Shang Dynasty...in five minutes or less

The Shang Dynasty in five minutes or less. Let's see if I can do it. Here we go. First, where was it? Okay, here is China. Here is where the Shang Dynasty lasted. Okay, that's what we call the Far East. One thing you'll notice about this dynasty is, check it out, we got an important river right there. The Yellow River, that's right, the Shang Dynasty. They grew up around the Yellow River. They used the river to their advantage, much like other civilizations out there. Now, they ruled for a pretty long time. The earliest Chinese historians say they ruled for about 644 years. But, modern historians say, nope. Modern historians say that they ruled from 1558 B.C. to 1046 B.C. and that was around 512 years of ruling. That's pretty long. Of course, there were some significant rulers in those 512 years. Traditional historians believe this guy, Dai Yi, ruled. But, now modern historians uncovered some evidence on some oracle bones. We'll talk about those oracle bones in a little bit. They say this guy, Wu Ding, was the first ruler of the Shang Dynasty. He, my friends, ruled for 59 years. Now, one thing that the Shang Dynasty are really known for is their ancestor worship. They truly believed that their relatives were looking down on them, their ancestors. So, if you imagine a family tree, these are the people in their family tree that came before them. What they would do is they would oftentimes make all sorts of offerings to their ancestors, including wine, food, and yes, some human sacrifices for their ancestors. They did communicate with their ancestors through what's called oracle bones. These things are pretty cool because they are literally bones. They are bones that the ancient Chinese used to talk to their ancestors. This happens to be the shoulder blade of an ox. So, what they would do is they would have two sentences, a positive comment and a negative comment. They would ask an oracle, or a fortune teller, and they would say something along the lines of, will we have a good harvest or will we receive a bad harvest? Then they would heat up a metal rod. Here's another example of an oracle bone. They would heat up a metal rod and they would poke it into a hole on the oracle bone and then the bone would crack. Then the oracle would read the answers through the cracks. Here's a pit of oracle bones. It's a way of getting the answers through their ancestors. The Shang Dynasty were big on bronze. They made bronze weapons. They made bronze vessels. They certainly did not make bronze shoes. But what they did use was the bronze to their advantage. They were a civilized civilization. They were advanced and they used bronze to their advantage. Unfortunately, after 512 years of just spending, spending, spending, the empire would soon collapse because their economy would fall. This guy would take over. He happens to be the king of the Zhou Dynasty. You're going to hear about the Zhou Dynasty in the next History in 5 Minutes. There are some sources. Thanks for watching.