Narrative’s Mode、Naming and Ritual Vessels Made by Women：Study about Inscriptions on Shang Family’s Bronzes in Western Zhou
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Tsai, Pei-ling
Abstract
Owing to the scarcity of source materials and the hindsight within them, the history of Yin-Shang family that was under Zhou’s reign remains a vague story. It is through the excavated bronze vessels which have appeared since Han Dynasty, bearing contingency and rather pure characteristic, that we can have more clues to trace Shang families’ fate in the Zhou Dynasty. Studies of bronze inscriptions today have made it possible for us to more accurately understand the tracks of conquered Shang people, their distributions and status in Western Zhou, and the traces of specific families. With the realization that Shang people inherited an acknowledged Shang culture as well as a more systematic understanding of the history of Shang people in Western Zhou, this thesis aims to take Shang people in Western Zhou as pivotal point and explore the interaction of Shang culture and Zhou culture, so as to generate a coherent, shared, and sophisticated noble culture.
This thesis comprises three chapters, each of which discuss a certain aspect of cultural change of Shang family shown in bronze inscriptions. Chapter 1 shows the features of Shang inscriptions of time record and narrative as well as analyzes their changes. In Western Zhou, Zhou people made a huge progress in the inscriptions of records. To put it simply, Zhou people had imitated Shang tradition and made substantial change in the forms of time recording. The change of that of Shang people, interestingly, appeared to be in the same track of Zhou people.
Chapter 2 focuses on personal title. The main change of personal title of Shan family in Western Zhou was that inscriptions of clan emblem began to disappear and the usage of 日名 became different. Both of these two major changes occurred and became intensive in mid-Western Zhou period. The mutation of personal title in bronze inscriptions can apply to both gender and have their own patterns respectively. However, variations existed and some families even kept old forms of personal title in late Western Zhou. Thus, although we can draw a rough table of the change of Shang family, specifically the speed of change of every single family can vary tremendously. Because of the lack of details of bronze vessels, the decisive factor contributing to the differences remains an open question.
Chapter 3 investigates inscriptions of clan emblem on female bronze vessels. The main finding is that in spite of few unidentified inscriptions, most of clan emblem on female bronze vessels belonged to husbands’ family. Linking to the discussions of 庚姬 and another Shang refuge辛氏, the names of these two clans probably came from 日名. Some scholars argue that日名 was in association with the organization of family. Though we cannot conclusively depict the process of change, it is very likely that 庚氏 and 辛氏 were the outcome of Shang people’s being adapted to the new era of Zhou people’s reign.
The three aspects converge into one question: how peoples who were ruled by Zhou regime changed themselves so as to conform to Zhou culture? It sis shown that the change in names needed long time to accomplish, so that it only became prominent no earlier than mid-Western Zhou. On the other hand, narrative and record of time, which were closely linked to politics and could be categorized as outer representations, underwent a swift change, and the sign of which could be seen even in the earliest days of Western Zhou. As for 庚氏, we can inferred from some clues that, as Zhu Fenghan suggests, it was the transformation of family organization that caused those changes, and the changes had helped Shang people to immersed into Zhou cultural group. Considering the history of Western Zhou, the transformation of Shang family may be related to the turmoil in mid-Western Zhou Dynasty.
Subjects
narrative
naming
female-made bronze vessel
Shang samily
cultural change
inscriptions of clan emblem
Type
thesis
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