S02: Origin Story

In the ancient East there was a dragon; its name was Zhong Guo (China)
In the ancient East there was a group of people; they were all descendants of the dragon
Under the foot of the great dragon I grow, grow into a descendant of the dragon
Black eyes, black hair, yellow skin, forever a descendant of the dragon

Though I have never seen the beauty of Chang Jiang, through dreams the river’s waters flow
Though I have never heard the strength of Huang He, it surges turbulently in my dreams.

• Originally written by Taiwanese songwriter Hou Dejian in 1978 following the United States severing ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China.
• Hou wrote the song that night after hearing the news.

Xia Dynasty:

• Timeframe: Mythical period, no date in classical texts
• Evidence: No clear specific archaeological evidence, but archaeological discovery of a large state (Erlitou) in the central plains that corresponds with ancient texts.
• Legend: The last ruler, Jie, was considered a tyrant.

Shang Dynasty (1600–1050 BCE):

• Evidence: The first dynasty with clear archaeological evidence.
• Artifacts: Animal bones and inscriptions found in tombs at the ruins of Yin, the last capital, matching descriptions in ancient texts.

NASA: Artemis

• Artemis is NASA-led Moon exploration program, first established in 2017 to return humans to the Moon and to establish a permanent lunar base.
• First crewed mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

China National Space Administration: Chang’e

• The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, or Chang’e Project, is a series of robotic Moon missions including orbiters, landers, rovers, and sample return spacecraft.
• China plans for a crewed lunar landing by 2030.

• Part of “Three Augusts and Five Emperors”
• Miraculously conceived when his mother, Fubao, received the energy of lightning.
• Began as the leader of a small tribe and conquered other tribes in the North China.
• Wife reputed to have discovered sericulture (silk production) and to have taught women how to breed silkworms and weave fabrics of silk.

• Why did Ma Ying-jeou attend the ceremony?
• What was his message from Taiwan to the mainland?
• How might people in Taiwan respond to his visit?

和平两岸: Peace across the two shores.

双赢共荣: Win-win and mutual prosperity.

同胞一体: Fellow compatriots as one.

允执厥中: Hold to the middle way faithfully.

• The Yellow Emperor was first transformed into the progenitor of the Han Chinese, and then into the common ancestor of all Chinese people.
• Honored as the “legendary ancestor,” he is seen as the founder of not just a state, but a civilization and a blood lineage.

Get into groups of 3-4 and introduce yourselves:

• Name
• Year
• Gender pronouns

Discuss stories of sage kings recorded in Book of Documents (Shangshu 尚书), a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China:

• What makes Yao, Shun, and Yu ideal rulers?
• What is the relationship between man and god?
• How should societies be organized?

• Unlike western mythology and religious texts, the culture heroes are people, not gods, and the stories do not begin with a creation tale.
• The culture heroes transform people into civilized beings.
• No concept of intelligent design: Yao looks to the natural world for a model to follow rather than to a Creator for judgment.

• Civilization exists to improve the lives of people and to order society.
• Ruler as benevolent despot or philosopher king.
• The purpose of government is to mold nature and society to improve the human condition.

• Succession by merit: Yao gives the world to Shun, the second ruler, to improve the lives of humans and to give order and proper arrangement to human society.
• A coherent (and politically attractive) story of China as a country with a single line of rulers from ancient emperors to the present, ideally passed from worthy man to worthy man

• Some sources suggest it was compiled by Confucius (551–479 BC) from a much larger group of documents
• Part of canon of Five Classics (wujing 五经) and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy

Doubting Antiquity Movement

• China’s antiquity was layered fabrications produced in the later periods
• China’s history has to be cut short by at least two thousand years, to start only with the Eastern Zhou period (770–256 BC).

Criticisms of the movement

• Over-reliance on textual records: the study of history reduced to to the study of the dates of texts
• Sidelined by major archaeological discoveries in the 1920s and 30s: Peking Men, Oracle Bones, Bamboo strips, Shang Bronzes, etc.

• Caches of texts written on bamboo slips from tombs, discovered between 1993 and 2008
• Dated to late Warring States period, around 300 BC, before the burning of the books during the Qin dynasty
• What’s new? Textual differences and unknown passages.
• The book was the product of generations of textual transmission – and transformation.

• Originally sold as “dragon bones” for making Chinese medicine in late 19th century
• Approximately 100,000 pieces exist in various collections.
• Nearly half belonged to King Wu Ding, the most powerful Shang king in Anyang.
• The names of diviners are key to dating oracle-bone inscriptions.

• A diviner posed a charge (question) for divination.
• A heated metal stick was used to produce cracks on the bone or shell.
• The diviners interpreted the cracks as the answer from the ancestors.
• Inscriptions were then carved near the cracks, often with charges posed in both positive and negative forms.

• Oracles recorded state matters in a theocracy with the Shang king at its apex.
• In order to divine the future, rulers needed to turn to their ancestors in heaven, who were believed to know about human beings future.
• Common questions: military campaigns, new settlements, personal concerns like health and dreams.
• The Shang erased the boundary between the living and the dead, involving the dead in assisting with the gods.

• Ancestral worship: Ancestors needed offerings to stay powerful, the king needed their help to rule.
• Ancestor Worship legitimated the power of the Shang royalty.
• Evolved into the Zhou Dynasty’s Mandate of Heaven concept.

WH Auden: In Memory of Ernst Toller (d. May 1939)

The shining neutral summer has no voice
To judge America, or ask how a man dies;
And the friends who are sad and the enemies who rejoice

Are chased by their shadows lightly away from the grave
Of one who was egotistical and brave,
Lest they should learn without suffering how to forgive.

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand:
They arrange our loves; it is they who direct at the end
The enemy bullet, the sickness, or even our hand.

It is their tomorrow hangs over the earth of the living
And all that we wish for our friends; but existing is believing
We know for whom we mourn and who is grieving.

• Found at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang Dynasty (present-day Henan province).
• Fu Hao was not buried in the royal cemetery, but 200 meters west of the capital ruins.
• Only unlooted royal tomb of a Shang royal family member, dated around 1250 BCE and discovered only in 1976.
• Rich collection: 468 bronze objects (of which 130 were weapons), 755 jade objects, 63 stone objects, 5 ivory items, 564 bone objects, 6,900 cowry shells, and 11 pottery vessels.

• How would Lady Fu Hao’s tomb fit, spatially and socially, in the life of Anyang?
• How many resources were devoted to constructing the tomb or manufacturing the objects placed in it?
• What would have been the significance of such large numbers of objects?
  
• What can these objects tell us about Shang society and its organization?

• Urbanization occurred alongside the establishment of a social order defined by ritualization, which played a crucial role in generating social cohesion and statecraft in early Chinese society.
• Ritual objects included oracle bones, bronzes, and jade.

• Dynastic authority was distributed through a system of bronze tokens, such as heavy bronze vessels.
• These tokens were given to units of the royal lineage to establish their kinship.
• Frequently, these bronze vessels were buried with the members of the royal lineage.