Ancient And Classical Civilizations In Ancient China

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How are why did ancient and Classical civilizations develop in the ways they did in China? China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations, with thousands of year of continuous history dating back to at least 2205 BCE. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art and political organisation that came to be recognisable as Chinese civilization. The first three dynasties’ that ruled china from 2852 to 481 BCE were the Xia dynasty, the Shang dynasty and the Zhou dynasty. Despite speculation still remaining around the actual existence of the Xia Dynasty, it has been agreed by historians that the Shang and Zhou dynasties were not only legitimate dynasties, but also exerted…show more content…
The Shang imposed their power along a substantial stretch of the Yellow River, and during the peak of its reign had further expanded to 40,000 Square miles around Northern Henan. During its reign the Shang Dynasty designed and employed a calendar, which has since been the basis of all Chinese calendars. Archaeological evidence of inscriptions on oracle bones demonstrates that the Shang dynasty created and implemented a distinctive writing system of roughly 5000 characters with pictograph characters represented as words rather than sounds. The formation of religion was another development under the Shang reign. Religious beliefs were centred on Di, the high god, who during the late dynasty was only referred to as Heaven. During this period the major farming techniques were “Cooperative Tillage”, which saw slaves work in teams of three to work on fields with newly invented bronze tools (Gong, Lin, Chen & Hu 2001, p 13). All these factors greatly contributed to the development of Chinese civilization, however the most significant advancement was the introduction of an integrated monarchy based on the person of the king ‘the one man’ as he was called, who commanded its military forces and to whom surrounding states paid tribute. The Shang was not only an expansive state but also one that was hugely influential and alluring to others due to its progressive culture and technological
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