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Shang Dynasty
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According to traditional historical sources, the Shang Dynasty was founded by Tang the Perfect (Cheng Tang, Chengtang) 成湯) who defeated the depraved ruler Jie 桀 of the Xia 夏 kingdom. Jie was banished to Nanchao 南巢 in the Yangtse River region. Before this event, the Shang chieftains are said to have changed their capital eight times, after the foundation of the dynasty the kings five times changed their residence. Scholars suppose that the Shang people either was an old nomadic people that once settled down but retained the custom of temporarily changing residence, or that the Shang people was forced to move their community forced by inundations or droughts. It might ... be that the Shang had to remove because stronger neighbors forced them to leave their dwellings. The second ruler, Wai Bing (Waibing) 外丙 installed Yi Yin (Yiyin) 伊尹 as his highest minister (qingshi 卿士) who served three subsequent kings but finally tried to depose King Tai Jia (Taijia) 太甲.
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The Shang Dynasty (17th-11th century BC) is the second slave dynasty in Chinese history. With its first capital established in Bo, the Shang moved its center of activities several times, finally settling in Yin (present-day Xiaotun in Anyang County, Henan Province) under the king of Pan Geng. Hence, the Shang Dynasty is ... called the Yin Dynasty, consisting of 31 kings who belonged to 17 generations.
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Until less than a hundred years ago the Shang Dynasty was only legend. In 1898, a few oracle bones were found accidentally. Two scholars recognized that the scratches on the bones were an ancient form of Chinese writing and managed to decipher the inscriptions. In 1928 the first scientific excavations of an ancient Chinese site began at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang dynasty. Within the beaten earth walls of the city archaeologists uncovered hundreds of oracle bones. In the tombs of kings and nobles they found magnificent bronzes, fine grey pottery, marble figures of animals and jade carvings.
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Photo taken on Dec. 14, 2007 shows the excavating spot of the ancient relics of a small compact community of Shang Dynasty (c.16th-11th B.C.) in Xingyang, central China's Henan Province. The relics of about 100,000 square meters was discovered near the Guandimiao Village of Yulong Township in Xingyang, where a section of the central route of China's gigantic south-to-north water diversion scheme is on construction. It is the first time that a compact community of later period of Shang Dynasty, consisting of inhabiting area, handicraft-making district, sacrificial altar and tombs, was unearthed in Henan Province. The excavation is going on with more than 18,000 square meters of the relics has been unearthed.
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The largest walled city of the Shang Dynasty, possibly one of the capitals of the empire, has been unearthed at Anyang in northern China. The city dates to the Middle Shang period (ca. 1450-1250 B.C.), a little understood time in the study of Shang culture. A regional survey undertaken last fall by the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Minnesota revealed four rammed earth walls that enclosed 1,160 acres of area. The site is now named the Huanbei Shang City (Huanbei means north of the Huan River).
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[T]hough the ruins of Yinxu confirms the existence of the Late Shang dynasty, no evidence has been unearthed proving the existence of the Shang dynasty before its move to its last capital. This is seen in research by the reference to Yin-era Shang as Late Shang and pre-jiaguwen Shang as Early Shang. The difficulty is less one of conspirators trying to legitimize the Shang Dynasty and more the problem of historians and archaeologists sorting out historical societies and pre-historic (That is, pre-writing) archeological cultures.
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Shang Dynasty