we have described from Pan P^o Ts'un, sunk in the earth, the floors often coated with lime, and both round and rectangular in plan. They Jburied their dead in earth pits, ex' tended supine or prone and accompanied by pots, axes and arrows. Their ajiimals were the pig, c ow and goat. The abundance of stone reaping'knives found on the sites is evi' dence for their agriculture, but the species of grain which they Fig. 4

cultivated

is

not

known. Their

stone axes are generally of

oblong shape, thinner and broader than those of Yang Shao and are often pierced near the centre of the upper half. Much

50

The use

was made of shell

and

for knives

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

At many sites, Lung Shan region,

scrapers.

particularly in the southern area of the

mounds of shells of freslvwater molluscs show of food was of greater importance here than

that this source

was

it

to the

Nee

lithic communities farther inland.

The most

of the

distinctive

Lung Shan

potteries

a ware

is

Fig. 10

of black fabric with a well smoothed, often lustrous surface obtained by burnishing. For fineness and finish well with the black Athenian pottery of the centuries B.C. If any external dressing gloss,

not detectable

is

it

was used

The

after firing.

it

compares

fifth

to fourth

to

vessels are

turned and sometimes reduced to a thickness of

The handled

eighth of an inch.

produce the

cups, bowls

less

wheel/

than an

and deep goblets an

generally liave straight sides, sloping or vertical, giving

angular outline unusual in pottery which

copying metal

fine

ware

vessels.

is left

No

metal has ever been found, however,

Lung Shan

with

associated

not deliberately

is

remains.

The

surface- of this

undecojated, but the grey. ware and the coarse^

sandy pottery which makes up the bulk of the fragments

Lung Shan

sites

often bears incised

simple ^geometric kind. types

is

The regional Yang Shao

greater than in the

at

and stamped ornament of a variation of the pottery

culture of central

China

and demonstrates even more convincingly the difficulty of finding simple typological definitions for two neolithic tradi' tions.

To

the south,

sites

classed as

creasing quantity of the rough

Lung Shan brown _ware

contain an in/ characteristic

of

number of shell increasingly on food

the south-east Neolithic, just as the increasing

mounds show gathering,

and

that the population relied less

Honan

towards

on corn and

there

is

pottery indistinguishable

Shao

sites;

brown

cattle.

found a

Inland from Shantung

greater proportion of grey

from the coarse ware of the Yang

the fine black pottery

becomes

rarer.

Grey and

pottery decorated all over with impressions of twisted

51

China

which is less prominent in Shantung and Hopei, is commonest ware. When a site contains only this

cords,

here the

may be uncertain whether it should be classi/ Yang Shao, Lung Shan, or even whether it belongs to

rough

pottery,

fied as

it

Age, for the grey pottery tradition survives in Shang period. central Deposits of the Lung Shan culture have been found at Anyang, the site of the future Bronze Age capital, stratified above the Yang Shao level and below the Bronze Age level; and Lung Shan pottery has been found beneath the earliest the earlier Bronze

China

into the

Age remains in central Honan at the Bronze Age Cheng Chou. The connexion between the Bronze Agejculture of the Shang kings and the Lung Shan Neolithic Bronze

city

Fig. ioa }

f

is

of

evidently very close.

of the

earliest

bronze

It is

and the tvxpo^cbia goblet by the

flat

in use in

bone with

heat,

— notably the threclobed

Lung Shan pottery Lung Shan kind which

to the

stone axes of the

Shang

borne out by the similarity of some

vessels

which was

crucial in

Ch'eng Tzu Yai

The Shan

types,

Age

and

continued

religion,

Lung Shan

type

was of

site

in Shantung.

distribution of the most individual traits of the

culture

Bronze

Shang

tripod

by cracking

times. Moreover, oraclctaking

practised in a cruder fashion at the

//

show

that important influences bearing

civilisation

Lung on

the

of the central provinces originated in

Shan^ which is the most striking technical achievement of the Lung Shang Neolithic, is commonest in Hopei and western Shantung, and by com/ parison very rare in Honan. The strange vessel called ]{uei a tall jug with the lower part expanded into three large legs like the north-east, in the area comprising the provinces of

tung and Hopei. The

fine

black

jpottery,

t

Fig. toe

goat's dugs, has a similar distribution.

much commoner of the

total

in

Honan. There

is

Conversely the /Lis

no suggestion in

this

replacement of one social group by another in

the Central Plain, or of the violent interruption of cultural

52

Fig. 10 d, j,

Lung Shan pottery:

a, b, c,

burnished black ware;

grey ware. Scale 1:5

e,

g,

20 cm.

53

China

when

traditions established first

NEOLITHIC

CULTURES IN SOUTH'

EAST CHINA

Yang Shao

the

farmers formed their

settlements.

As we

Lung Shan sites southwards from Shan^ Anhui province and the coastal provinces of

pursue the

tung through

Kiangsu and Chekiang, the same attenuation of the most

Lung Shan features occurs. Coarse corded predominates. Along the valley of the Yangtze, from

characteristic

pottery

Szechwan

to the sea,

eminences near to

it is

rivers

associated with

and

lakes.

sites

on

established

Although much

neolithic

from this region, where the pre/ and the stone reaping'knife connect the origin

material has been collected

sence of the

//

of agricultural Plain,

little

can

life

with the Neolithic cultures of the Central

yet

be said of the stages of cultural development

and in the vast hilly region of southern China. The thick forest which must have covered the south in pre historic times would be a serious obstacle to the spread of in this area

farming.

groups of

Isolated

much depending on

themselves

agriculturalists,

must have been

scattered

of hunters whose methods had advanced

tribes

that

the hunt,

of

their

palaeolithic forebears.

It

must

note that the neolithic communities of southern heirs to traditions

of stonecraft quite

distinct

little

suffice

still

among beyond here to

China were

from those of the

north. Just as stone industries of mesolithic type practised in

Kuangsi province

are related to the

Hoabinhian culture of

Indochina, owing nothing to the northern microlithic tradi'

some of

tion, so the quest for parallels to

tools

axe

the polished stone

— notably a tanged or double^shouldered

of neolithic type

—leads

south/westwards

into

Burma and

the

Malay

peninsula.

The

dating of the Neolithic

obscure,

and many must come

haps those of the Huai

sites

of southern China

far into the

river basin are as old as the

Neolithic period in the Central Plain, where the culture

54

was superseded by

the

is

Bronze Age. Per'

Shang bronze

end of the

Lung Shan

culture in the

The seventeenth or sixteenth century B.C. sites

One

Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods

regional group of

spread around the south-east coast from

Kuantung

demonstrably

is

later

Chekiang

than the southern

outliers

to

of

Lung Shan culture with which it overlaps in the river valleys around Hangchou Bay on the Chekiang coast. The

the

uniformity of pottery and stone tools found on more than a hundred of these sites justifies the recognition of a distinct Southeast Neolithic culture. Like their contemporaries in the Yangtze valley, the Neolithic population of the south-eastern provinces are mound'dwellers. Their habitations occupied hillocks

on

river terraces or

low

by the sea shore, often in groups.

Their remains are specially abundant on the lower courses of rivers

flowing to the coast in Fukien province, and scores of

their habitation sites

adjacent islands.

have been traced

The

largest

of the

at

sites

Hongkong and on recently excavated

the

is at

T'an Shih Shan near Foochow. The mound is some 500 metres long, 10 metres wide and raised between 10 and 20 metres above the general ground level. Much of the mound consists

of sea

reduced to

shells

gathered for food

—

as in the

northern

of the European Neolithic, hunting had been

fringe^areas

its

lowest form.

The

axes, adzes

and arrowheads

of polished stone resemble the Yangtze types, but the pottery distinct and much superior. Much of it is of a thin brownish ware baked to a hardness which argues the possession of a is

kiln capable of temperatures of at least 1000 degrees centigrade. It

decorated with repeated stamped patterns of squared

is

spirals, shells.

hachuring, and impressions of cords, matting and

Some

fragments are covered with a red clay slip and

others painted in black with simple geometric motifs. potter's

The

wheels and moulds were used, though the majority of

the ware

hand^made. Stone spindlcwhorls are proof of is attested here only by large polished stones which can only have served as hoes, but at other related is

weaving. Agriculture

sites

the crescentic stone reaping/knife has been found.

55

China In Chekiang deposits the hard stamped ware has been dis/ covered

Lung Shan

overlying

Eastern Neolithic

is

culture of the Central Plain. into the last

It is

millennium B.C.

acteristic pottery

pottery.

Here the South/

evidently contemporary with the Bronze

At

suspected of surviving well a

Hongkong

site its

char/

occurred together with a bronze halberd of a

Such peri/ had no contribution to make advance of Chinese civilisation. Cultural progress was

type current in the eighth-seventh centuries B.C.

pheral and belated communities to the

inseparably linked with the destinies of the Central Plain, to an

account of whose Bronze

56

Age

lords

we now

turn.

Chapter

The

Bronze Age:

Earlier

Incomparisonwith

the

II

Skang Dynasty

the slower development seen in

the Near East and Europe, the transition in central China from a Neolithic to an advanced Bronze Age cultur e is ysteriously abrupt In the course of aiew centuries the villages

m

.

of the plain

fell

under the domination of walled

rulers the possession

cities

on whose

of b ronze weapon s, chariots and slaves

which no Neolithic com/ however populous and well fed. The

conferred a measure of superiority to

munity could

aspire,

event took place about the middle of the second millennium

bx. Not much

earlier the

Neolithic tribesmen of Europe,

and Scandinavia had become acquainted with bronze and come under civilising influences which can be traced ultimately to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. At about the same time Bronze Age culture spread eastwards through Asia and beyond the Urals. It was tempting to connect the rise of the Shang civilisation of China with similar influences of Western origin. But if it is to be a cultural migration com/ parable to those which radiated in the West from the Near which Loehr has tried East, there remains an awkward gap to fill by postulating the existence of a Northern Cultu re', as yet undefined, which might supply the missing link in the chain of events in central China. One reason for suggesting that a fully formed b ronze/using culujie_ migrated t hence from the West lies in the absence in China °f a trn 1y p rimitive stage of bronze metallurgy In the Britain

—

'

.

Early Bronze

Age

of Western Asia and Europe, open moulds

were used to cast simple

flat

axes and daggers

mental pins and plaques. In China the so far unearthed attest a casting.

One

earliest

and a few orna/ bronze products

much more advanced

technique of

purpose for which the Chinese seem to have

57

— China

employ ed the met al from the merited

vessels

ritual

the manufacture of orna<

start

—indicates

a

accumulation_jpj[

greater

wealth in the hands of a few tha n does the more limited enter/ prise

of the

earliest

bronze/users in the West.

that evidence for a truly primitive level central

forms of bronze

vessels

Shang and Chou

improbable

of bronze metallurgy in

China can have been overlooked

research of the last thirty years.

It is

in the archaeological

On the other

hand, neither the

and weapons nor the written record of

history supports the theory of a large trans/

ference of people or culture

from the

far

West.

In these circumstances we must conclude that little beyond a knowledge of tUr tr^pllm-giVa,] fpr hnique reached China from outside, a nd that this borrowing was npt accompanied by social a nd artistic influences w hich would justify us in speaking

of a

transfer

of culture.

The

technique in Shang times and

its

rapid mastery of the bronze application to the manufacture

of objects and ornament of purely Chinese invention

is no more surprising than the rapid adoption of bronze by more primitive communities as the civilisation of central China ex/ panded southwards. There too bronze was used from the start to produce weapons and vessels of advanced design and

sophisticated ornament.

