RG ST 3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6 - 10: Oracle Bone, Pyromancy, Scapula
Document Summary
Ch 1 - the oracle -bone inscriptions of the late shang dynasty. Traditional accounts of early china present the shang as the second historical dynasty, succeeding to the xia and succeeded by the zhou. With its inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze vessels, shang may currently be regarded as china"s first historical dynasty. The oracle-bone inscriptions indicate the degree to which the late shang kings and their diviners articulated many of the concerns that were to be central to the classical chinese tradition. The living used bronzes in their sacrifices to the ancestors and then placed them in burials. Evidently in the belief that the dead could thereby continue to perform cultic practices in the next world, still participating in what may be regarded as a great chain of ancestral being . The cult offerings to the ancestors involved the shedding of much blood of both animal victims and human captives.
