Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 48 - Anyang City, China – Shang Dynasty Capital, the National Museum of Chinese Writing and Oracle Bones Research

By Greg Brundage

In this sub-series of the Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour - Articles from Anyang city, China, we visit the location of the most ancient dynastic civilization in Chinese history called Yinxu, two spectacular museums, the tomb of the world’s first Warrior Queen Lady Fu Hao (which is also a museum) and an amazing Shaolin Wushu school, all in and nearby Anyang City, Henan, China. To “fill in the blanks,” this series very briefly reviews some highlights of the most authoritative scientific research pertaining to the Bronze Era in Chinese history with a focus on interpreting oracle bone inscriptions. The Shang Dynasty trade was in many ways the precursor and progenitor of the Silk Roads.

In this Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 48, we very briefly review the Shang Dynasty, China’s oldest literate civilization. Then make a visit to the National Museum of Chinese writing and explore the Oracle Bone inscriptions necessary to begin to understand the origin of martial arts in China, and how to research it.

Welcome to Anyang

On December 28th, 2024, I was greeted in the early evening at Anyang airport coming from Shenzhen by two friends of some friends in Beijing. They were very kind to invite me to a fabulous dinner with so many dishes there was no counting them, but they included stewed beef, (two) very large fresh baked lake fish, vegetables of many kinds some of which I’d never seen before, with rice and noodles with wonderful sauces served later in the feast. That was after a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong during which I didn’t have much time to eat, so it was a most welcome, welcome.

Background on the Xia and Shang Dynasties in China

The modern city of Anyang has the unique distinction of being adjacent to the ancient capital city of the Shang Dynasty (1700-1046 BCE) then called “Yin” which at its height occupied about 30 square kilometers (Endnote1) – the megalopolis of its time rivaled only by ancient Memphis (Endnote2)(3150 BCE - 4th century CE)(Endnote3) and Thebes (Endnote4)(c.1570-c.1069 BCE) in Egypt.

The stability of the country during the Shang Dynasty led to numerous cultural advances such as industrialized bronze casting, the calendar, religious rituals, and writing. The first king, Tang, instantly began to work for the people of his country instead of for his own pleasure and luxury and provided a role model for his successors. These men created a stable government, which would continue for 600 years, but eventually, according to the records of the Chinese historians, they lost the Mandate of Heaven which allowed them to rule.

https://www.worldhistory.org/Shang_Dynasty

Yinxu, also known as the ‘ruins of Yin’ in Anyang, China, is the location of the ancient capital of the late Shang Dynasty. The Yin ruins are located on the north and south banks of the Huan River on the northwest outskirts of Anyang City, Henan Province in east central China. Yinxu was the first dynastic capital city in Chinese history that has been extensively documented and confirmed by archaeologists.

However, there is growing archeological evidence of an older dynastic city state in China called “Xia Dynasty” (c. 2070-1600 BCE) that has raised quite a few intriguing questions because many later historians have called into question if there even was a Xia Dynasty or if it was earlier stages of the Shang Dynasty. Those questions arose during the Zhou Dynasty (which followed the Shang Dynasty).

The Xia Dynasty was the first government to emerge in ancient China and the first to adopt the policy of dynastic succession. Consequently, the Xia was the first dynasty of China. Long regarded as a mythical construct of later Chinese historians, 20th-century excavations uncovered sites which corresponded to descriptions in earlier historians’ accounts.

The Xia Dynasty was overthrown by the Shang Dynasty (c.1600-1046 BCE), a more historically certain governmental entity, which was in turn overthrown by the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE).

The argument claiming the Xia Dynasty is a mythological construct states that the Zhou (and later dynasties) wanted to make clear that the previous ones lost their right to rule through immoral conduct and so created a proto-dynasty - the Xia - as a prehistoric model for this. Many scholars today still maintain that the Xia Dynasty is a myth but seem to be at a loss to explain why the physical evidence uncovered argues against their claim. Those who believe the Xia Dynasty was a reality are at an equal disadvantage in that none of the sites uncovered so far positively identify themselves as belonging to the Xia Dynasty and could as easily be interpreted as early Shang Dynasty buildings.

https://www.worldhistory.org/Xia_Dynasty

Whatever the case, either Yinxu was much older than contemporary histories assert, or Xia was an earlier, sizable dynasty going back to 2697 BCE at least.

