Massacres Of The Shang Dynasty

I was lucky enough to be flicking through television channels when I chanced upon a documentary concerning the Shang dynasty in China and I just had to blog about it!

Shang Dynasty Video (3 mins 43 secs)

Please click here to view the documentary in its entirity (45 mins).

Yin Xu was the capital city of this dynasty however, what makes it so interesting to the archaeologists in this program is that the living were coming to this city in order to make offerings to deceased emperors. It is through the archaeological record that we have been able to identify the remains of humans that were used as sacrifices. This form of sacrifice was unlike the Inca dynasty where they would make offerings of a few souls, notably children (click here for further information), in Yin Xu mass amounts of people were sacrificed as offerings to ancestor emperors. One archaeologist inferred that it seems as if sacrificing was a socially acceptable practice at the time.

Image 1: Skeletal Remains at Yin Xu, Shang Dynasty

Unlike other funerary practices where we see the cremation of the body in its entirety*, here at Yin Xu urns were found with heads inside. First impressions swayed towards accidental placement of a head inside of the urn but than more and more urns were being discovered containing the same matter. It was concluded that the heads inside the urns had been, "steam cooked" (Discovery Channel 2012).

Image 2: An Urn Containing A 'Steam Cooked" Head. Shang Dynasty

The Shang dynasty had a brutal reputation for being merciless as warriors however as the archaeologist in the documentary notes, "we still know very little about the Shang dynasty". Through further excavations we are beginning to see that yes indeed this was a very violent culture so if all parties concerned are supportive than I say KEEP DIGGING and lets find some more answers! While it does appear they were violent, did they contribute anything else while they existed that can be noted as well?

* Mike Parker Pearson states in his book, Death and Burial, that cremation, "may leave few or even no archaeological traces". So this practice of 'steam cooking' a head is quite interesting and a unique practice it seems.

References

Clark, Liesl. (1998). The scarificial ceremony. Available through; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/sacrificial-ceremony.html Accessed 24 March 2012.

Discovery Channel. Aired 23 March 2012.

Parker Pearson, M. (1999). The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Sutton: Stroud