Transcript Ancient China - World history

ANCIENT CHINA
Between the Huang He and
Yangtze Rivers
Specialized Workers
• Nobles- land owners
• Civil Servants- government administrative workers
• Professional warriors
• Artisans
• Wall builders
• Peasants- farmer
Complex Institutions
• Duties to their family and to their emperor
• Religion:
• Main god: Shang Di
• Spirits of ancestors have power to bring good fortune or disaster
• Feudalism- use of land that legally belonged to emperor in
exchange for military protection
Advanced Cities
• Anyang- capital of the Shang Dynasty, built out of wood
• Hao- Zhou capital
Advanced Technology
• Had Bronze, but thought it was too precious for tools
• Wooden digging sticks, hoes, sickles made of stone
• Chariot
• Silk
• Roads
• Canals
• Coined money
• Iron/cast iron
• Dagger, axes, swords
• Crossbow
Record Keeping
• Oracle Bones
• write a questions to the gods on a bone, apply a hot poker to it, which
causes it to crack, priest interpreted the cracks to see how the gods had
answered
• Calligraphy
• Written language based on ideas not sounds
• One could read Chinese without being able to speak a word of it