The continuity between the Shang Bronze Age and the chronology Lung Shan Neolithic tradition in the Central Plain has of shang b een demonstrated on a score of sites. In almost every con/ siderable e xcavation, in Honan the grey pottery of Shang lies directJbLpyer layers containing the blackj ""g ^Mn w 3rp This was true of the most important Shang site which has been investigated, the r oyal capital at Hsiao T'un near Anyang 1

the

"

in the north of

Ho nan.

Large/scale excavations were carried

out here from 1929 to 19 37. Attention had been attracted to 1902,

when

'

a search forlhe source of the dragon/bones'

were being ground up by apothecaries fields

58

outside Hsiao T'un. Earlier

as a

it

in

which

medicine led to the

Lo Chen/yu had

recog/

The

Earlier

nised that the in scriptio ns present qn_

Bronze Age:

many of

Shang Dynasty

the

the 'dragoru.

bones' were oracle texts of great antiquity , and in the vicinity

of Hsiao T'un, site

it

was noted, an ancient

tradition located the

of Yin Hsu, the Waste of Yin' mentioned in the *

histories.

J&u was an al ternative name for the house of Shang apparently used by their Chou successors, and the waste remained when the latter conquered the Shang and transferred the capital elsewhere. The discoveries made at Hsiao T'un were dramatic. The inscribed bones, which proved to r ecord oracular texts established beyond doubt that this was the capital of the later ,

king s of the Shang. These r emains ar e not however, the ,

earliest

Shang period. 2 Since 1953 numerous Shang sites have been investigated close to the city of Cheng Cho u, in Hona n province, about 160 km. south of Anyang. They have thrown light on Shang which

are attributed to the

culture as

it

existed before the foundation of the capital at

Hsiao T'un and provide the

first

chronological sequence within the

satisfactory evidence for a

Shang

period.

The follow

ing scheme summarises conclusions reached by a comparison

of the two main Shang

C.

I5OO to C.

C.

1300 B.C.

1300 C.

1

to

sites

excavated thus

far:

SHANG

I

SHANG

IV (Late Period, Early Hsiao T'un)

cf. Cheng Chou, Lo Ta Miao, Tung Chai I SHANG II (Early Middle Period) cf. Cheng Chou, Erh Li Kang I shang in (Late Middle Period) cf. Cheng Chou, Erh Li Kang II

150 B.C.

(Early Period)

cf.

Cheng Chou

\

People's Park;

Hsiao T'un below rammed/earth foundations C.

II50tO C.

1027 B.C.

SHANG

V

(Late Period, Late Hsiao T'un)

cf.

Hsiao T'un, period of rammed/ earth foundations. 3

59

China

The

scale

of the

fortifications

found

at

attributed to the second earliest phase of the

even larger

size

than Great Shang

at

Cheng Chou,

a nd

imply a city of Hsiao T'un. This may site,

have been Hsiao, 4 whither history reports the tenth Shang king

(Chung Ting)

have moved his capital from a location

to

T he district comprised within a radius of 1 5 km. around Cheng Chou appears to have been no less densely inhabited from the Neolithic period onwards than was the territory surrounding the capital at Hsiao T'un. ear Cheng tart her east.

N

Chou many ha bitation

sites

type have b een discovered, mostly occupying

which

raised

them

plain of the river.

low

The

held to be the

site

e arliest

l

ground some 15 km.

to the west of

Shang Bronze o n a piece of

is

Cheng Chou The

habitation layer connected with a vertical-sided pit deep.

hillocks

a few feet above the general level of the flood

A ^e settlement, near the vi lage of Lo Ta Miao, rising

Lung Shan

of Yang Shao and

.

3

metres

Nearby a child was buried with a stone axe, and another

grave contained a pottery tripod vessel. at Lo Ta Miao are a variant of the Neolithic known from Pan P'o TVun. A roughly circular pit,

The jgottery kilns ty pe

about a yard in diameter

v

is

provided with a stoking-hole

at the

and capped by a clay cover pierced by four or five flues. grey pottery baked in these kilns is, however, distinct from that of the Yang Shao tradition, in the fabric r esembling more cl osely the pottery of later Shang times and a mong its shapes including some which connect with the*Lung Shang tra dition. si milar potter y was found at the site of Tung Chai Tunder a layer corresponding to the lower level at the larger site of Erh ~Li Kang, another hillock settlement lying 1 km. south of Cheng Chou. At Erh Li Kang two suc cessive levels, design nated here Shang II and IIl7we r^leariydehned; and at the People's Park site^ at the n orth-west corner of the city a layer correspon ding by its contents to the upper level of Erh Li Kang was obtruded on by pits and house floors which justify the side

The

,

A

60

;

The recognition of a further stage, limited

and

Bronze Age:

Earlier

the

Shang Dynasty

Shang IV. This admittedly

scattered stratigraphical evidence

is

reinforced by

the logical development of pottery shapes through the series of

Fig. 24

by the changing forms of decorated bone pins and the i ncreasing refinemen t of thff tfr^niqur nf nrarle/talring (see sites,

~

p-99).

At Hsiao T'un the

*"""

most striking stratigraphical

appearance of large building foundations of rammed earth , or

WALLS AND

by a large and d isciplined

BUILDINGS

J^se, such as could only be built

The

labour force.

feature

Cheng Chou

V in the table. The are claimed

occurring at Hsiao foundations.

the

foundations are taken as the criterion for

dividing the duration of the city into earlier and

Shang IV and

is

latest pottery

later

phases,

forms found

by the excavators to resemble thos e

T'un beneath

the level of the building

The latest phase identified

at

Cheng Chou would

thus co rrespon d to the earlier occupation of the northern

Unfortunately the success of the excavations in defining the earlier

at

Shang

at

city.

Cheng Chou

deposits has not been repeated at

Hsiao T'un. While recognising the

level

of

rammed earth Chi and

foundations as an important stratigraphical feature, Li his collaborators in the

prewar excavations in general despaired pits, graves and channels of the

of reducing the complicated site

to a simple stratigraphical order. 5

Whether

around Hsiao T'un

made it their

capital (as

gest) is

uncertain.

city at

still

economy of Lung Shan until the Shang^EngT the stratigraphy at some sites might sug' Conversely, the history of the Shang

a metaUess Neolithic

tradition persisted

ChengnChotrafter the establishment oTthe

capital jat

Hsiao T^un remains quire obscure. Possibly the material which would clarify thiTq uestion Res buried under the modern city. The wide scatter of the earlier sites around heng Chou

C

reflects

a village economy.

An

the ur banisation characteristic of the polity

of a Bronze

Age

city/state,

mark of and e conomic life

earthen city wall, the

seems to have been built as early as

61

China

Shang

probably in the

II, i.e.

fifteenth

century B.C.

The

trace

of the foundation of the wall, 19-20 metres wide and built of layers

of rammed earth 7-10 cm. thick, has been followed

for

1720 metres west from the site of Paio Chia Chuang. At either end of this line its south/running extensions soon connect with

Cheng Chou, with

the existing ancient city wall of

2000 and 1725 metres in west and

east respectively.

of the ancient wall fragments of pottery were found, burials attributed to

lengths of

In the fabric

Lung Shan and Shang

I

and on top of it habitation material and Shang III. Beneath the southern line of the

wall ancient rammed/earth foundations were also

existing

found, but their attribution to Shang II or III remains doubtful. Evidently the Shang wall was intended to be a square of some

1920 metres'

square plan and

be followed by Chinese

to far,

at

The

side.

strange as

its

its

orientation were

Thus

city walls in later times.

absence appears, no city wall has been t raced

Hsiao T'un. 6

The same method of construction

as used for the wall, the

soil by ramming with marks of 5 cm. diameter were distinguish/

co mpacting of successive thin layers of

narrow

staves ( ram

able in the wall),

The

was followed

to prepare the

inundations o£

at Paio Chia Chuang. It was cut into by another house floor dated to Shang III, and is therefore assigned to Shang II, the period which saw

buildings.

earliest

house floor was excavated

The earth platform destined to carry the 255 by 8-8 metres. Foundations of this arera reat Cheng Chou perhaps because they were re/

the city wall raised.

building measured type

seTved for

.

important buildings or the hojJSjs__pf^he_^ahhy, as

the e xpense, of labour

it

required might suggest.

When

two or

Hsiao T'un more commonly, sometimes on a grand scale and pre/

three centuries later they appear at these foundations are serve features

which give an idea of the form of building they C, a complex of rectangular

supported. In the important sector

foundations

62

is

related to

surrounding

ritual burials in a

way

The

which

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

suggests that the buildings they supported existed con/

temporaneously and were built to a general plan.

and the

which accompanied

scale

their

con/ plat/

rites

Fig. 11

of

seem appropriate to palaces or temples. The

the foundations struction

The

forms are of rammed earth, averaging 2 metres in depth, partly

sunk beneath the contemporary ground level. The largest is that lying to the north, which was 25 metres wide, and of greater though uncertain length. In the south of the sector narrower buildings formed three sides of a hollow square open to the

had been placed on the sur/ face of the platforms as footings of pillars, which were of wood. At another part of the Hsiao T'un site a rectangular foundation east.

Here and

there river boulders

30 metres long preserved regular alignments of such boulders. apart.

The

space of about 7 metres across the width of the building

The

was

pillars

on

the perimeter stood about

divided by a central

4 metres

row of pillars.

In these dimensions

we

detect the

appearance of the

first

wooden architectur e of the Chinese typ e as it has sur/ vived to modern times in China, JCorea and Japan. The

trabeate

spaces are those

which could be

easily

bridged by timbers, and

the approximately equal spacing of the bays in both axes of the

foundations foreshadows a lasting feature of the tecture.

A

single bronze pillar/footing

was

wooden

archi/

recovered, in the

form of a disc measuring 35 cm. in diameter and made convex on the underside so as to rest on a boulder, but the use of bronze for

(and

still

this

purpose was exceptional. Large boulder s were

are) the usual

preventing

its

of these buildings. so

means of firming the

foot of a pillar

and

decay ._ Little can be said of the roofing and walls

No trace ol

we may assume

tiles is

reported by the excavators,

that the covering

was of wood, thatch

or

daub, and the absence of any form of bricks suggests that

Shang times builders closed the spaces between with the same light partitions as have been used in

already in

the

pillars

the

traditional architecture until the present day.

63

China

Chines e archaeologists acceptthe rammedearth (g ise) method pfjRjlfiipg as rU^rnrtrrUtir of t he Bronze A^eT ordinary 3welling'houses of the Shang period were, however, raised on

compacted foundation, and often on a floor lowered below the level of the surrounding ground in the same way as in Neolithic times. From Hsiao Tun round 'pit/ dwellings' are described, most of which are about 2 metres earth floors without the

deep and

with traces of an earth But the sunken houses of Shang II at Cheng Chou a century or two earlier, are less primitive. An irregular row of rectangular foundations was u n covered atj l^ 3

to 5 metres in diameter, often

wall around the

site

of

lip.

Ming Kung Lu

in the nor th-west, pt the city, roughly

alignedwithriieir longeraxesjiarallel. This arrangement hints at the

cEecker^board patternTalready implied in the square wall

city, which was to be the bas is of later Ch inese town planning. The houses measured on average 3 by 1-5 metres anH were mostly sunk half a metre below the old ground surface. Their doors were on a long side and fireplaces were made at the wall near them. Some had round or square niches

of the Shang

KEY TO OPPOSITE PAGE i

Dog

14 Find of ko halberd

2 Caprid 3

Pig

4 Bovid 5 Horse

15 Find of a

chiieh etc.

