Question: From the images given, such as the ritual vessels and the inscribed ox scapula, we know that there is an existanc of priests.Conduct a research to learn more about the religion that the people of the Shang Civlisation practiced. Blog your answers supported by pictorial or written sources as your evidence.


The spirit of the ancestors (shi 示, a graph showing the spiritual power descending from above) was inquired and venerated in an ancestor temple (zong 宗). With specially defined types of ritual bronze vessels like jue 爵, ding 鼎, and jia 斝 the souls of the ancestors were offered millet ale and foods. There were five different types of rituals for ancestor hosting: yi 翌, ji 祭, zai {(才/隹)*丸}, xie {劦/口} and yong 肜. Towards the end of the Yin period the belief in the highest deity Shangdi and the natural powers became more indifferent and was overshadowed by the growing importance of the ancestral spirits. At the same time, the king took over the position of the divining shaman himself, a task that was hitherto filled by a group or staff of specialized shamans. Shang thinking can not be divided from divination. The use of divination by pyromancy, exposing bones or turtle plastrons to the fire and divining by the resulting cracks in the bone's surface, was not only limited to the Shang period - as often is read, but was still in use during the early Zhou Dynasty. To divine, a hole was drilled in the scapula of an ox or in the plastron (breast shield) of a turtle. Exposing the bone to fire, it obtained cracks out of which the professional diviner or the king as a divining shaman read what to do in the next future. The divination's course and the result was written down on the bones before storing and burying them in big jars.