Bringing artifacts to life
Let the culture pass on
"Keel" asked Bu
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In the history exhibition hall of the Cangzhou Museum, a ox shoulder blade from more than 3,000 years old is displayed. The back of the bone is densely packed with small pits and holes, of which 10 are pierced and 37 are drilled. If you look closely, you can still see the traces of burning with fire in some of the potholes, as well as some small cracks formed by the cracking of the front of the bone due to burning. This is the carrier of the famous "oracle bone" - one of the props used for divination in the Shang Dynasty.
The Book of Rites and Tables says: "Yin people respect God, lead the people to serve God, and first ghosts and then rituals." It can be seen that the Shang Dynasty people were very afraid of ghosts and gods. At present, almost all of the hundreds of thousands of oracle bones unearthed in the Shang Dynasty are divination records, with various contents, from sacrifices, conquests, appointments and removals, marriages and funerals, down to fertility, disease, field hunting, travel, weather, and even toothache, sneezing and other things. Later generations could not help but wonder after seeing these oracle records: Why were merchants so keen on divination?
First of all, this is the inevitable result of the stage of historical development. The Shang and Zhou dynasties have entered the "Bronze Age", but still use the "composite tools" made of wood, stone and bone as the main production tools, the level of productivity is low, and the people's lives are difficult. In the face of the harsh natural environment and many unknown phenomena, the Shang Dynasty people did not know the scientific reasons and could not deal with them effectively, and naturally produced a general fear and awe. "Zuo Chuan Huan Gong Eleventh Year" Yun, "Bu to resolve doubts, do not doubt He Bu", through sacrifices, divination and other activities to pray for the protection of ghosts and gods, naturally became a common psychological need of the public.
Second, this was the practical need to consolidate the political alliance between the Shang Dynasty and the princes. "History of Yin Benji" Yun, "Tang Naixing led the princes". The Shang Dynasty actually received strong support from the "princes and princes", and eventually replaced the Xia Dynasty and established a political system in which the suzerainty ruled the princes of the world. The shamans responsible for divination are mostly the leaders of the tribes of various Fang kingdoms, and they share the ruling power in the name of ghosts and gods by participating in the sacrifice and divination activities of the Shang Dynasty; while the Shang Dynasty uses tribal representatives as wizards and sacrifices to the Fang Kingdom, etc., to use divination and sacrifice activities as the starting point to subtly influence the ideology of the other country. The Shang Dynasty was able to go through seventeen dynasties, thirty-one kings, and more than six hundred years, and controlled the vast territory of the "Zhao Domain and the Four Seas", which was closely related to the skillful use of its theocratic political means.
Finally, it was an effective means of maintaining the ruling power of the Shang kings. The Shangshu Hong fan records that there are five factors to be considered in handling government affairs, namely, the king, the secretary, the commoner, the turtle, and the basket. The first three are human factors, and the latter two represent the ghost factors. All five factors are expressed in agreement, called "Datong"; as long as the latter two agree, it is considered "auspicious"; as long as one of the latter two is opposed, it can only handle internal affairs and cannot use troops externally; if the latter two are opposed, even if the first three are in favor, they cannot pass. This shows that the decision-making power of political affairs in the Shang Dynasty was in the hands of ghosts and gods. In fact, the will of the ghost god needs to be known through divination, and most of the "divination words" that determine the auspiciousness are issued by the Shang King (except for a few cases), and the Shang King even acts as a sorcerer to preside over the issuance of the divine words, in fact, he obtains the "supreme religious interpretation power", which effectively maintains the ruling power of the Shang King.
The Shang Dynasty has a history of more than 3,000 years, and due to the large number of records in oracle bones, our understanding of this history is becoming more and more detailed. With the deepening of our understanding of the Shang Dynasty, we find that the Shang Dynasty people, like us now, have many confusions about nature and the future, and have wisdom and ingenuity that are not inferior to today's people. Through a piece of bones in the Cangzhou Museum, spanning three thousand years of leisurely years, the ideas of today's people and ancients are connected.
Author Lu Qingyuan