16 Find of a

ting etc.

17 Bird 1

8 Burial

19 Kneeling victim holding shield

7 Child

Woman

9 Kneeling

and halberd

man

berd (ko)

11 Find of n tual vessels

12 Grave of beheaded

64

Find of a

21 sacrificial

Rammed

lei

earth foundation

22 Stone pillar'footing a

victims

(ko)

20 Kneeling victim holding hal'

10 Stone pillar^footing

13

of a person upside-down

(on head)

6 Chariot

8

etc.

mound

resting

of rammed earth

on

Fig.

n

tions at

Sector

C

of the excava'

Hsiao Tun, Anyang

D :0: D,

D,

a

I?.

A- ±2.

b«rf-

itdDoaQ ,U] .

«

.

.

•/

•

1.2

4.

2

CjAS^

.

}

th forms of tsun are

related to libation goblets, the former to the slender kt^ l atter

Fig. i$b

farther west.

the 'black wine' mentioned in the ritual texts.

with a Plate 18

appearance there marks an in'

attracted to the sacrifice

shoulderecTvase with Plates 14, 15

its

Chou homeland

and the

constriction at the middle of the ku

coinci des with the bottom of the container . In profile

it is

in^

marked by a thickening whi ch together with the ex ^ panding upper and lower parts dividesthe ornamentinto thre e

variably

distinct panels

.

In

many

pieces

t

wo

or four cross^shaped holes

below the midd le, for what purpose known. Here there can be no question of a cerami c prototype, and it has been plausibly suggested that the shape ori ginated in a goblet made of two horn s jrn'ned tog ether. Two b ucket/'shap edvessels, thejw_with lid and swinging handle and the fc^with v ertical tubes near theTip intended for are pierced in the side just

it is

Plate 19

F&

1

Sf

a

not

rope^handk.

Plate 17

poured in

Plate 29

bo at with

are also wine^containexs.

The wine could be

the^spouted ho \ t hejtrange kuang , sha ped like a sauce^ lid

formed into an ox/} ike!mpnster and often

plastic decoration offantastic animals, i$ said to

ther

have been used

it. Somekuang have a vertical partition inside ancT accom panied by_a_lajjk«. essels ca st i n thej orm of entire animals (owl^jige^elephant and rhinoceros arefound) prob' ably also heloLlhje__ rituaT drink. TEe strange chiieb and cto, which also belong to the group of wine vessels, always have l ong tapering, splayed legs, shaxp^edged with triangular section ^

^for_mixing

V

are

Plates 2Q, 23

Fig. i$a

and, rising from the Plate

78

20

pillars carrying

Jig,

a pair of short rectangular^section ed

round caps atlHe

top. Pottery versions of these

The goblets are these s

pout

Earlier

Bronze Age:

found in considerable number s, but

copy the bronz e forms rather than the of the chueb

would be

than to drinking, 'but the suited to either

.

The

better l

the

Shang Dynasty

it is

clear that

reverse.

The long

adapted to pouring a libation

arger chia

s

eems surprisingly

little

pi llars beneath the caps are always

left

-

undecorated. If they were intended, as has been surmised, for 1

gripping by tongs

when

the

wine was heated over a

fire,

they

|

must have been devised for a metal vessel in the first place. The design of these uncompromising shapes shows a fine feeling for plastic form.

The

Shang bronzes was not equalled by like early date, and rarely suiv passed at any time since. Excavation has thrown some light on the technique which was employed, though many details quality of the best

any other bronze/founders of

of the process are covered

at

was

at

III,

still

obscure.

Bronze

factories

were

BRONZE CASTING

dis/

two sites near Cheng Chou. One, dated to Shang Tzu Hsing Shan and occupied part of a rectangular

building resembling other house foundations. Traces of cor'

roded bronze covered the

floor, in

which were sunk

a

dozen

small conical pits with smooth hardened sides. These prob/ ably held the casting moulds, for the lips of the pits were

blackened and surrounded by scraps of slag. Fragments of clay

moulds

for knives

tered about.

and halberds, some decorated, were

The crucibles were made of coarse red

clay,

scat/

bucket/

shaped and cased in a thick jacket of clay mixed with

soot.

A deep deposit of slag lying outside the building showed that the ore

the spot. The scale of the production may be judged from the site of Nan Kuan Cheng Chou, where over a thousand fragments of

was

refined

on

in the bronze factories

Wai clay

at

moulds

for

weapons,

//,

chia

The clay moulds intended number of separate parts fitted six to a

and

chueh were recovered.

for casting vessels

comprised a

together at the edges by dowels,

dozen of them being required

for a goblet or tripod

bowl. In his study of the moulds Karlbeck detected

particles

79

China

of metal adhering to the

clay,

which

is

usually blackened

and

hardened on the outside, and inferred that the process was one

of

molten bronze being poured into the

direct casting, the

argument appears

original clay form. This

surprising as

it is

of the bronze

Hsiao

Tun

that the perfect,

vessels

minute

of the ornament

could be produced by

this

Shang IV,

and

At

Here was found

the earlier phase of the capital.

monster mask in

model which was used

relief.

therefore dated

is

part of a block of burnt clay, one side of which t'ao t'ieh

means.

a bronze working'floor lay beneath one of the

large foundation platforms in sector B, to

to be conclusive,

detail

is

carved with a

This can only be a positive

to prepare a negative

mould

for re/

ceiving the metal. In spite of this evidence for direct casting

it is

Hsiao T'un period the Chinese should have been ignorant of another way of casting bronze the circperdue method. This required a model difficult to believe that

even in the

earlier

—

moulded first of all in wax. The wax was en' cased in fine clay and baked, whereby the wax was eliminated and a cavity left to receive the metal. Such a proceeding is little likely to be detectable from the rubbish left on the foundry floor since the mould would be destroyed on removing the finished casting, and it is not surprising that technologists arguing from the excavated material more readily find evidence for direct casting than for the use of wax. Nevertheless, a close examination of the Shang bronze vessels with the more ela/ borate ornament leaves little doubt that the wax method was employed to produce them. Their varied and often minute relief, elaborate handles and undercut projecting parts, all flaw/ to be carved or

lessly

rendered, are unthinkable as a task for direct casting, or

at least for

such casting in panvmoulds of the accuracy attain^

able in burnt clay. so long

known

It is

very likely that the

in the West,

was conveyed

wax to

techniqu e,

China along

with the knowledge of metallurgy itself" The crispness orthe reliet

80

ornament on bronze

vessels of the earlier

Shang period

The suggests that

wax was

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

used even before the development of

elaborate bronze ornament

at

Hsiao T'un.

In r ecent tim es c opper and tin ores have been mined chiefly

Kweichou and Yunnan, both of which lay outside the c on trol of the Shang st ate. It is questionable whether the Shang can have been content to depend for so essential a commodity on the minor trade prac ticable with primitive peoples, and we have seen that the in' in the so uth-western provinces of

scriptions concerning military forays

do not speak of the south/

Ores may however have been exploited near Hsiao T'un itself for tr adition locates them i n its vicinity and some place-names bear this out, although no trace of them

eastern region.

remains

at

the present day.

A

recent study identified four

and two of tin, within a radius of ioo km. from Hsiao T'un. By the standards found in other parts of the Bronze Age world the Chinese were quite potential sources of copper

eccentric in the composition of the alloy. c opper

same

and

class.

tin vary

The

The

proportions of

within wide limit s, even in goods of the

analysis of the metal

of a tinghas given one part

of tin to ten of copper which are the normal proportions in

A chueh contained wo parts of tin to A practice peculiar to Ch ina the addition of

other parts of the world. t

en of copper

.

2 considerable quantity

t

is

of l eaa to the alloy In Shang bronze .

may amount to six per cent, though generally it is less and may be lacking altogether. The presence o fjead in the alloy would somewhat r educe the meltin g point and by i mproving the flow of the meta l would tend t o, reduce flaws and bu bbles The lead therefore serves an intelligible purpose the lead

.

which the perfection of intricate ornament was a great desideratum. But even in a spearhead, a real weapon, and not a ceremonial piece made for burial, the proportion of

in casting vessels in

lead proved to be 15 per cent, while only a trace of tin

was

pre'

Perhaps the high cost of tin a nd the irregularity of the supply were the reasons for the variation of the constituents of

sent.

81

China bronze; or perhaps lead/ and tin-bearing ores were regarded as

But

equivalent ingredients.

vincing. In rftnn

tjrpps,

the political sphere so that the

ti

when

neither

explanation

the feudal settlement

and opened up new

con/

is

expanded

possibilities

of trade,

n resources of south-west China should have been

more easily available, still 10 per cent to 30 per cent of lead wa s com monly adcled to the alloy The chie f arms of Shang times were t he boj^ ^nd «•!>*» ha1 y J^ercLThe shape of theJiQw, which had no imperishable parts, canoe seen in some emblematic symbols cast on bronze vessels. The arc had a double curve and the upper tip is often .curved .

ARMS Fig. ij Fig.

16

qfrnn^ly nntwprds.

Euman less

figure in

Tts Jjpngffr,

than aboji tibur

fe et.

A

been built of a number of with horn.

It is

when

it

appears alongside a

some oFthe symbols, seems

bow

strips

of

this

to

have been not

shape can only have

of wood, possibly combined ,

Compound bow which eastern Asia as long as the bow

the ancestor of the

remained the standard type in

/

was employed. 8 Its double curve affords a p owerful thrust over a short pull, a nd in this respect it was ideajJoF shooting fro mjhe

^o n finH

,

c,

spearheads.

shang period.

Scale approx. 1:$

89

1 3

China

KEY TO FIGURE 22

I II, III

IV

Human

VII Trace of timber of the

skeleton

VIII Trench cut

Skeletons of horses

Trace of timber of the

V Trench

made

shaft

IX

to receive the

Bronze

Gold

3

Cowrie

XI

26

bell

Black ashy

Domed

soil

disk of mother^of'pearl

28 Bone tube

shells

Bowshaped

29 Tang of bronze arrowhead

object of bronze

30-31 Bronze axle/caps

6 Stone blade

32

Bone ornament

7 Bronze arrowheads

3 3

Eight

domed

disks of bronze

8-io Bone tubes

34 Seven

domed

disks of bronze

1

Bone arrowheads

35 Bronze ring with spur

12 Socket of a bronze axe 1

Bronze

36 Bronze arrowhead 37 Bone tube

chisel

domed

14-15 Bronze arrowheads

38 Bronze

16 Bronze knife

39-40 Bronze ornaments from the

17 Stone point 18

Bone tube

19

Domed

disk

disks (about 58)

yoke

41-42 Harness yokes of

mother^of'

pearl

20 Bone tube

43-44 Triangular plaques of bronze 45 Bronze

domed

disks

(17

46 Bronze domed disks (about 58)

22 Fragments of stone point

47-48 Bronze cheek'pieces

Bone ornament

24 Bone tube 25 Bow'shaped object of bronze

in

number)

21 Disk of mother'of'pearl

23

90

of red lacquer paint

27 Bone ornament

foil

4 Bronze plaque 5

box

X Traces

the wheels

2

Trace of lower timbers of the

Trenches made to receive

i

receive the

axle

shaft

VI

to

axle

49-50 Bronze domed

disks

51-52 Bronze ornaments from foreheads

horses'

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

»v«v»V»VV4v*

^it^wt ^

..TJ

30.

i

i

*•

=

li

...£'"7.:;.;:;:;.

