ANTIQUITY




Chapter Three

THE CHOU DYNASTY (_c._ 1028-257 B.C.)


1 _Cultural origin of the Chou and end of the Shang dynasty_

The Shang culture still lacked certain things that were to become
typical of "Chinese" civilization. The family system was not yet the
strong patriarchal system of the later Chinese. The religion, too, in
spite of certain other influences, was still a religion of agrarian
fertility. And although Shang society was strongly stratified and showed
some tendencies to develop a feudal system, feudalism was still very
primitive. Although the Shang script was the precursor of later Chinese
script, it seemed to have contained many words which later disappeared,
and we are not sure whether Shang language was the same as the language
of Chou time. With the Chou period, however, we enter a period in which
everything which was later regarded as typically "Chinese" began to
emerge.

During the time of the Shang dynasty the Chou formed a small realm in
the west, at first in central Shensi, an area which even in much later
times was the home of many "non-Chinese" tribes. Before the beginning of
the eleventh century B.C. they must have pushed into eastern Shensi, due