Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr Hutchinson and welcome to our history lesson.

We are learning all about the Shang dynasty and I can't wait to get started with today's lesson, where we're going to be learning all about some of the major cities that we know about from the Shang dynasty.

Because as an early civilization, as an early empire, the Shang was one of the first places around the world to build up these big major cities and we're going to learn all about it today.

Our lesson will look something like this.

First, we're going to recap that this is a civilization that built up around the Yellow River over 3000 years ago.

Then we'll learn about one of the major cities that we know about.

The capital of the latest Shang dynasty, which is a modern day Anyang, or the old name for it was Yinxu.

We'll then learn about another Shang city called Zhengzhou or its old name of Ao.

Then we'll learn a little bit more about how there was still rural life in the Shang dynasty, even though these cities existed and we'll finish with our end of lesson quiz.

So let's get started and to begin with, we get to remember that, like many civilizations, the Shang dynasty built up around that great river called the Yellow River.

Now it was no surprise that lots of these civilizations, grew up around rivers because rivers provide fresh water, fish, transport, protection and so lots of early human civilizations built around them.

The Shang were actually really clever as well because they seem to be one of the first people, the first groups of people who learned how to use the river to make the land nice and fertile and, and make sure that the land had lots of water because it's very hot around that area.

What the Shang did, was they dug channels, so they dug ditches from the river into the fields and the water would run from the field, from the river into the fields to keep the fields nice and wet, which meant that all of the plants had lots of water.

All of the wheat had lots of water and could grow.

And we think that maybe the Shang might have taught some other people in the area how to do that and other civilizations nearby.

So the Yellow River, this huge Yellow River, can you remember why the Yellow River appears yellow? Why does the Yellow River sort of appear yellow? What's the reason for that? Well then if you said that it was because there's silt in that kind of like a sandy sort of sandy, soily sort of material, and that silt can make the land nice and fertile to make sure that lots of things grow.

So you can see here, here's a picture of the Yellow River today with modern buildings as another picture where you can really see it's looking yellow.

And let's just locate exactly where the Yellow River was.

So if we use our map, then we can see there's the United Kingdom.

That's where we live.

And we're going to have to fly all the way over to Asia and there's China.

And we're looking at the North East of China.

That's where the Shang civilization was.

If we zoom in a little bit further, then we can see that there's that city, that modern day city of Zhengzhou.

And if we zoom in, we can just spot that Yellow river snaking through the Northeast of the country.

You see its name there, the Yellow River.

Looks quite wide there.

And all of those modern cities now that are built around it, you can follow the Yellow River, all the way as it makes its way towards the sea.

It's getting a little bit smaller as it goes towards the sea.

It's a bit narrower and it runs out there into the sea and the sea is called the Yellow Sea.

So it's the Yellow River running into the Yellow Sea.

Let's zoom back out and you can see all of China there.

So this is another map of China and you can see that it's just got those, I've added in some of those major rivers that run through China.

And we can see the Yellow River here, snaking around.

And it's this area here, this section here that the Shang dynasty built up around.

So can you now, here's your first task.

You can see all of China there.

What I'd like you to do is, take out your pencil, get a piece of paper, or if you've got your notebook or exercise book, you can use that and see if you can sketch, trace the whole of the country of China.

And then I did not get a river.

So look really carefully and make sure that you add in the Yellow River snaking through the country.

So you have a good idea of where the Shang dynasty was, which was just around this section of the Yellow River here.

So pause the video and sketch China now, with the Yellow River traced in.

Awesome work.

I'm sure that you've done a great job and you've got a lovely map there of China with the Yellow River sketched in.

Now, we're going to zoom into this section here, because this section here of the Yellow River near to the Yellow River, this is where the later capital of the Shang dynasty was.

And that was called, well back then it was called Yinxu, but it's modern day town is Anyang.

So if we look, we can see Anyang, which is a modern day city, and it's just a bit North of the river.

There's another river sort of running from the Yellow River off it.

And the course of the Yellow River would have changed over the thousands of years.

So look at your map and see if you can just add in a dot and label in where Anyang is.

So add Anyang onto your map now.

Great work.

So this is the city we're looking at because this is where some of the later Shang Kings or emperors including Wen Ding who we've learned about, made the Capital of the Shang Dynasty, the centre of the Shang Dynasty.

If you went there today, if you went to Anyang today, that's what it would look like.

A modern city, but nearby just near to here, you'd have to drive a little bit and you would then find Yinxu, this ancient part of the city.