£aii

21 I

>3

>^ A/ it*™

2j

!

era 37.

vr

j

/rch sir

*^-w

v\

^^>

<

F/^. 22 Burial of a chariot, with charioteer and horses, found near

Honaen

Province. Late

V-.

Anyang,

Shang Dynasty, i2th'iith century B.C. (Pi.

n)

91

— China

The bend able,

at the end of the chariot's main shaft is inexplio and probably accidental. Seen from the side the shaft

has a shallow double curve in the middle, designed to keep the

two ends

— beneath the box, and between the

in a horizontal position. the yoke,

main

The

shaft, axle

horses' heads

various timbers, the cross/bar of

and foundation of the

driver's

box,

can only have been lashed or pegged together with wood,

was no

for

no indi/ cation of the shape of the box or the dashboard beyond the trace of its oblong foundation. The wheels measured 1- 5 metres in diameter, their rims were about 7 cm. wide, and held without metal. Eighteen taperi ng spokes joined the rims to a hub about 22 cm/ in diameter and some 35 cm. long. The there

length of the the bearing

trace

hub

of metal

is

at these points.

understandable

when

There

it is

is

considered that

was of wood on wood, and can have been

cated only with animal grease or pitch.

The

lubri'

elongated

hub

caps, perforated to receive linch pins, are similar in design to

those used afterwards, throughout the

Chou

dynasty.

man h as been Yellow Sprin gs with the chariot he drove or conv manded. He is seen lying prone behind the box. In one of the chariot'pits at Hsiao T'un there were two human occupants and four horse s. The norma compleme nt, m judge fromfhe practice of the Near East and the Greeks, would be a driver and a bowman. Like the Greeks, the Shang charioteer probably used his vehicle to approach and surprise the enem y, and dis^ mounted for the main fight. The second pair of Horses must have been harnessed to traces o n either side of the pair on whose necks the yoke rested, in the manner of the Homeric paraseiroi. From these excavations we cannot, unfortunately, deduce a In the

Ta Ssu K'ung

chariot/grav e only one

sent to the

l

sure answer to a crucial question: whether the harness, like that of the ancient

Near

East, Greece

and Rome, took the

draught from bands passed around the horses' necks, or in^ eluded some device to enable the horses to exert

92

their effort

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

anno

Fig.

23 Jade animal amulets.

From Ta Ssu K'ung, Anyang, The

majority are carved from thin slices ofjade. Scale approx. 3:4

with the chest and shoulders. In the former case the Chinese

from the same disability as the Western chariot: h arder the horses pulled the more they tended to choke themselves and to raise their heads into an unsuitable position for their run From the first century B.C the Chinese possessed a f orm of harness whirh plared tjie strain on the chest and sfioulders a nd obtained a much more effective draugh t. This chariot suffered

the

.

.

was an invention which anticipated a vice, the it is

hard

collar,

similar

by almo^Ta'Thousand

years.

European de^

On the whole,

Shang used the choker harness, otherwise would hardly have been attached to a single light

likely that the

four horses chariot.

Of the Worses themselves,

pending the publication of a

93

China study of their bones, jhort_ of stature and Jated, as

we can l

as yet say

They appear

little.

to be

arge^headed, and therefore probably ig/

one would expect, to the steppe horse of Przewalski.

The brH1 p

AiA nnt i nclude a

bit:

the material, bone or rope ,

which passed throughjhe horse*s mouth to join the perforated che^i^Dieces which were found lying beside the jaws, had perished without trace.

The homeland of the Chou provinces

more_suitable

is

people in Shansi and Shensi M

tor horse/raising

than the Central

Plain,_a nd in rnstorical times has su pplied horses to the rest of

China.

It

is

proof of this

probable, although there

yet, that

the

Chou

is

no archaeological

were acquainted wit h chariotry

east to conquer the Shang kingdom in XQ?7 R.r. We may imagine that the chariot played some part in their campaign. The siting of the chariot/pits at Hsiao T'un

even before they moved

connects them with the

later

phase of the

city,

the twelfth to

when we may suppose that the Chou were already a power to be reckoned with. The xessnv blanc e^ of the Shang chariot to chariots made in the Near East towards the end o^theiecondjrullennitnn B.C. is t oo great eleventh centuries B.C., a time

to be dismissed as a coincidence.

If ideas of chariot design

China from the West they probably traversed the on their journey eastwards. It is cpjiceiYable that the Shang chariot was a borrowing from their western neighbours, on whom they may have relied besides for the reached

Chou

territory

~

supply of horse s^

pottery

The

Shang dynasty makes on the whole a poor showing compared with the finer wares of the Neolithic period. Painting was never practised and burnishing is rare. The purely ceramic forms the li and the ting must be includ ed with these, though they soon came to copy the tense lines of the „ bronze versions are often rough in technique and finish, and pottery of the

—

—

bag'shaped pots with rounded bottom are out the period.

94

The forms of

//

and

ting

common

through^

descend with

little

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

from the coarse grey pottery which is found in with the finer wares of both the Yang combined central China Shao and the Lung Shang Neolithic. While bronze ousted the finer neolithic pottery, the humbler tradition continued. S hang innovation in the coarse ware was the introduction of a ring foot. The p otter's wheel was used where it was ap pro/ priate, but even in rounded vessels the potter often resorted to the old method of beating out the sides with a patterned spatula, — or a stick bound with cord. -j / Through the three stages of the Cheng Chou sites we may observe g radual changes in the proportions of pottery ting U ( and hsien, the pedestal bowl called tou and the peculiar deep f vase with flat base or rounded bottom w hich the excavators \ change

at first

A

*

call the

l

arge^mouthed

tsun.

F ollowing

the results achieved at

Fig. 24

^

Cheng Chou a typological study of the pottery forms has begun, but a clearer picture of the stratigraphical sequence

T'un

at

Hsiao

will be necessary before a sequence can be established for

whole of the Shang period. It is still quite uncertain whether some differences noticeable between the potteries of the two

the

city sites are

and ting

contemporary local divergencies or

of development. The virtual a bsence of the

later stages

from Hsiao T'un

is

surprising, for this type

Cheng Chou. The large/mouthed northern

city.

reflect earlier

It is

tsun

is

is

common

at

also rarer at the

strange too that the pedestal

bowl should

continu e to bejnade in pottery throug hout jhe Shang period

whereas the few

known

bronze copies o f this vessel appear_aU_

Shangdate_and imitate the most primitive shapes^ series. The bronze tou in a sophisticated form and f urnish e d with a lid makes its ap pearance again some 500 years

to be of early

of the pottery

later,

in theTat e

vessels.

Chou

period,

when

it

figures

amon g

the ritua l

10

"ThTbanaJity^pX^an^pottery isjelieyed by £w_p remarkable made by Shang potters: the utilisation of pure white clay and the invention of a hard felspathic glaze The former is discoveries

.

95

LI and

HSIAO T UN

SHANG V

CHIA

HSIEN

TING

KUAN

TSUN

m

HSIAO T UN

SHANG

IV

CHENG CHOU SHANG III

CHENG CHOU SHANG II

CHENG CHOU SHANG I

cc

CHENG CHOU LUNG SHANG NEOLITHIC

Fig. 24 Pottery, bronzes, stone axes and oracle bones from

Cheng Cbou

'China clay * to which Chinese ceramic art owed its supremacy two thousand years later, from the Sung period onwards. Fragments of white ware have been found sporadic/ ally on neolithic sites from Shangtung to Kansu, but only in kaolin, th e

96

TOU

LEI

STONE TOOLS BRONZE WEAPONS ORACLE BONES

YU

KUEI

P OU

c^ D

w m ^x^

m

SV

md Anyang,

showing the development at these

sites.

Not

to scale.

After K'ao

Ku Hsueh

Pao (1956)

he Sh ang_geriod (and p^rhaj^or^atjrlsiao Tun) was this material deliberately exploited. It was sometimes fired to a

t

fctrdness needing a kiln capable

than 1000 degrees centigrade.

The

of a temperature of more

w hite

pot s are a superior

97

China ware, decorated by carving pottery

—with

—a

technique not found on other

or nament in part identical with motifs used

on_thf hronzrs. They do not copy the bro nze ornament introduce^ so me pattern peculiar to

howevei^and

slavishly,

themselves.

The

Hsien as well unglazed,

is

ft

bowls and

higlvshouldered

ware,

glazed

eq ually distinctive ,

has been found at

vases,

is

Cheng Cho u and Hui

Hsiao T'un. The body, which alsp_occurs mostly as hard as that of the white ware^ but as at

b uff or grey in colou r, and s ometimes contains ground quartz. It is wheel^turne d, i mpressed with small spirals or S ^ shaped or checkerboard figures. On many ^pieces the glaze

thinner,

appears in patches, an

merely scattering

wood

which might be achieved by

effect

ash

on

the pots as they were burnt in the

But other specimens have the thin greenislvyellow glaze on the inner and outer surfaces, and here the glaze must have been more carefully applied. strange light is cast on the nature of early technology by the kiln.

evenly spread

A

fact that neither

to the extent

of these outstanding discoveries was exploited

one might expect. The white ware ends with the

Shang while ,

the glazing of pottery ceases after about 800 B.C.,

to reappear in differen t iorms in the s titute f or

Han p eriod Asa

the white marble or Ivo ry vessels

siirv

which were bu ried

with .important persons th^^mductioF^ofnfhe' white pottery

mayjiave cease^asjthejashion p assed, but the advantages of a made water-tight with glaze migh t ,

strong, thin^walled vessel

ha ve been expected Potters

to

keep

and bronzes miths,

o rganised in the Shang

F&

*5

1 ^ ¥ * n ± *

f Fig.

H¥ m

ft

k

I

*

m

it

m % m

Jff!

II!

m

26 The earliestform of Chinese writing, asfound on oracle hones, with {below) modern Translation, from left to right: Ox; goat, sheep; tree; moon; earth;

equivalents.

water; tripod, vessel (ting); to show, declare; field (showing divisions); then

and bowl); ancestor

(phallus); to

go

(man

against, towards; heaven; to pray.

IOI

China dynasty to the present day, a reform undertaken in the second century B.C. has obscured the meaning of the greater part of the oldest stock of ideographs.

The

sentences turns therefore in the

and

identification

interpretation of the oracle

first

place

on

of the old forms with the

the comparison

later.

Out of some

5000 ideographs recorded from the Shang period only about 1500 can now be convincingly interpreted, and divergent views are entertained on lation

of the

sentences

is

many

characters crucial to the trans'

terse oracle sentences.

difficult in

Even

the discussion of the

any language but Chinese,

for the exact

Shang phonetic values of the ideographs are not known, and modern Chinese words in romanised form can only be sub' stituted for the ideographs when both the meaning and the equivalence with the standard Chinese script are reasonably sure.

The main

subjects

on which

was

the oracle

interrogated

were the appropriateness of sacrifice to the royal ancestors, the

and comings and goings of the king,

sickness

the advisability

of undertaking hunting expeditions or of taking military action against hostile neighbours, the likelihood of rain, the success of

crops and the possibility of untoward events. Questions last

subject were generally confined to the following

ten^day division of the calendar^

It is clear

on

the

hstin,

a_

from the form of

"some ofthelongerinscriptions that the sentence engraved on the

bone was a record made

after the

completion of the oracle'

taking, for the verification of the oracle's answer

added.

