Zhou Enlai

One of China’s first and most important cultures, is the Zhou Dynasty that lasted for almost a century from around 1122 BCE to 256 BCE -in the Neolithic era- succeeding the Shang Dynsaty. Although marked by periods of territorial strength and weakness, it was also a phase of flourishing literary works. The Book of Lord Shang, dating from 338 BCE is undoubtedly one of them. This collection of the works of Lord Shang, composed of approximately 25 sections of which some are lost, have been compiled…

millet, wheat, and rice, and domesticated pigs, dogs, goats and perhaps horses. - They lived mostly in river valleys, and villages were often surrounded by walls for protection. • Soon larger political units were created and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties came to be. - The Traditional chronological dating suggests that one succeeded another. - Capitals were frequently shifted implying that each king wanted to make their mark. - Like many other cities, the Chinese…

Theme 1. Religion, Philosophy, Politics and Power Terracotta warriors from the mausoleum of the first Qin emperor of China Qin Shihuang, c. 221-206 B.C.E., Qin Dynasty, painted terracotta, Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, Shaanxi, China The terracotta warriors belong to a burial complex created for the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Emperor Qin Huangdi. Qin Huangdi started building his burial complex at the age of 13, which is when he became emperor. He rose to power during the…

The first recorded Chinese dynasty for which there is both documentary and archaeological evidence. Shang china was centred in the North china Plain and extended as far north as modern Shandong and Hebi provinces and westward through present-day Henan province. The architects of the Shang period built houses of timber over rammed-earth floors, with walls of wattle and daub and roofs of thatch. Pottery objects were abundant, and Shang potters made fired-clay sectional molds for casting bronzes.…

civilization would be quite similar because what could one have that the other does not? How different can they be from each other? Well, maybe one group of a large civilization felt different about some topics and wanted become their own. This brings up the Zhou and Shang dynasties two Chinese that existed between about 1650 B.C until 256 B.C. “About 1650 B.C, a Chinese people called the Shang gained control of a corner of northern China, along the Huang He 60.” The Shang dynasty dominated this…

Schwartz, Keightley, and Allan all had ideas about the ancient Chinese cultural orientations that they talked about in their respective books and articles. This essay is an attempt to explain how ancestor worship or reverence, optimism, ordering, root metaphors, bureaucratic tendencies are the bases of Chinese cultural orientations. Ancestor worship was the practice of making sacrifices to the ancestors to ask for blessings or to break a curse. In “The World of Thought in Ancient China”,…

He was born somewhere within 500 to 600 B.C. in the country of Ku and died some time during the Zhou Dynasty. When the two first met, Lao Tse talked bad about the way Confucius stubbornly ignored some problems in his teachings. Confucius simply chuckled and compared his attitude to that of a dragon. According to popular belief, Lao Tse got married…

China has been seen as a land of mystery to us in the west. It has been able to withstand the change of the civilizations closest to it, such as India and Russia. It has also made itself a major player in the world economy. How did it become a civilization? There are 7 characteristics that a group of people need in order to be considered a civilization. They are: An urban focus, new political and military structures, a new social structure based on economic power, the development of more…

The Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is “the most awesome structure ever devised by man, one that “lies across the northern borders of China like some great sleeping dragon, stretching and sunning itself on the peaks and ridges of some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the world…The Great Wall of China was more than 2,000 years in the building, and the only way man can look upon the sum total of handiwork is by viewing it from outer space (Waldron, pg 2).” The Great Wall…

Mesopotamia “Land of rivers” is the name of the Euphrates- Tigris river system. The Mesopotamian religion was the first recorded religion. Their religion was Polytheistic and Enlil, the god of air, was believed to be the most powerful god. For religious worship, Mesopotamians sang and danced in their homes and market places to songs originally written for the gods. A cultural expression and social activity ancient Mesopotamians participated in was monthly rituals and festivals where they…