Bronze Age of China

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Across
  1. 4. province in southwestern China where recent excavations have unearthed evidence of a very large city that was occupied between 1700 to 1000 BCE - making it roughly contemporaneous with the Shang
  2. 5. one of the earliest capitals of the Shang dynasty / archaeologists have found its remains near modern Zhengzhou / its city wall was a significant architectural achievement
  3. 7. what peasants called their discoveries of oracle bones / sold to druggists, who ground them into powder that they resold as an especially potent medicine / came to the attention of historians and literary scholars in the 1890s
  4. 10. sage-king and founder of the Xia dynasty / credited with the organization of effective flood-control projects and building a vast network of canals / known for his upright moral character / cast the Nine Bronze Tripods - viewed as symbols of the authority given to the ruler by the Mandate of Heaven
  5. 13. province in northeastern China’s Yellow River Valley, is widely recognized as the place where Chinese civilization originated / Shang kings extended their rule to a large portion of this area
  6. 15. venerated by the ancient Chinese, who believed that spirits of their ___________ passed into another realm of existence from which they had the power to support and protect their surviving families if the descendants displayed proper respect and ministered to the spirits' needs
  7. 18. takes its name from the vast quantities of light-colored loess soil that it picks up along its route / very unpredictable with a history of devastating floods / Chinese civilization emerged around this river valley
  8. 19. heavenly powers granted the right to govern to an essentially deserving individual known as the "son of heaven" - the ruler who then served as a link between heaven and earth / Chinese ruling houses routinely invoked this doctrine to justify their rule
  9. 20. dynasty that ruled China from 1766 to 1122 BCE / four main contributions: invention of writing, development of a stratified government, advancement of bronze technology, and use of the chariot and bronze weapons in warfare
  10. 22. succeeded the Shang as the preeminent dynasty in northern China / battled Shang forces in the east and nomadic raiders from the steppes in the west / eventually allied with the Shang before gradually eclipsing and displacing them
  11. 23. ___________ peoples, along with disaffected allies of the Zhou, invaded China from the west in 771 BCE
  12. 24. technology that emerged during the first millennium BCE in China / gradually made bronze weapons obsolete as these ores are cheaper, more abundant, and more widely distributed than the copper and tin needed to make bronze / also enabled subordinates of the Zhou to effectively resist the central government and to pursue their own interests
  13. 26. first dynasty thought to have existed from about 2200 to 1600 BCE / might have made one of the first efforts to organize public life in China on a large scale
  14. 28. owned no land, but provided agricultural, military, and labor services for their lords in exchange for plots to cultivate, security, and a portion of the harvest / they lived like their neolithic predecessors
  15. 29. had bronze fittings and used to devastating effect by Shang warriors / helped Shang armies impose their rule on agricultural villages and to extend their influence throughout much of the Yellow River valley
Down
  1. 1. manual instructing diviners in the art of foretelling the future
  2. 2. period from 403 to 221 BCE / warfare was the most important aspect of social life during the violent last centuries of the Zhou dynasty / rival Chinese states battled viciously for territorial advantage and dominance
  3. 3. one of 64 consorts (wives) of the Shang king Wu Ding / her resting place is the only tomb at Yin to escape the notice of grave robbers / her tomb reflected her status as the king's favorite consort - it contained 468 bronze objects
  4. 6. dynasty established in 221 BCE when the last Zhou king abdicated his position / reestablished an effective central government / introduced a standardized writing system and standardized currency and measurement, built expansive infrastructure (such as highways and canals), conducted a census, and established a postal system
  5. 8. reached China before the Shang dynasty, as the Xia dynasty made limited use of these kinds of tools and weapons / process of combining copper and tin to create...
  6. 9. type of administration the Zhou rulers relied on - entrusting power, authority, and responsibility to subordinates who, in return, owed allegiance, tribute, and military support to the central government
  7. 10. society that flourished from about 5000 to 3000 BCE in the middle region of the Yellow River Valley / some archaeologists consider this the earliest stage of Chinese civilization / known for its Neolithic painted pottery and bone tools
  8. 11. capital during the last two or three centuries of the Shang dynasty / archaeologists have found a complex of royal palaces, archives with written documents, several residential neighborhoods, two large bronze foundries, several workshops used by potters, woodworkers, bone carvers, and other craftsmen, and scattered burial grounds at this site
  9. 12. now the Xinjiang province in Western China / harsh landscape that became a passageway between those traveling east and west / some archaeologists think that Indo-European migrants spread bronze metallurgy along this route, whereas others argue Chinese people independently invented these technologies
  10. 14. collection of verses on themes both light and serious / compiled and edited after 600 BCE / some poems had political implications because they recorded the deeds of heroic figures and ancient sage-kings
  11. 15. a privileged class of hereditary ___________ rose from the military allies of the Shang and Zhou rulers / possessed extensive landholdings and worked at administrative and military tasks / manuals of etiquette instructed these privileged classes
  12. 16. as they did not rule over a highly centralized state, Shang kings may have controlled a vast network of one thousand or more walled...
  13. 17. sizeable class in Bronze Age China - most of whom were enemy warriors captured during battles between the many competing states / performed hard labor such as building city walls or clearing new fields / victims of ritual sacrifice during the Shang dynasty
  14. 21. principal instruments used by fortune-tellers in ancient China / shoulder blades of sheep or turtle shells that were inscribed with a question and then subjected to heat - fortune-tellers then studied the network of splits and cracks that emerged / many bore inscriptions in archaic Chinese writing
  15. 25. in the absence of a organized religion, the ___________ head of the family presided over rites and ceremonies honoring ancestors' spirits
  16. 27. practice that involves foretelling the future, discovering hidden knowledge, or determining the cause of events