Key Stage 2 history · World history

KS2 Shang Dynasty of Ancient China: a guide for parents

The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China is one of four civilizations that primary schools may choose for a depth study of the earliest civilizations. Children learn where and when the Shang ruled, how bronze and early Chinese writing worked, what people believed about their ancestors, and how much of this we know only because archaeologists dug up bones and metal objects from the ground.

The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China, explained

The curriculum asks for an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared, followed by a depth study of one of Ancient Sumer, the Indus Valley, Ancient Egypt or the Shang Dynasty. Schools choose just one, so your child may be studying Shang China or another civilization. The Shang ruled part of northern China, around the Yellow River, from about 1600 BC to about 1046 BC, which is more than a thousand years before the Romans invaded Britain. Children place it on a timeline beside the other early civilizations.

Shang society was ruled by a king, who led armies and carried out ceremonies, supported by nobles, officials and warriors. Most people were farmers growing crops such as millet, and craftworkers made pottery, jade carvings, silk and bronze objects. Children learn that Shang bronze was not hammered but cast: molten metal was poured into clay moulds, which took great skill and a lot of organisation to produce, since tin and copper had to be brought from some distance. Bronze was used for weapons, and for ritual vessels in which food and drink were offered to ancestors.

Religion was a large part of Shang life. People believed that dead ancestors, especially royal ones, could influence harvests, weather, health and war. To ask them questions, diviners applied heat to prepared ox shoulder bones and turtle shells until cracks appeared, and read the cracks as answers. Afterwards, the question, and sometimes what happened, was often carved onto the bone or shell as a record. These oracle bones are the earliest large body of Chinese writing, and many of their characters are the ancestors of the ones used in Chinese today. Children are usually shown pictures of them and asked what they reveal.

How do we know any of this? The site of the last Shang capital, near the modern city of Anyang, was excavated from the late 1920s, and the tomb of a royal woman called Fu Hao, found in 1976, held hundreds of bronze and jade objects. Children are expected to understand that our knowledge is constructed from sources and that it has gaps. We have few written records from the Shang themselves beyond the oracle bones, and later Chinese writers described the Shang long afterwards, so historians treat those accounts with care.

Because the programme of study only names the Shang Dynasty, schools choose their own focus, perhaps oracle bones, bronze casting, or the life of Fu Hao. Pupils are asked to build informed answers by picking relevant facts and organising them, often in response to a question such as “What do oracle bones tell us about the Shang?” Royal burials sometimes included human sacrifices, and teachers tend to handle this carefully and briefly.

Words your child will hear

Dynasty: A line of rulers from the same family, passing power down through the generations.
Oracle bone: An animal bone or turtle shell used to ask the ancestors a question, then inscribed.
Ancestor: A family member from long ago, who the Shang believed could still affect the living.
Bronze: A strong metal made by mixing copper with tin.
Casting: Shaping metal by pouring it, melted, into a mould.
Archaeology: Learning about the past by digging up and studying objects, buildings and bodies.
Diviner: A person who tried to find out what the ancestors wanted, by reading cracks in bone.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

Pupils should be taught about the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer, The Indus Valley, Ancient Egypt, The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
Pupils should construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information.
Pupils should understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

A model answer: what do oracle bones tell us?

Enquiry question: What can oracle bones tell us about life under the Shang kings?

Look closely at the source. An oracle bone has carved characters, and cracks made by heat. It was found underground at Anyang, so it is a real object from the Shang, not a later story about them.
Read what the writing says. Many inscriptions are questions to the ancestors, such as whether the harvest will be good, whether it will rain, or whether a king’s toothache will get better.
Work out what the questions suggest. Asking about harvests and rain suggests that farming mattered. Asking about illness and war suggests that the kings believed the ancestors controlled these as well.
Say what the bones cannot tell us. They were made for the royal court, so they say little about what ordinary farmers believed or how they lived. They usually record the question, and only sometimes what happened afterwards.
Put the points in order and link them with words such as “this suggests” and “however”.

Oracle bones show that the Shang kings believed their dead ancestors had power over the harvest, the weather, illness and war, because the questions on the bones ask about all of these. They also show that the Shang had a writing system, since the questions were carved in characters. However, they came from the royal court, so they tell us much less about the lives and beliefs of ordinary farmers, and we need other evidence such as tombs and bronze to build a fuller picture.

Common mistakes and how to help

Mixing up the Shang with the Great Wall of China

Ancient China and the Great Wall tend to sit together in children’s heads as one big idea.

What helps: The best-known walls were built many centuries after the Shang. Place both on a timeline so your child can see the gap.

Thinking the Shang ruled all of present-day China

Modern maps of China are so familiar that children imagine the same borders.

What helps: Look at a map showing the Shang area in the north, around the Yellow River, which is only a fraction of the modern country. Many other peoples lived outside it.

Calling oracle bones fortune-telling or magic tricks

Words such as “oracle” make them sound like a fairground attraction.

What helps: They were serious religious practice and also records. Ask your child what the questions show about what the Shang worried about.

Believing bronze objects were hammered into shape

Children know how a blacksmith’s hammer works, so they assume bronze was made that way.

What helps: Explain that Shang craftworkers made clay moulds, often in several pieces, poured melted bronze into them, and let it cool, which is how they made such detailed patterns. The “Press and pour” idea below shows the principle safely.

How to help at home

Make your own oracle bones. Use a flat piece of card or a rolled slab of air-drying clay and scratch a question onto it with a blunt pencil. Then talk about what a future archaeologist would learn about your family from it.
Press and pour. Press a coin or small toy into a slab of modelling clay to make a mould, then press fresh clay or play dough into it and peel it out. Or pour water into an ice-cube tray and freeze it. Either way, your child sees how a mould makes the same shape again and again. Shang workers did the same with molten bronze, which needed furnaces and expert craftworkers.
Plot it on a timeline. Mark the Shang (about 1600 to 1046 BC), the Romans in Britain, the Vikings and today on a strip of paper. It makes the huge distances between periods much easier to grasp.
Trace an ancestor’s story. Ask a grandparent or older relative about a family member from long ago. Notice what you can and cannot find out, and compare it to the way Shang kings were remembered.

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: A significant society in world history