The

is

occasionally

brief sentences presumably note only the essence

when

bone was burned and the cracks interpreted. Most of the sentences begin with a combination of two characters indicating a day of a 60'day cycle which was of what was spoken

the

obtained by placing together and repeating in parallel a often,

The

and a

distinct series

of twelve, symbols.

briefest sentences consist

'Rain or

not?', 'Is

it

of only two or three words: But even the

permissible to go forth?'

matter of rain might be elaborated

102

series

11

and

the verification noted, as

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

in the following series of sentences. These are inscribed different parts

Shang Dynasty

on

of the same ox scapula and, being dated to the

same day, clearly refer to the same prognostication: 'Day keng tzu, oracle taken, Cheng (augur's name) asking, tomorrow, hsin ch'ou, will the weather be fine? asking, to/ ( morrow, hsin ch ou will the weather not be fine? 'The king examined and said, this evening it will rain, to/ morrow, hsin ch'ou, it will be fine. 'In that night rain was granted, on hsin cUou it was fine.' But normally the record is briefer: y

'Kuei maOy asking, in the (next)

hstin,

nothing untoward?'

'To Ancestor Chia (eighteenth king) a goat? To Ancestor Keng (P'an Keng, nineteenth king, founder of the city of Great Shang) a goat?' Yi wei, asking, an ox to the Thirteen Ancestors? goat to

A

'

the Lesser Ancestors?'

'Kuei mao, an oracle, asking, any harm to the king in the (next) hsun? '

Ting hai9 an oracle, asking, shall

we hunt

pi lu (Place or

animal?)?'

Questions on

sacrifice,

of which scores of different kinds are

given special names, are the most frequent of recipients

were the royal ancestors

their

names

respond closely to the king/list and the

Shang

ancestors preserved in the histories.

traditional

list

list

all.

are

When

found

the

to cor/

of the pre/royal

The

validity

was thus dramatically vindicated,

of the

to the dis/

comfiture of sceptical historians. 12

The

sacrifice lists distinguish

and individuals representatives

(cf.

the royal succession father to

i.e.

the chief

of generations, and the 'Lesser Ancestors' in

the sentence quoted). In the

from

between generations of kings

the 'Thirteen Ancestors',

son

first

half of the Hsiao

went from older

after the

to

T'un period

younger brother, but

twenty/seventh king.

animals were chiefly the ox, goat and pig

— the

The

THE SHANG STATE AS REFLECTED IN THE ORACLE SENTENCES

sacrifice d

suovetaurilia

of

103

China

Romans

the

—though

deer

and dogs, and very

beings, were also offered. In

many of the

rarely

human

sentences in set form

m

'oracle taken* and chen 'asking or inter/ which is believed to be the name of the augur. These names form distinct groups numbering

there occurs

between

preting' a character officiating

from a half-dozen

to a score at different times.

Tung Tso'pin

made a brilliant contribution to the study of the oraclcbones when he made the augurs' names the basis of a chronological division. He divided the reign of the Shang kings at Hsiao T'un into five periods: I

II

III

twenty/second king twenty/third and twentyfourth kings twenty/fifth to twenty'sixth kings

IV

twenty'seventh to twenty^eighth kings

y

twentyninth

to thirtieth kings

and so much enhanced the historical value of the information which is gleaned from the oracle records. Ting The first of these periods, that of the King (sixteenth or early fifteenth century B.C.), has produced the

Wu

greatest

prises^

number of sentences concerned with militaryenter' The common form of question asks for the auspices

regarding the chastisement of an entity which appears as two first a proper name and the second the word meaning direction or region. Of the proper names more than a dozen occur with some frequency and clearly refer to tribes with whom the Shang were at enmity. The study of these names in connexion with later literary traditions sug' gests that the majority of them inhabited the region lying to the north-west of the Shang capital, in what is now south and east Shansi. Written history confirms that Shang power had begun to expand in this direction in the earlier part of the

characters, the

fang,

dynastic

reign.

The

locations

given of capitals that were

occuped before ]^an Keng's move

to

Hsiao T'un

are in

some

instances obscure, but several seem to have been in eastern

104

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

Shang Dynasty

the

Honan and one (Yen, cited in the Bamboo Annals) was in Shantung. 13 The move to Hsiao T'un thus seems to have been and north-west. what is meant by the alleged perc grination of the Shang rulers, whether the moves involved considerable numbers of people or, as seems more likely, only an advance

to the west

It is difficult

to say quite

the settlement of the ruling house at different points in a large territory

which they dominated. Perhaps

the flooding of the

Yellow river, or a superstition connected with the king's death, were contributing reasons. Students of the oracle sen/ tences infer that the influence of the Shang_ kings made itself felt through most of central China, including the provinces of Shantung, Honan and Hopei, and even extended into the northern part of Anhui and Kiangsu. Sites of Shang date, identified by pottery and minor relics, are being excavated at the present time over the whole of this area, and as methods of

Shang period are refined, it may prove pos/ of Shang power archaeologically from its centre in Shantung and Honan to the outlying regions. Apart from the historical records of the moves of the kings, dating within the

sible to trace the spread

the chronological succession recently established between the

Cheng Chou and Hsiao T'un hints at a move of the Honan in the midd le of th e Shang period. The expansion towards the north-west seems to

cities at

centre of jx>wer northwards in

have encountered the opposition of the Shansi tribes and to have stopped on the line of the T'ai

mountain its

barrier

tributaries

and

dwelt

Hang

mountains. Beyond

this

Yellow

and

farther west along the

tribes

who

river

appear in history as the

Chou

and whose eastward advance o verthrew the Shang and occupied their capital in 1027 B.C. Already in the time of Ting there is mention of a Chou chieftain allied to the Shang. At this time the Shang king is preoccupied with confederacy,

Wu

attacks in the north/west of his territory. In oracle^bone periods

IV and V,

the age of the last four kings, in the late twelfth

and

105

China eleventh centuries B.C., the military oracles are chiefly con/

cerned with hostile peoples

who

appear to inhabit the

east or

from an inscription on a bronze vessel found in Shantung that Chao, the last of his line, undertook a major expedition to the east. It may have been this distraction south/east. It appears

which gave

the

Chou

their opportunity. 14

In the light of the oracle sentences, perhaps inevitably from the nature of them, the cracy.

The king might

Shang

state

appears as a kind of thee

himself act as an augur, increasingly so

in the later periods of the oracle" sentences. sides the

named

names of which some ritualists

He

is assistedj

be/

augurs, by other individuals designated by

recorded in the

are applied also to the earliest

Chinese

shamans and

literature.

of priests of this kind may have included the

The

activity

and communication with the world of spirits and ghosts which is still the role of the village medicine/man in some primitive communities of the Far East. In the ancestors are gods

ecstatic trance

official religion

the royal

whose favour must be ensured, but their less than those of the deity called Shang

powers appear to be

Supreme Ruler, who is able to visit the state witri storm and blight of crops and other disasters. Some _of the sacrifices Ti,

i.e.

reflect

animistic beliefs which, like the presence of shamans,

suggest the nature of the popular religion over

system was raised. Heayenly__hdLrigs were, besides

Shang

who

which

the official

received sacrifice

Ti, the Sun, Clouds, Rain,

Wind and

Western Mother and Eastern Mother. Gods of theearth were Earth itself (denoted by a symbol later used in tTte^nelining of altar, originally representing perhaps an earth mound), the Four Directions, the Mountains and Rivers. In outlying territories the Shang kings appear to have exer/

Snow, and

the

power through officers who figure in the oracle titles of Ho, Po and T'ien. At the end of the Shang period at least, they stood to the king and each other in some kind of feudal subordination, and so foreshadowed the

cised their

sentences under the

106

The

Earlier

Bronze Age:

the

Shang Dynasty

more developed feudalism of the Chou. On the border of the Shang country were the 'regions', /tf«£, some of which accepted Shang suzerainty, while others periodically were at war with the central power/The wisdomof calling on the local terri/ torial rulers to join in a royal punitive expedition was also put j

to the oracular test:

'Ting Mao. The King took an oracle and interpreted. Shall we join our force of T'ien to our force of the Po and punish the Po of the Yu region?' 15

There

named

is

evidence of slavery^ with which some

in the sentences seem to be specially concerned.

which

various terms slaves

officials

may

are interpreted

reflect distinctions

as

among them. The hole show how human beings,

of status

causts observed at royal funerals

whether they were slaves or prisoners of war, might be ficed as chattels.

But it is difficult to accept the view

by Chinese authorities of a that systematic slavery

The

denoting clasjes__of

'slave/state',

was the

basis

sacri/

now adopted

with the implication

of the economy.

On

the

other hand the oracle sentences tell us nothing of peasants be/ yond the mention of the grains which they cultivated. There is slight evidence in the sentences that irrigation was practised, though the great co ncern with the prognostication of rain and the prospering ofcrops suggest that it was not very extensive.

The

of characters denoting grain

identification

is

beset

with

doubts. Varieties of millet are believed to have provided the

main crops and

the mention of rice,

which could hardly be

cultivated without carefully controlled irrigation,

As in the in the

known tmued

picture

West, the to us

is

uncertain.

we have formed of Bronze Age communities

life

of the peasants of Shang times

than that of

to cultivate

with stone hoes and digging

reap with stone knives. Before the spread of iron, available to them.

The

is little

more

They con/ and to metal was not

their neolithic forebears.

sticks,

kings of Shang, with their extrav

agant hunting expeditions, their bloody funeral

pomp,

their

107

:

China

and eventual

charioteers, their priest/like role

more

the

and

vessels

nstruments of

survived the

Chou

in

Age

deification, are

world, both east

west.

The bronze i

Bronze

familiar figures of the

consigned to Shang graves were primarily but they

sacrifice ,

fall

times.

of Shang and attained

The Shang

inscription appropriating cestor, the series

fulfilled also

vessels

them

a social role,

political

importance

sometimes have a brief

for sacrifice to a particular an^

individual being denoted by one of the calendar

often symbols.

The

briefest ins criptions

name

the

by a single character, stating that he 'made a pre cious

Ancestor

vessel for (sacrifice to)

mula

is

(e.g.)

maker

sacrificial

Ting'. Often this for^

preceded or followed by an emblem, distinct from the

ideographs of the ordinary

script.

Sometimes only the emblem

appears, or the maker's name, or 'vessel' with the ancestor's ritual

calendar symbol.

that the

Although

emblematic characters

the theory

are totemic

is

marks,

now it

rejected

seems clear

that they are a personal designation of some kind, probably the

signature of a clan or great family.

On a few vessels assigned to

Shang a fuller formula appears, e.g. The King was in the East Hall. The King

the latest decades of l

Keng

shen.

augustly came.

The

stowed

of cowrie

5 strings

sacrificial vessel for

Minister

Hu

shells.

followed him.

They were used

Ancestor Ting,

to

He

be'

make

a

In the 6th month, in the

King's 25th year

The

inscription describes a royal

currency (or at

least a

award of cowries, a form of

valuation of goods), and the recipient,

using the gift to honour an ancestor, has recorded it and announced it piously to his ancestors. The dedicatory texts, far more frequent, in which there is no question of a royal gift, suggest that some form of clan organisation persisted in the upper class of the Shang population and was the basis of an ancestor worship like that practised by the kings.

