The largest walled Shang City located in Anyang, China.

The largest walled Shang City located in Anyang, China. The Shang state (c. mid 16th or mid 18th century BC-1046 BC)established its last capital near the modern city of Anyang. The capitalsite in Anyang was historically known as Yinxu, `the Ruins of Yin'(FIGURE 1) because Yin was referred to the period of the reign of last12 or 9 Shang kings. Yinxu has been extensively excavated since itsfirst scientific excavation in 1928, and yielded oracle boneinscriptions, and tremendous amount of archaeological remains,substantiating the traditional accounts of the late Shang dynasty Shang dynastyor Yin dynastyTraditionally, the second of China's dynasties, following the Xia dynasty. Until excavations in the 20th century provided archaeological evidence for the Xia, the Shang was the first verifiable Chinese dynasty. andits capital in Yin (Chang 1980; IA 1994; Keightley 1999). [Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Like other archaic states in early China, Shang relocated itscapital on a number of occasions. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. the historical accounts,the dynasty's founder had the first capital in Bo; then there werefive moves prior to the final removal of the capital to Yin. There islittle disagreement concerning the identification of Yin in Anyanglargely due to the existence of oracle bone inscriptions. The remainsfound at Zhengzhou, some 150 km south of Anyang, are antecedent ANTECEDENT. Something that goes before. In the construction of laws, agreements, and the like, reference is always to be made to the last antecedent; ad proximun antecedens fiat relatio. to thoseat Yinxu based on both pottery and bronze typologies. The presence ofthe massive walled city may denote Zhengzhou the status of a royal Shangcapital, but the absence of written materials such as inscribed oraclebones leaves the identification of the Shang city at Zhengzhourelatively uncertain. Both archaeological and historic accounts,however, favour the Zhengzhou Shang city as the first dynastic capital.Therefore, the archaeological classification of Early and Late Shang canbe represented by the remains at Zhengzhou and Yinxu, respectively. Thecareful analysis of pottery and bronze assemblages and styles, however,suggests that there is still a temporal gap, sometime called thetransitional period, in archaeological sequence The archaeological sequence or sequence for short, on a specific archaeological site can be defined on two levels of rigour. Normally it is adequate to equate it to archaeological record. However, the two terms are not exactly interchangeable. between Zhengzhou andYinxu phases. This so-called transitional period, referred to as theMiddle Shang, has been poorly understood but crucial in the study ofShang civilization (Tang 1999). Initiated in the fall of 1996 the regional archaeological survey inthe Huan River valley, undertaken jointly by the Institute ofArchaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Simplified Chinese: 中国社会科学院; Traditional Chinese: and the Universityof Minnesota (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher.http://umn.edu/.Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. , paid a great attention to the investigation of the MiddleShang settlement pattern because it would provide critical data on theemergence of last Shang capital at Yinxu. The intensive coring duringthe spring of 1998 and the fall of 1999 finally led to the discovery ofthe largest walled Shang city in current archaeological database, nownamed the Huanbei Shang City (Huanbei means `north of the HuanRiver'), immediately northeast of Yinxu across the Huan River(FIGURE 1). This newly found Shang city measures about 470 ha in its walledarea; each side of four rammed earth rammed earth,material consisting chiefly of soil of sufficiently stiff consistency that has been placed in forms and pounded down. It has been used for buildings and walls since ancient times and was employed in some of the most ancient fortifications in the Middle walls is about 2150 m long. It isoriented about 13 degrees northeast, characteristic of many other knownwalled Shang cities as well as monumental architectures. The trench partof the rammed earth wall is still mostly well preserved, and it is bowlshaped (FIGURE 2). The average diameter of the pounded impression isabout 4-5 cm. The artefacts unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia.Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. from the rammed earth wall itselfand the excavations inside the wall all suggest that the walled city bedated back to the Middle Shang period. [Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With very limited data available, the exact political status of theHuanbei Shang City remains elusive. But it is most likely that thewalled city may be one of the Shang capitals largely due to its massivesize and geographic location. According to the traditional accounts, PanGeng, the 19th king, moved his capital to Yin. But the oracle-boneinscriptions from Yinxu covers only the period from the reign of WuDing, the 22nd king, to Di Xin, the 30th and last king of Shang dynasty.Yinxu most likely did not become the capital until King Wu Ding. Giventhe material remains mostly dated to the Middle Shang, earlier thanthose at Yinxu, the Huanbei Shang City might have be the capital of PanGeng and possibly his two succeeding kings. But a preliminary analysisof ceramic vessels from three recent excavations seems to place themajor deposit of this urban settlement in the early segment of MiddleShang. Some early texts mentioned that there was another Shangcapital's move connected with the area of Anyang, in addition toPan Keng's removal of the capital to Yin. He Tan Jia, the 12thking, relocated his capital to Xiang, traditionally placed in Anyang.Therefore it is also possible that the Huanbei Shang City might havebeen first built by He Tan Jia as his capital Xiang. These are alltentative identifications of the Huanbei Shang City; its exact politicalstatus must await further excavation and survey during the comingseasons. Undoubtedly the discovery of the Huanbei Shang City sheds newlight on the history of Shang civilization, and it is certainly one ofthe most important archaeological finds in Shang archaeology over thepast half-century. Acknowledgements. The collaborative archaeological regional surveyproject has been funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, National ScienceFoundation & Malcom H. Wiener Foundation. References CHANG, K.C. 1980. Shang civilization. New Haven (CT): YaleUniversity Press. IA (Institute of Archaeology, CASS CASSCardiology, cardiovascular surgery A randomized, open label, multicenter trial that compared the outcomes of CABG vs. medical therapy on M&M in Pts with coronary artery disease after an MI. See Angina, CABG, Silent ischemia. ). 1994. Yinxu De Faxian YuYanjiu (Archaeological excavation and research at the Ruins of Yin).Beijing: Science Press. (In Chinese.) KEIGHTLEY, D.N. 1999. The Shang: China's first historicaldynasty, in Michael Loewe & Edward L. Shauhnessy (ed.), TheCambridge History of Ancient China: from the origins of civilization to221 BC: 232-91. Cambridge: Cambidge University Press. TANG, J. 1999. A study of the middle Shang culture, Kaogu xuebao 4:393-420. (In Chinese.) JIGEN TANG, ZHICHUN JING & GEORGE (RIP) RAPP, Tang, Instituteof Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 27 Wangfujing Dajie,Beijing, China. tjgen@public.bta.net.cn Jing, Department ofAnthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706-1393, USA.zjing@ssc.wisc.edu Rapp, Archaeometry Laboratory, University ofMinnesota, Duluth MN 55812, USA. grapp@d.umm.edu