December 29, 2024 - National Museum of Chinese Writing, and Yinxu Museum

The next morning, I was picked up at 9:00 AM by my new friends, Mr. Qi and his lady companion and off we went to the National Museum of Chinese writing. Some might wonder “why that museum?” Simply stated, it was in Yinxu that writing in China was really invented, that is, progressed from pictographs to more abstract script and became common among the kings and high priests and priestesses of the time in China. And that, formed the foundation of written histories in China. Consequently, the thinking and lives of royalty and government, and the origins of China’s martial arts became much more specific and interesting.

That transition from pictographic to script writing is simply illustrated and explained on this page: https://www.crystalinks.com/chinascript.html

The first written histories of China came from oracle bone, tortoise shell and later bronze vessel inscriptions in Yinxu adjacent to Anyang, China during the mid and late Shang Dynasty.

For those who gaze at Chinese calligraphy and compare it to “chicken scratchings,” a trip to this museum will probably revise that over-simplistic notion. Here, one can see the origins of many Chinese characters and how those roots morphed into modern simplified Chinese characters still used today.

Below one can see photos of artifacts from the Yinxu archeological site with some of the earliest (Endnote5) script writing, followed by some helpful signs in the National Museum of Chinese Writing that show how the most ancient forms writing transformed into modern characters.

Oracle Bones Research

“Oracle Bone Inscriptions Database of Yin Ruins” is a special database of Oracle Bone Inscriptions jointly developed by Gulian Company of Zhonghua Book Company and Professor Chen Nianfu of Zhejiang Normal University. This database is formed by adding and revising the Oracle Bone Inscriptions text arrangement results of Professor Chen Nianfu. The whole database contains 59,591 Oracle bones and 143,856 Oracle inscriptions, referring to dozens of domestic and foreign documents recorded in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Each Oracle inscription contains two parts: imitation and interpretation, and is marked with the subject classification, specific source and font group. On this basis, the academic achievements of Oracle bone conjugation for many years are sorted out, which makes the content displayed in this library more complete and comprehensive.

https://www.hzyyingyu.com/2024/03/04/yin-ruins-oracle-bone-inscriptions-database-was-released-online

Also see: https://hanziyuan.net/#home

For the most recently published overview article reviewing the current state of Oracle Bone inscriptions, see: Jin, Y., & Wen, S. (2024) in References at the end of this article.

Xu Shen – Writer of the first Chinese dictionary

A visit to the National Museum of Chinese Writing would be incomplete without acknowledging the role of Xu Shen in the history of Chinese calligraphy. Though he didn’t come along until the Han Dynasty his work was certainly monumental.

Xu Shen (c. 58 – c. 148 CE) was a Chinese calligrapher, philologist, politician, and writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-189). He was the first person to organize a dictionary by radicals.

What’s a “radical?” Words are made of characters and characters are made of radicals. So, to learn to read and write Chinese, first, one needs to learn the (214) radicals which are the building blocks of Chinese characters. But(!) some are more commonly used than others so that’s not as daunting a task as some might think.

For more about the phenomenally brilliant Xu Shen, refer to Jin, Y., & Wen, S. (2024) in the References below.

After a few hours absorbing the roots, branches and flowers of Chinese calligraphy, off we went to the Yinxu Museum.

Part 2 of these articles from Yin ruins (Yinxu) adjacent to Anyang City, Henan, (Part 49 of the Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour), will cover Shang Dynasty chariots, weaponry and armor, the Shang Dynasty government’s (lack of) involvement in military training, and oracle bone records referring to unarmed martial arts during the Shang Dynasty. The answers to many mysteries are in the bones and how the inscriptions are interpreted based on the evolving culture in which they written.

