The Shang State as Seen in the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions

This paper was first prepared as a documentary appendix to “The Late Shang State: When, Where, and What?” (to be published in the conference volume, The Origins of Chinese Civilization), which, by analyzing a series of thirty-nine “state criteria” under the general headings of Sovereignty, Territoriality, Religion and Kinship, Alliance and Warfare, and Exchange, attempted to classify the state in developmental terms. The present paper presents the documentary evidence in more detail by translating and discussing characteristic Inscriptions (generally from period I, the reign of Wu Ting) within each of the thirty-nine criteria. In so far as possible, the discussion focuses on the case of the Chou as a Shang state member. The evidence is particularly valuable because of the insights it gives Into the daily activities of the Shang theocrat.