108

Chapter

The Later Bronze Age: c onquest of the Shan^ The of house of Chou and

Chou Dynasty

the

by_the rulers

territory

the political arrangements

the

which ensued have been regarded by Confucian

III

histori ans as a

THE FEUDAL EMPIRE OF THE CHOU

revolutionary upheaval, the most important event in the early history

of Chin a. According toliistorical tradition the motive

Chou

for the

attack

was

to chastise the

Shang king

debauchery and neglect of the public weal. Moral

of this kind

propagated in the older parts of the Shu Ching,

is

which were composed in the earliest

Chou

kings.

of

early decades

found also in inscriptions cast of the

for his

justification

on bronze

Chou

rule. It is

vessels in the reigns

The Chou were

later believed to

be

which they instituted and public and private loyalt ies

the o riginators of the feudal ord er

of the

therefore the fountain-head

upon which Confucius founded

his ethical system..

Yet be/

cause a reigning dynasty must be recognised as culturally superior to the peoples of the outer territories of the empire, the

Chou

once

are presented at

as political saviours and, until the

eve of their conquest, as cultural barbarians. There are indica-

was not

tions that this

so,

but the archaeological evidence for

the cultural status of the western region

period

most

Age

is still

very slight.

It is

interesting discoveries

culture in

From

China

the histories

perhaps in

will be

made

and from

first

The

this direction that the

concerning the origins of Bronze

something can be gleaned of the dynastic successors.

during the Shang

in the future.

Shang

the

oracle sentences

earlier history

centre of the

of the Shangs'

Chou kingdom

lay at

on the upper courses of the Ching and upland country suitable for both agriculture The Chou potentate mentioned in oracle sen-

in western Shensi,

Wei

rivers , in

and drovin g.

tences of the time of the

Shang king

Wu

Ting

is

called 'hou^

109

China ('marquis')

and seems

to belong to a

group of local

rulers so

who normally accepted the suzerainty of Shang. In the case of Chou it must have been an uneasy submission from the start. One sentence queries the auspices of a punitive expedi' designated

by the Shang king against the Chou, in which the forces of the royal clan were to be joined to those of a hou called Ch'uan. The latter, in the light of later tradition, may denote the ruler of nomadic peoples in the north-west, probably tion

occupying the northern

The Chou were quarter themselves.

wards and rivers.

tracts

of Shansi and Shensi. 1

apparently expe riencing pressu re from this

They were

at first

later to the south, farther

obliged to

move

westy

downstream on the Shensi

Here, in the vicinity of the modern Si/an Fu, were built

Feng and Hao From fliese the camp aign against the Shang kingdom was eventually l aunched The Cfiou state was powerful en nngh even by the midd le" of the Shang period t o arouse the fears of theHangs of the^^finttaTTiain an d provoke an attack by them. An enemy who could threaten the Shang state must have possessed kmpyp wpapnm, and a considerable military organisation. Even after the conqueit of 1027 B.C. the Chou kings r emained in their capita l in sout h Shensi The fortress city of Ch'eng Chou (not to be confused with Cheng Chou!) which they built in Honan nea r Loyang, from which to dominate the Central Plain, remained a secondary the cities^o f

.

.

.

capit al until 771 B.C.

Then

th e loss of the western territories to

invading Junp; nomads a reversal aided by a palace intrigu e, co nfined the kinp;s to the Honan capital and made of it the ,

centre of the s ion

Chou

tt ate.

between a Western

This event

is

taken to mark the divi^

Chou and an

Eastern

Ch ou

period

Cl027-77I. 771-222 B.C. ).

The

forces led

by the

Wn

Wang against Shang some of wEom appear to have

Chou king

consisted of a federation of tribes,

been of Turkish or Tibetan origin. T3ut the bulk of people over

no

whom

the

Chou

kings ruled in their western homeland

The Later Bronze Age: cannot have been nomadic In the Shang .

denoted by an ideograph (which representing a

s quare field

that the choice of the

is

texts the

the character

divided into four.

symbol was an allusion

It is

Chou still

Chou Dynasty

the

are

used)

quite likely

to their practice

of agriculture, a recognition that the Cho u, l ike the Shang themselves and unlike the majority of the Shang's enemies, based their power on a farming peasantry In contrast to

this,

whom

Wu

.

the term ch'uan^JAo^, used to denote the people

Ting was prepared to use in an attack on Chou, may allude to their n omadic Ji fe, in which the dog was specially important for droving.

Upon

S hang king his so n was enfeoffed b y Shang territory in Hona n. Shortly afterwards Wu Wang's son and su ccessor Ch en g Wang, assisted by Wu Wang's brother, the Duke of Chou, who acted as regent, was obliged to crush a Shang revo lt. The S hang vassal was executed_ and a Chou ruler, another royal brother was set over his territory as marqui s of the feudal state of Wei Other members and relative s of th e Chou royal the defeat of the

Wu Wan g

in part of the central

,

.

clanjfrf*^ gpf nvfr tV^ states of

Yen (Hopei) Lu (shantung), ,

a nd Ch*! (Shantu ng). These four were the

first

great feudatories .

nder them were^eventually ranged hundreds of small fiefs.

The

first

concern of ih e

Chou

city

leade rs, as ot the leaders

ofthe nomads' armies in Asia inlater times, was to reward the

commanders who had served un der them. The whole of northern Ch ina was garrisoned by troops loyal to the Chou king, whose own territory under direct rule was confined to the r egion around the ea stern capital at^ Loyang The £hou partitioning^ of theempire into fiefs and the in' stitution of five classes of hereditary nobilit y continued a method of decentralising power which we see fore shadowed in Shang^ times, it was now more minutely and systematically regulated Obeisance an d tribute^ pa ssed up the ranks ofthe feudal hie r^ .

.

archy to the king

at the top.

The

nobles were required" to

in

China

Fig. 2 j Pottery of the Western

B.C.

Chou period,

late

nth^early 8th centuries

Scale approx. 1:10

journey periodically to the capita l. But in practical

affairs the

was more taken up with the sub/ and administration of the lands granted them in fief. Although the fe udal state s were under an obligation to supply garrison troops to the Chou kin g, no large army was permitted to be formed under his control. Military assistance _was lfp f ^ fk» Wnp; by th ^ states acting independen tly. IrTtnis lay the germ of the inter/state rivalries, the le aguing "togeth er, the creation of new states and the swallowing up of older ones attention of the feudatories

jection

112

The Later Bronze Age:

which determined hundrecTvears

home was

.

at a

Chou Dynasty

the

the course of Chinese history for eight

from

the start the king in his north/western

disadvanta ge, for he was neares t at hand to stem

the inroads of nomad s, badly placed to enforce his policies

Fig 28

on

the feudatories, and, having a greater proportion ot semi'

nomadic people in his territory, perhaps less able to build his power upon a settled peasantry than were the feudal rulers of the eastern parts of the Central Plain. Even the semblance o f a c entral p ower passes with the defeat of King Yu in 771 B.C. and the move oi his successor P'ing to the capital at JLoyang The t erritory he relinquished reconquered from the pretender and his barbarian supporters, b ecame the fief of Ch'in whose expansion westwards centuries late r was to close the chapter of feudal history and imit£lhe empire under a single comman d. In the centuries after 771 B.C some score of feudal states con' .

,

,

.

tended togeth er, using the apparatus of feudal allegiance to

Chou

means

as a

while could

hegemony

ally

own

The Chou king

fo7"a

himself with the strongest contender

The

to their

ends.

.

which had Shantung peninsula and by its position astride water routes had become an important centre of trade. It also benefited from a state' organised monopoly of salt, produced from the sea^— an advant' age which Chou itself is said to have enjoyed in the Fen River valley of its homeland. From Ch'i the hegemony passed to other northern state s, a ll of which w ere gradually compelled t o sink their differences as a~threat gr ew trom Hsiao/Tun period There is no doubt that at least during the t

ieh

Plate

20

.

latter

toire

part of the occupation of the northern capital the reper/

of ornament and the

skill available to

render it in metal had

An innovation at Hsiao T'u n was to c ombine

greatly increased.

masks and dragons with sm all gpnmpTrir fl^u^s. S piral s and hooks in engraved line cover the raised portions of the main elements an d the whole is set on a groun d of small, tight spirals of circular and SdUaf'dd 'Shape, the thunder pattern so named from its resemblance to a character ot the script. The

the

l

,

effect gives

a res tless confined

movement

to the design, like the

an elementary sea/creature. borne simpler schemes found at Hsiao T'un come close to the Cheng Chou style, the fr iezes prornament being rendered squirming

ot the cilia ot

which has the appearance of being engraved on a flat surface. But on nobl e r vessels this o rnament is renned, rep eated arid elaborated to cover the whole available surface, set in horizontal band s and divided vertic^ ally h y prominent Hang es, the deeper ot which have rows of

e ither in thin raiseoTine or in a line

T/shaped c uts just tailing to penetra te their thicknes s. The" 't hunder pattern is an addition to this evolved decor, and is ne ver found with the simpler designs At the same time, as the 1

.

horror vacui seizes the

rh omboi and

s cale

draughtsmen, ihey introduce zigzags.

pat terns.

The

final

stage in the log ical

de velopment oTthe ornament seems to be reached

of the designs are raised in hi gh t

wo

sometimes in

~

parts

relief at

when horns and ears project into space, and may be made in the shapes of animals.

levels,

vessels

relief,

when

w hole " '

153

— China

This rich st yle must have matured in the la ter part of the Hsiao Tun period perhaps not before the end of the twelfth ,

century B.C

.

It is vessels

The

sionally.

carved ornament of the fine white pottery cor'

responds to this

Plate 30

material

so decorated that bear inscriptions occk'

style

with only such differences

would account

as the different

for. Stylised birds , s nake s

and cicadas

are included in the bronze decoration L wlnle entire vessels take

the shapes of rams, elephants

and owls. But the field in which was still strictly limited. If

the draughtsmen could experiment

we

discern magical intent in the swathing of sacred vessels in

monster

masks and

£

^-

dragons

—and

we may imagine

inescapable

that

conclusion

seems

the craftsman conforming to

superstitious custom.

Beginning with the ornament of ritual narrow but powerful convention dominated no

vessels, this

in the embellishment of

less

The

weapons and

utilitarian objects.

formal and dramatic potentialities of the few conventions

were exploited more intensively than was ever done in similar circumstances elsewhere in the ancient world, whether in

Maya and Aztec Shang approaches most

Egypt, Greece of the Geometric Age, or the cultures of Central

America which

the

closely in spirit.[The great bronze vessels

the

Shang dynasty seem

symbol of the magical

of the

to culminate the quest for

rite

of

memberment which was lesser extent the k'uei

naturalistic

Plate 15

ting

into

f

dragon.

The

arresting

intact as

t

ao

t'ieb,

and

to a

and comparatively found on a famous

Hsiao T'un, rams' heads such as those on the in the British Museum, the elephants and owls formed

vessels,

at

were probably

all

animals which were slaughtered The manner in which the art into three categories,

acceptable

as

representing

in the royal sacrifices.

motifs are combined shows d ivision of the motifs o f Shang Karlgren places together the bovine

interesting divergencies. In his

154

an

art resisted the dis'

apt to overtake the

bovine masks, the deer mask

excavated

great tsun

decades of

sacrifice."!

Certain designs used in Shang bronze

Plate 14

last

The Art of the Bronze Age

Fig. 43 Jade amulets. Later

Shang

period. 14th' 11th centuries

B.C.

British

Museum.