And archaeologists have looked underground and they have found some remains of this ancient city from 3000 years ago.

And it looks like this.

It was split up into different zones and this is what it looks like.

You can see it.

There's another river, not the Yellow River, another one running off a quarter of Huang river.

And you can see that there was Royal temples and palaces and a cemetery where royal people will have been buried.

So tombs would have been built, rooms where people can be buried and you'll have heard of one of those tombs, because one of those tombs was the tomb of Fu Hao, the famous general and priestess.

And inside some of those tombs, they found Oracle Bones, which talk about Yinxu as this really famous royal city, the centre of the Shang dynasty.

So a cemetery is a place where people are buried and we can see that there's a Royal cemetery here.

How do we know that they are royal? Well archaeologist will look at the items inside and see the items are so special, it must have belonged to somebody very, very important like Royal people or noble people, people that are have lots of, lots of wealth and land.

They can also read those Oracle Bones as well.

And they found some of those Royal cemeteries underground.

We also know from the Oracle Bones.

So these temples don't exist anymore.

The temples and the palaces they've long been destroyed or broken down over the thousands of years, but we can see where the walls once were.

And some of the tombs had been buried and the tomb of Fu Hao of course, was left perfectly intact.

And so archaeologists have found the remains of those grand palaces, just the remains.

So the question here for you, to see if you can remember, how would we know that the capital of the Shang dynasty was near Anyang in this place called Yinxu? Was it because it was written about on Oracle Bones? Could we just ask some people that were alive during the Shang dynasty times? Or they're still buildings from the Shang dynasty there today? Or is there archaeological evidence, for example, Lady Fu Hao's tomb? Now, there are actually two answers that are correct today.

So you're going to have a look at those options, two are wrong and two are right.

You need to choose the correct two answers.

So pause the video and write down the two correct answers now.

Okay, are we ready? So my correct answers are that, it was written about or in Oracle Bones using Oracle Bones, and there is some archaeological evidence, for example, Lady Fu Hao's tomb.

So the correct answer is A and D.

We can't ask people who were alive during the Shang dynasty times, because it was 3000 years ago.

So nobody's still alive from the Shang dynasty times and those buildings, they used to stand there and there might be some evidence from when they were there, but they're not still standing today.

Buildings don't last for 3000 years.

Let's look at another major city from the Shang dynasty times.

And this one's even earlier than Anyang or Yinxu.

It's actually one of the first cities that built up over in the Shang dynasty time.

So later, Yinxu became the Capital of the Shang dynasty, but one of the first Shang cities was Zhengzhou or it's old name of Ao.

Now, it appears a little bit further down.

So away from the sea, near to the mountains where it would have been protected, so these darker yellow places are the mountains, and that's where it appears on your map.

So could you add another, you've got really great map now.

Could you add Zhengzhou to your map now.

Great work.

You've got a lovely looking map now.

And if we zoomed in to Zhengzhou, then it might look a little bit like this.

This is just a section and I've just drawn the Yellow River running through it.

But it wouldn't have just been that because Zhengzhou would have, like some of the earlier, like the latest city sorry, of Yinxu, it would have had palaces in the centre.

They would have been right in the centre of the city, where the emperor or the Royal families or the noble people would have lived.

And there might've been a few different palaces for the different family members, there would of course also have been temples.

We know that the Shang practised different kinds of religions, including ancestor worship, writing onto Oracle Bones, and there would have been temples nearby for that.

There would have been those little cemeteries, where the Royal people were buried.

And the Shang had this system of a civil service, a stratified government that we've already learned about.

And so those advisors, that civil service, these important administrators, who made sure that the kingdom or the empire run really smoothly, they would have been right in the centre of the city as well.

And inside the city, you might have had important tradespeople like stone carvers and bronze workers.

The Shang was so good at working with bronze.

These beautiful items would have been given to the wealthy people or paid for by the wealthy people.

And so that would have been in the city walls as well.

And when I say the city walls, that's because Zhengzhou was one of the first walled cities.

So it probably built up on a neolithic site or stone-age site, but this was the first time, that cities in China started to have walls built around there to protect them.

And the walls were huge in the Shang dynasty.

So, Zhengzhou was set in an earlier neolithic site, a stone-age site.

So there would have originally been some sort of settlement from the stone age, but the bronze workers brought metal in, the palaces were built up and these huge walls were built around it.

Is thought that one of the first Empress or the 10th emperor called Zhong Ding, would have first set up the city here.