Endnotes

1. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%AE%B7%E5%A2%9F/3908528

2. An Egyptian historian, c.1400 BC, documented the size of ancient Memphis as “30 miles long by 20 miles wide” (cf. Jeffreys 1999: 58), cited by: Love, Serena (2003), see complete citation in References below.

3. https://www.worldhistory.org/Memphis_(Ancient_Egypt)

4. https://www.worldhistory.org/Thebes_(Egypt)

5. There were cultures in China far older than the Xia Dynasty that used symbology which later evolved into the written language used in the Shang Dynasty.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-12-04/Unveiling-Ancient-Writing-The-Dawenkou-pictographs-1z3mLTbELAY/p.html

https://novoscriptorium.com/2019/08/09/writing-in-neolithic-china

References
Jin, Y., & Wen, S. (2024). The Current State of the OBI DICT Project: A Bilingual e-Dictionary of Oracle-Bone Inscriptions with AI Image Recognition. Lexikos.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Current-State-of-the-OBI-DICT-Project%3A-A-of-AI-Jin-Wen/c6650a9b63c38c11ad6f8dd8f925d9b52ad29df8

Gustafsson, Rickard (2017) Xu Shen’s Philosophical Lexicography: 18 Reflections of Han Cosmology in the yi 一 Section of the Shuo wen jie zi, Orientaliska Studier Nr. 150, P. 18 - 41 Retrieved from:
https://www.academia.edu/37742343/Xu_Shen_s_Philosophical_Lexicography_Reflections_of_Han_Cosmology_in_the_yi_%E4%B8%80_Section_of_the_Shuo_wen_jie_zi

Love, Serena (2003) Questioning the Location of the Old Kingdom Capital of Memphis, Egypt, Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 14: 70-84 Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/37742343/Xu_Shen_s_Philosophical_Lexicography_Reflections_of_Han_Cosmology_in_the_yi_%E4%B8%80_Section_of_the_Shuo_wen_jie_zi

Lu, Jinfeng (2020) Study on Wrestling in the Shang Dynasty Based on Oracle Characters and Oracle Inscriptions (殷墟甲骨文及卜辞所见商代摔跤考) Journal of Chengdu Sport University (成都体育学院学报), Vol. 46 No. 2. [年(第 46 卷)第 2 期] DOI:10.15942/j.jcsu.2020.02.006. Retrieved from: https://cdtyxb.cdsu.edu.cn/CN/Y2020/V46/I2/28

Greg Brundage’s ongoing Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour has been going for a whopping 48 installments now. Unfortunately, with our 2026 reboot of KungFuMagazine.com, all the links were severed. At the time of this publication, we are still in the process of restoring our free online article archive. Here are Greg’s previous SRKFFT articles at this moment (note that some are currently under reconstruction):

TO BE CONTINUED…

AUTHOR:

For more on Greg Brundage, see the following: For updates visit his website: Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour - https://srkffriendshiptour.org.
Other social media includes:
SILK ROAD MARTIAL ART FRIENDSHIP TOUR
YouTube Collection: @silkroadmartialartsfriends7329 -
https://www.youtube.com/@silkroadmartialartsfriends7329 Creator: Greg Brundage (“Coach Stone” / 石龙教练)
TikTok Collection: @Silk Road Martial Art Nomad - tiktok.com/@user5051237932857
Creator: Greg Brundage (“Coach Stone” / 石龙教练)
Twitter: @SilkRoadStudy - https://twitter.com/SilkRoadStudy
WeChat: naturalman2014 - naturalman2021
Email: gregbrundage@live.com - director@silkroadresearchcenter.org

COMMENTS:

https://forum.kungfumagazine.com/t/the-silk-road/57531

Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 48 - Anyang City, China – Shang Dynasty Capital, the National Museum of Chinese Writing and Oracle Bones Research

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Chinese New Year 2026: Year of the Flaming Stud

The KungFuMagazine.com Forums: A Time Capsule of the Golden and Twilight Years of American Kung Fu

‘Bruce’ Leung Siu-lung 1948-2026

The Kung Fu of FAN EXPO San Francisco 2025