Shang Dynasty (1 jan 1766 ano antes da era comum – 1 jan 1122 ano antes da era comum)

Descrição:

Goes all out with bronze (a lot more than Xia did).
Monopolize production and make it a government business (it's very useful for weapons and agriculture, which seems to be 80% of what ancient societies seemed to care about)

Bronze was not free for everyone to make -- only upper class could use bronze, so rebellions were not powerful enough to be important
because they didn't have real weapons.

Had a very large and strong military, though historians don't really trust the reports of military numbers, saying that they're probably "slightly inflated" (wow. did you just. call the ancient Chinese. l i a r s.)

Lots of capitals:

- Ao
great wall building skills. Some walls are still 4 meters tall and pretty sturdy today. Pretty great for 2000 B.C.E., though the newer version kind of tops any of the other ones by like a lot.
Tombs for Shang kings that have lots of great offerings (like you know gold, food, and lots and lots of dead people) (some of them were robbed but most of them are still kind of there)
Only one (1) of them remains intact (or did until WE robbed it about 50 years ago): Fu Hao's, who was this king's favorite wife.

- Yin
Royal palaces (yes, plural); common neighborhoods; bronze factories (that's not how you call them but places where bronze was crafted I guess); burial grounds

SOCIAL PRIVILEGE:
The rich have more privilege (are you shocked? I'm so shocked)
Again, monopolized bronze market meant they could use all the bronze they wanted (decorations included).
They also got at least basic education (keep in mind, probably at least somewhat different from what we consider basic today. I'm assuming they weren't learning about volcano erruptions and long division).
Also, they had manuals for etiquette. Like how to eat with rich people, etc.

SPECIALIZED LABOR:
Common people who managed to work for rich people also had it relatively good: they lived in houses that tended to not collapse on their heads and they ate food on an almost-daily basis. What a good life.
There were lots of different types of merchants and artisans.
Farmers farm on government-given land and then the government takes most of their food (this sounds oddly familiar...). Then they write a poem equating the government to "large rats" (poetic).


SLAVES
(mostly war prisoners)
(for sacrificial rituals)

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