And these walls that were built around were built up and they would have built up being built up mostly using earth, using mud, but there were built up 20 metres thick and 30 metres high.

Now I'm not even two metres, so it would be like putting 15 or 20 of me on top of each other.

That's how high these walls would have been.

So these cities would have been really safe.

It would have been very difficult to attack them.

And this city may have traded with other civilizations, other people living maybe quite far away.

And it's thought that maybe that's where the Shang learned how to use chariots, for example, and the Shang might have taught the rest of the world, how to use the river, the irrigation from the river to make the farm land nice and easy to farm.

So, I'd like you to pause the video now and see if you can sketch your own walled city.

So remember that important river would be running through it.

It will be surrounded by walls.

Now it might not be this perfect square, like I've drawn it.

And in reality, it probably wouldn't be more of a sort of circle.

But at the centre of the city, you would have found those palaces, the temples, the cemeteries, places for the civil service, for those administrators, the advisors, stone carvers, bronze workers, and other tradespeople.

So pause the video and now draw out your best stone walled city from the Shang dynasty.

Great work.

So we can see that there are these walled cities within the Shang dynasty, but that doesn't mean that everybody lived in these cities in the Shang dynasty.

In fact, the opposite.

The wealthiest people, the Royal families, the noble people, some of the tradespeople and the craftspeople, they would have lived inside the city walls, but most people still would have lived a rural life.

And rural means out into the countryside.

And in China today, there's still lots of people living a rural life.

You can see here, these homes and the beautiful Chinese countryside and the farmland around it.

Here's a Chinese farmer who's working to collect wheat, just like was used in the Shang dynasty.

And most people will be peasants or farmers working in the, working in the fields and working at farms, which would have then been brought into the cities to feed the wealthiest people.

And so the Shang dynasty was one of the first, was starting to turn into a stratified system, remember levels, but that starts to create inequality where the people living in the cities had lots and lots of wealth, huge palaces, plenty of food and beautiful items. Whereas the peasants, the farmers, they wouldn't have had so much money or beautiful things.

The people living in the cities would probably have provided protection though.

So if somebody tried to attack the farms, then all of the soldiers or the warriors in the cities, would have gone out to protects those there from rural, rural areas.

So we're going to write down an answer now about,` we're going to answer a question about how people lived in different places in some of these cities.

And we're going to think about similarities and differences.

And specifically, we're going to think about how life would have been different for people living in the early cities and how it would have been for people living in rural areas like the farm lands, like the countryside.

So people living in the cities and people living in the farmland, what would have been different? And I put some key words there for you to have a lookout.

You might've got farming or trade or protection or rulers or wealth.

Money.

Pause the video and write your, write down as many sentences as you can, answering that question of how life would have been different for people living in early cities and the more rural Shang people.

Amazing work.

I'm sure that you've got a lovely paragraph or few sentences there.

I'm going to show you what I wrote.

And like usual, you can compare yours to mine and you can improve yours based on some of my ideas or you can tick it if you've got some of the ideas that I was using.

So I wrote there is evidence that during the Shang dynasty, the first cities started to be built, surrounded by huge walls.

Wealthy rulers would have lived in these cities, as well as noble people like advisors and priests.

Craftspeople, and traders would also have lived inside the city walls.

Outside of the cities in the countryside, most of the population would have lived as farmers.

This would provide the food for the people living in the cities who would have given some protection in return.

So pause the video and either improve your answer or tick any ideas that you got.

That's the end of our lesson today.

Now, if you've got a really fantastic map of China with the different locations, the major cities of Zhengzhou or Anyang, that old names are Ao or Yinxu, then you can ask your parents or carer to take a photo of those and pop them onto Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

They just need to tag in @OakNational or #LearnwithOak.

I'd love to see some of those pictures, I'm sure you did a great job.

I'd also love to see your walled cities and your, the sorts of cities that you would have planned if you were living in the Shang dynasty, including your big walls running around the outside.

That's our last lesson on the Shang dynasty, and you've worked increasingly and incredibly hard and I'm really, really proud of you.

Hope you've enjoyed finding out about this ancient civilization from Asia.

I love learning about it, and I've actually just got a new book, all about the Shang dynasty.

So I can find out even more.

If you'd like to, then you don't stop learning, keep finding out more and more about the Shang dynasty, so you can continue to be a real expert on the subject.

Thanks for paying attention.

Thanks for listening and working so hard in all of your tasks and I'll see you soon.