ANCIENT
DYNASTIES OF
CHINA
Geography and First Dynasty
• Two major rivers
• Chang Jiang – also called the Yangzi
• Huang-He – also called the Yellow River or the River
of Sorrows
• Isolation due to mountains, hills, and desert = protects
from invasion
• Xia Dynasty is considered to be the beginning of
Chinese civilization
• However people can’t find evidence that it actually
existed
Shang Dynasty 1766 -1122 BC
• Farming society ruled by an aristocracy whose major
concern was war
• Aristocracy = an upper class whose wealth is based on
land ownership
• Strong monarchy
• The king surrounded himself with a court = gathering
of wealthy nobles
• Divided his kingdom into territories and appointed
governors to rule them
• The king also had a large army
• Kings were buried in royal tombs along with their
valuable possessions and sacrificed prisoners of war and
servants
• Belief in the afterlife
• Shang religion centered on the idea of ancestor worship
called veneration of ancestors
• Wanted to keep the family spirits happy
• Used oracle bones to ask questions of the gods
• Wrote questions on bones, inserted a hot piece of
metal into the bone until it cracked, and then read
the cracks to get an answer
• Shang achievements
• Development of Chinese writing, which used picture
symbols
• Came up with a precise calendar
Zhou Dynasty 1100 – 256 BC
• Longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history
• The king was the head of the gov’t and was seen as
a link between heaven and Earth
• Had a large and complex bureaucracy
• Territories governed by members of the
aristocracy appointed by the king
• The Zhou dynasty claimed it ruled China because it
possessed the Mandate of Heaven
• Gods gave “permission” to rule China
• Idea that gods would support a just ruler, but would
not allow anyone corrupt to hold power
• The Shang were overthrown because they had lost the
favor of the gods
• Set up a “right of revolution” which led to dynastic
cycles
• Described the rise and fall of dynasties in China
• Family was the basic social and economic unit
• Achievements
• Development of two Chinese philosophies =
Confucianism and Daoism
• New weapons, such as the catapult and first cavalry
• Learned how to use iron, introduced coins to China
and began to use chopsticks
Qin Dynasty 221 – 206 BC
• Defeated chief rivals to become the new dynasty
• First to create a unified Chinese empire
• The word China is derived from the Qin
• Ruler Qin Shi Huangdi became the “first emperor”
• Regime = the govt in power
• Shi Huangdi adopted Legalism as the official ideology to
build a strong centralized gov’t – a highly efficient and
powerful government is the key to social order.
Qin and Han Dynasties
Chapter 8, page 225
• Achievements
• Invented papermaking, along with the iron plow and
wheelbarrow
• Seismograph – earthquakes were sign’s of heaven’s
disapproval
• Compass, sundial, watermill, and ship’s rudder
• Acupuncture = inserting fine needles into the skin at
specific points to cure disease and relieve pain
• Silk Road
• Road that linked China to Rome, was 4,000 miles long
• Traded in luxury goods such as silk, spices, teas, and ivory
• Dangerous due to geography and bandits
• Women
• “raising daughters is like raising children for another
family”