Scale 2:3

mask, intac t

t'ao t'ieb, t'ao t'ieh

with a coher ent 'body', cicada

and vertical k'uei. Tnp^ mntifi nr r^combined into all-over ornament which is free of the tendency to linear ela boration and d issolution. Trie 'dissolved fao t'ieb, a form ol bird 111 Wllll'h the tail has become separated from the body, and repetitive minor geometrical figures associated with these, are never com/ bined with motifs taken from the first group. third list, com/

F&47

A

prising the less abstracted

t'ao t'ieh,

the varieties of horizontal

and another series of geometric figures, makes use of motifs which appear combined indifferently with

k'uei,

the intact bird

155

China

Fig.

44 Bronze pole

Later

Jinial.

Shang period. 12th' nth century B.C. British

Museum. Scale 1:2

elements belonging to either of the two other groups.

Karlgren argues that the forms and greater

first

group, with

its

plasticity, represents a style

From

this

more coherent of

earlier date

than that which made use of motifs belonging to the second group, though the two

may have overlapped

for a time.

This

conclusion has not been generally accepted; the evidence from

Cheng Chou,

as

we have

seen, tends to disprove

an

andjhe

'dissolv ed' styles ot

attac hed

t

o

No less

al ternative

differe nt

It is

it.

pos'

explanation, that the more naturalistic

sible, as

ornamenTwere

the

work

ot artists

bronze ioundries.

than the creators oFthe later animal

art

of the steppe

nomads of central Asia, the Shang artist could observe animals and portray them with unaffected naturalism,

sympathetically

w henever laid aside,

t

he c onventions of the ornamental

buch

subjects as the side

style"

miflht be"

view of deer with reverted

156 f*

The Art of the Bronze Age heads on a wine bucket (yu), 1 profiles of Przewalski's steppe

on bronze 2 and of deer, hare and birds among the small jade amulet plaques, are sensitively drawn without decorative bias. The realism and expression of the head, and the stance of a zoomorphic vessel can create a vivid illusion of life even when the form as a whole is fantastic. These horse in the

are hints

emblems

cast

of a naturalistic

art practised

alongside the hieratic

convention proper to the sacral bronzes and funeral

Have £6me

down

to us.

The

Chinese, too specialised in

its

hieratic style

is

gifts

Plate 27 Fig. 44

which

fundamentall y

forms and application to have

had any influence beyond the Yellow river valley to the north and west. But the naturalistic animal art belongs to a wider tradi tion. Some of its most striking products at Hsiao T'un were the horse and ibex heads decorating the handles of the bronze knives found in the graves of the later period. These, with the Bronze Age of southern form of the knife and the style of the animal ornament. We cannot be certain in which direction the artistic influence passed between Siberia and China. Future research may solve the problem by revealing something of the as

we have

seen, are links

Fig. 21a

Siberia, both in the

bronze culture of north Shensi and Kansu, territory,

The

i.e.

the intermediate

during Shang times.

artistic traditions

no

less

than the political

of the innovations OF THE conquest of state

to be overthrown by the Chou 1027 B.C. Students of the bronze vessels and their inscriptions have paid more attention to the problem of distip g"t>hi n p; ^ re Shang from early Chou than to any other. Since the number of

Shang were due

Bronzes assured of a Shang date by excavation

is

small

com/

pared with those which survive without documentation, the

argument has turned inevitably on intrinsic features and on the evidence of inscription. By this means Karl/

generally

gren demonstrated that

Shang seems

style

many

or namental motifs of the late

survived into tHe tenth century B.C. Indeed, he

finally

to have

despaired of establishing any simple

157

China criteria earliest It

distinguishing

for

Shang

vessels

from those of the

decades of Chou.

has often been assumed that the changes seen in the bronze

vessels after

1027 B.C.

new

inferior taste

and

masters corrupting the art be/

queathed to them by Shang. But

Chou

of the

are the result

technical resources of the

it is

more probable

that the

people were already familiar with monster masks and

dragons in their homeland in Shensi, that they shared mytho/

and artistic traditions broadly with the Shang, even if their art had a distinct local character. Unfortunately excava / tions have thrown no light on the nature of Chou art before their move eastwards to conquer Shang in 1027 B.C The earliest inscribed and datable bronze vessel from the western region is a ho wine pourer from Bin T11 TVun in Shens i which belongs to the reign of King u, in the later tenth century B.C. But there are many signs that the Chou brought logical

.

M

something of their

own

into the culture of the Central Plain.

In the decoration of the bronze vessels the changes that occur so on after

me rely

1027 B.C. are too sudden and too positive to be T he expansion of the bronze

the result of defeneration.

inscriptions in the

and elegant

Chou reigns, their sophisticated language suggest that the Chou scribes were not

first

script,

merely pupils of their Shang predecessors, any more than the

ornament of the Chou bronzes were entirely dependent on what they copied from Shang art. In one case at least, a bronze kuei bowl set on a square pedestal in a manner unknown at Hsiao T'un the phrasing of the inscription makes

designers of the

,

one strongly suspect that

it

was

cast before

Wu Wang's defeat

of the Shang. 3 It is

certain that after

morrow of the and

158

fall

1000 B.C.

of the capital

at the latest, if not at

on

the very

Hsiao T'un, th e graphic

out ot

bronze deco rs most charac teristic of Shanft art fel l fashio n. 1 he most typical and eccentric S hang shapes,

the ku t

cbtieb, cBia

relief

and the zoomorphic

vases, ceased to be made'.

1

The Art of the Bronze Age

The

dissolved

t[ao t'ieh

among

s olid designs are favoured

r

scrollery

and the

beco

me

More

rarer.

outlines are often frilled

wi th

ows of hookylike quills not seen before. At times the relief is__ and is concerned more with producing a startling

grotesque,

p rofil e than with enlivening

the interest of surface ornament.

Deep jagged

some of the

flange s overload

the only innovations, one

shapes. If these were

Chou

might speak of

art as

barous exaggeration of features present in germ in

But

s imultaneously,

or very shortly afterwards,

a bar/

Shang

t here

art.

appea r

Plate 34

more refine d shapes and ornament which do not derive fr om Hsiao Tun. The kuei of the Marquis of Hsing p reserved in the British Museum illustrates one of these. The motifs of the decor are d epicted in a thin raised and rounded line on a plain ground The r estraint of the ornament and the dignity of other

.

th e vessel contrast utterly with the plastic extravaganzas of other

p ieces which must be nearly contemporary.

From the l ate eleventh century B.c.:t ne tense u pward move/ mentof the profile characteristic of the Hs ifln T'n n vessel^ ewes way to heavier more inert shapes with curves spreading i n the lower part The handled kuei and the vu wine bucke t, in

Plate

3

.

which

this c hange in the feeling for

are comparatively

r are

among

form can

best be followed,

known

with certainty to

vessels

h ave been excavated in or aroun d Hsiao T'un. hand, both figure in a number ot tomb

sets

On

the other

of sacral

vessels

thought to be of late S hang date found farther to the south/west "

in the same province, near as the eastern ca pital

here

is

of the

Lovang first

,

the place due to be chosen

Chou

rulers . 4

Their appearance

perhaps a cultural sign of the encroachment of the

which culminated in the defeat of the Shang king. The role which the Chou rulers assigned to

Chou

the ritual

bronzes pronzes in rneir their poli political tical ceremonial ensured tn the of e dispersal 01 t

hese throughout the

t heir

Shan

control,

in

J

te rritory

which

th ey

had brought under

he inscribed kuet recently tnnnrl

Kiangsu

testifies at

once both to

at

Vpn Tun

this dispersal

and

Plate 33

to

159

China the independence of the

Chou

tradition of bronze craft, for

its

shows that the vessel was cast in or just after the reign of King Ch'eng at the end of the eleventh or the very

inscription

beginning of the tenth centuries B.C. Kuei of the shape seen

at

Yen Tun Shan, with high

foot,

natural than the

continued to be made well into the

and four heavy handles surmounted by animal heads (the form of these is sometimes reminiscent of a deer head, but they are no more t'ao t'ieh),

tenth century. Often the

Fig. 45

hooked

bowl was

set

flanges

on a high base or on four be based on the t'ao t'ieh

low feet. The decoration might still though occasionally a pair of heads with gaping jaws face each other in side view. But before iooo r.c. a form of con/ ventionalised bird with long' tail a nd p]nme ipvaH ed the decoration,

and in

its

was

larger versions

the basis of

some of7

tKeJinest designs of the tenth century .

In the middle and

THE MIDDLE

later part of the

Western

Chou

period

CHOU STYLE

950-771) the c ommonest vessels are a new type of tinjr with hemispherical bowl set on bul ging curved legs, kue i with

Plate 32

l

( c.

id

and

large monster^head

o fa food container termed

hand les, and

a re ctangular version

The de coration

fu.

is

coa rser, being

and tw isteci/and/ popular. For the first time

oiten designed in a broad Hat band. Rolled Fig. 4$

rolled dragons of a

crh prnp r eminiscent

^t

new kind ra

are

tge/scale repetitive fig ures,

in detail of the dragon pattern.

One

g eometric, o r motif

freq uent

two recumbent Gs set either side ofa sm all boss whic h eye. The motifs are developed as seermtnJ2e_theve^ geomejucaljfjgures in a spirit quite distinct from the more

"rfqprnh jes

Fig. 4$ Decorative motifs ljatt

160

ntb'i8tb

centuries

from

B.C.

bronzes,

The Art of the Bronze Age qgganic formulas o f the older

style s.

In the light of the

later

Chinese bronze art the rise of the Middle Chou style even more signific ant f n the re placement of the Shang

history ot

^

is

tradition

by the

of the

style

Where and when

early

the middle

but the choice must

certain,

T he

Chou period Chou style was .

lie

evolved

between central

is

un/

Honan an d

example of the decumbent Gs motif is the decoration of the neck and lid of the ho from P'u Tu Ts'un in southern Shens i, which belong to the late any bronze vessels with ornament of sinu^ tenth century B.C. .ous dragons in the broadband manner come from excavations at Hsin Chen^ in Honan from tombs which range in date from about 900 B.C. to the late seventh or early sixth centuries. These were not systematically recorded, but the excavations at the cemetery of the Kuo state in Honan (p. 135 above) produced southern Shensi.

earliest datecT

?

M

,

gravcgroups

several intact

ot

bronze vessels similar in shapes

Fig.

Harness

46

cheek'piece

bronze.

of

8tb^yth

B.C.

century

Museum-

British

Scale 1:2

and ornament the age of the

B.C.

we

are

to the earlier part

of the Hsin

Cheng

find.

Since

Kuo

tombs is deemed not to descend below 655 on ftood ground in attributing the broadban d

stvlfLof dragons to the

Figs.

4J-49

two centuries between 900 and 700 B.c? Hsin Cheng and Kuo graves cover the

The b ronzes of the when the Chou

rulers were experiencing great pressure from the barbarians inhab iting the north-western region en^

p eriod

closed in the great loop o f the Yellow riven Attacks by the

Tung c ompelled the king to move his seat to Loyang in 771 Between 660 and 6^0 the Ti held the terri-

B.C. (See p7 113.)

Wei

tory of

Loyang of

in north

in 64 8

Cheng

Honan.

W

ith the

and then proceeded

lying south ot the Y ellow river.

had marr ied a Ti

Jung

King Hsiang who royal domain ,

was driven from his in 63 $ s poradic inroads of nomads c ontinued century.

One

princess,

into the sixth

archaeological trace ot this infiltration

the spread of c rouched burials along the (see p.

they attack ed

to operate against the state

128 above).

The

Yellow

is

probably

river valley

degree of contact between the settled

161

Chinese. and nomadic peoples in the north-west

we may

sup/

pose to have t?een much closer than is implied in the h istories' rfmtrsgf hpfwppn P.kinpcp aprl 'barbarians', Ethnically the two groups were akin a^d the pponnmi c aspects of separated Fiji.

4J Interlaced

dragons

from

Hsin

Cheng,

Honan. 8th 'early jth

century

it is

which

for either.

not surprising, even as early

a

bronze vessel found at

them were not immutable

In the light of these events

life

B.C.

as the ejghth or seventh centuries art ajrt

which two o r three of theHoomajJof

B.C ., to find trends in Chinese

centurieTTat er can be identified in the

on

thf_ Asiatic steppes ,

hrnn7es anddecorated knives

.

The nomads ha d

for pure geometric pattern, spirals,

th eir harness

ong taste beading, rope-tw istxa"d a

str

p laits, which they combined with their fantastic animal themes Some of these minor geometric motifs appear on the Hsin .

Fig- 47

""

INTER'

LACERY AND LOCAL NORTHERN STYLES

A

'

great feature of steppe_art as

laceryl Pattern

with which

horses they were so

much

patterns

weaving the

we know

it

lines

seem

almost

of their

as

horsemen and breeders of Th e S hang and earl y

concerned.

figures,

deliberately

to

avoid

inter-

however complicated. But

Star-

162

later is inter-

of t his kind was probably inspired by the plaiting

of ropes a nd thongs

Chou

——

"""

Cheng v essels.

at

&M>

.

The Art of the Bronze Age

Hsin Chen g

interlacery appears, at

.

ribbonvlike dragons

whose

ot the ninth century.

The

is

ancestry

is

first

timidly, applied to

date of these dragons at

perhaps a hundred years

later.

on vessels Hsin Cheng

to be sought

The b and of

interlacery

Fig. 48a, b

is

o ften decorated in engraved line with a repeated figur e: a brie fspiral curling

on

^g\ rl

to the

bj^eofan_elongated_triangle—-the

The dragon has be/ rnm^ ynprply^ajonp line, usua lly doubled, terminatin g in a head which gets increasingly"" bird/like. I nterla ced pattern Volute anH

tr

of the

art historians.

Fig. 49

appears also in tight, squared unit s. In the transformation of

fhed r^on bend s we maj Lsee an InrTuence from, or perhaps the o rigin of, the griffin head which figures so prominently in s teppe art.

Last to appear are units of pattern consisting of tight/

packed curved and hooked elements with a scatter of eyes, un/ except as a degeneration of interlaced pattern from whtr4j fhp rrnccing ar e omitted This o ccurs on a series of tal l v ases which resemble so closely pieces we shall presently des/ cribe from a tomb 600 miles away to the south-west, at Shou Hsien in Anhui province, that one might think them products

i ntelligible

.

fi

of the same workshop.

Fig.

48 a,

b,

Dragon

motifs used in the decoration of bronze vessels

found

at

Hsin Cheng

Honan. jth Century B.C. (from rubbings)

163

China

•^^SP^^^^S^^^^ Fig. 49

Diaper of

century

B.C.

The

interlaced dragons on a bronze vessel.

s maller

on the latest' Hsin (^heng clearly^ casting moulds with a stampr^Taj

repe titive units of design found

looking groups

oi

we re impressed o n as we can tell tfiis

blliuzL to the

llll'ihuil

a nd early Crh nlL periods

ornament has a

vlsslK from

WdW iim

when

lesotled to in the Sha_n g

in the best

vi tality inse parable

model necessary for each piece.

164

Hsin Cheng, Honan. jth'6th

1

wor ks

the bronze.

irom the individual

wax

he use of the stamp and the

— The Art of the Bronze Age covering of surfaces with the small identical motifs which

which was to per ^ On the Hsin Cheng sist until the end of the Chou period and vessels decorated on their main surfaces by this means it animals modelled monotony of compensate for the as if to fully in the round were added as handles, bases or finials. Tall vases stand on a pair of tigers, and tigers with reverted heads cling to the sides. Tortuous dragon/handles reflect the same

it

encouraged

set

a fashion in decorative art .

—

On

baroque tendency.

these animals curled snouts,

Fig. 48a

hear ts

formed of double rounded claws and th e and brief spiral set over the main limb joints

shapeol ears, feet

^pecu liar^circle

Plate 41

Plates 44,45

jujjTonventions which recur in steppe

art, whether of southern China. 5 They are common in Chinese art of the middle Chou period, from the late seventh to the fifth centuries, and their special connexion with

Siberia or of the

Ordos region

bronze harness trappings

of

Plate

42

Plate 43

another pointer to the north-west,

is

and of

the region of horse^raising

fraternisation

of Chinese

and nomad. Before tracing the history of the late

Yellow

takes us south of the

bulent

Ch'u

state,

we may

of Li

style,

which

of the tur^

glance at two local variants of the

animal'interlacery style in the north. after the village

Hsin Cheng

river into the territory

Yu n i

One

of these

is

named

Plate

40

the north-east corner of Shansi

was made and oval SsSEE wtrh inf orming

province, where an important find of bronze vessels

n 1923 Here the spherical deep lids and ring/base. or three small

i

.

with engraved dragons

,

w hich

friezes

on

feet ('ting) are

covered

of apparently continuous interlacery of

closer inspection proves to be a repetition

of identical stamped

units.

The

rib bon

o f the interlacery

is

with close spirals and neaMriangle s not much different from those we noted in Hsin Cheng. V olutes are placed at the

Tilled

e nd of a

where It turns in a right angle. This ornament often includes a stylised iulMace animal mask based on a ramVhead, and the lids are decorated with ribbon, or

at points

165

China naturalistic sheep, buffalo or birds, three sensitively

the

stumpy

legs.

The masks

"but the resemblance magic.

of each on a

vessel,

modelled in the round. Monster masks surmount

The

vessels

is

a revival of the

s uggest

remote. There

may have been

t'ao t'iek

no longer the hint of

is

used in

sacrifice,

but

they'

have now acquired a secular elegance, suited to more festi ve and mundane occasions. The panels of decoration are often se parated

by a

relief pattern

plaited rope.

ot

bronzes belong probably to the centuries B.C.

Chou

are

seventh or the sixth

late

some of the most

attractive

products o f

art.

Ornament

Figs, so, si

They

The Li Yu

re lated to that

c avated in 1953 at

Chia

of Li

Yu

is

Ko Chuan^

seen on bronzes ex^ n ear T' ang Shan in

Hopei province One of these is a fit/, a nearly globular ves sel which appears for the first time about ^00 B.C ., and another a .

y/',

Figs. S2,

166

S3

a water container,

mad e here to

a notably individual design. 6

But one elegant vase introduces a style ot decoration unxnown at Li Yii or Hsin Cheng. It consists of a nimated huntin scenes fi gures of men and animals crisply drawn in pane formed by the plaited rope carrying/cradle which is simulated ,

Ku near,

Fig.

so Bronze hu. From Chao

Hui

Hsien, Honan. Height 37-8 cm.

The Art of the Bronze Age

m bronze on the sides of the vase. and

deer

The animal s include boar, would appear to be real game fanciful among them and a creatureresemblin% an

birds^ which

phoenix/like bird

elephan t, which

is

.

no

is

less

imaginary in

A

elc

this setting, since

phant have not lived wild in Central China in

historical times.

The huntsmen are armed with spears and one is followed by a number of similar hunting hu are preserved in col'

dog

.

A

'

but hitherto no find/place had been recorded.

lections,

shows

bowmen

One

shooting at birds with arrows to which cords

are attached (intended

probably to help in recovering them),

and a chariot driven by a man wearing an animal mask, as if a kind of sympathetic magic were part of a hunting ritual. Another famous piece includes a hunting scene with others illustrating a great variety of activities. Another hunting hu, the only inscribed piece which is known, commemorates a sacrifice at a place in the territory of Yen, in the modern pro/ vince of Hopei. The Yen state maintained its i ndependence from the eighth century B.C.

until

it

was overthrown by Ch'in

sho rtly b e fore the unification of 232 B.C

eluded the modern Hopei and extended

We

.

Its

territory

in/

Fig.

51

tou, from

Chuang,

Bronze

Chia

Height

Shan.

3S'S cm

-

far to the north-east.

can readily imagine that in the sixth century B.C. the

population of

this

region stood to tribes inhabiting Manchuria

and the forested tracts beyond the Amur river in much the same relation as the Chinese of the north/west did to the Jung and Ti. Here as in the north-west cultural i nfluences emanating from the barbar ians could be transmitted

Some such connexion may J

'hunting

style

.

it

presents oi the

whether in Africa or

li

ne on

plastic

S ome

China

the style

hunt in progress

is

anoma/

are curiously

rock drawings of primitive huntsmen,

reminiscent of the

lian isthmus.

P lain 7

aiTOllng for the appearance of the~

in the state of Yen In

lous: the pictures

to the Central

at the

figures

opposite end of Asia in the Kare/

of tigers and dragons represented in

F& 54

Chia Ko Chuang recall the flamboyant animals of Hsin Cheng vases, but the scales and dots flat

Ko

Vang

surfaces at

167

China

which

fill

variant of

They which was now due

the outlines arc distinctive.

an animal

style

Hopei

are the

to spread

from

the Central Plain into the Yan^tse vallev._

BRONZES OF THE CHU STATE

soo B.C. the lo weaving region south of the Huai

x3y

mountains^ forming the mi ddlebasin of the Yangtze with

its

Yang river

system of lakes and tributaries, was under the control

of the powerful Ch'u

whose rapid expansion and aggres / now a dominant feudal states. factor in the politics of the large number of bronze vessels, weapons and ornaments that have reached collections during the past thirty years came from tombs in the vicinity of S hou Hsien, a city of the state of Wu, which wa s annexed by Ch'u in 473 B.c .LChis sudden appearance ot fine "bronze'Craft in an area in which no metallurgy seems to have s ion

against

state,

northern 'neighbours was

its

A

F& 55

been practised in the

earlier

and sinicisation of a people on as barbarians rpT he Ch'u

Chou

period

whom art

Much

of it so closely resembles the

found

southern

Hsin Cheng

style to

a sign of the wealth

had looked

appears in bronze fully fledged

vessels

at

is

the northerners

that

be derived from

it.

style of the later

.

group of

one might think the new But the very abundance of

Hsien suggests that there was here an inven/ bronze centre which produced its own version of the

the finds at_Shou t ive

,

ornament and animal motifs

now

fashionable farther north,

possibly influenced by a local artistic tradition

Fig.

52 Decoration of a bronze vase ('hunting hu')

Copenhagen. $th Century B.C. Scale approx. 1:3

168

in

the

which had not

Kunstindustri' Museum,

The Art of the Bronze Age

Fig.

55 Decoration on a bronze hu. $th'4th century B.C. The scenes include bow and the picking of mulberry leaves (top register); shooting

target

practice with the

pounding

rice

birds,

(?) and playing music on bronze bells and musical stones (middle register);

a battle on land and water (lowest register); National

Museum,

previously been expressed in metal.

We

Peking. Scale, approx. 1:3

may assume

these times a trade in finished bronzes passed

from

that

b

state to state

from one workshop to another. The motifs found on the bronzes from Shou Hs ien were taken by Karlgren to define a Huai style, s o called after t he rive r ideas travelling rapidly

on which

the

town

stands.

The

stylejreyeals the

same

partial

169

China Plates 54, 55

I

kin ship with the animal

\

northern

I

J

/

/

ER

J

|| .\

14

15

0^

4

-

1

s

•a** J' 16