Title: Ancient Chinese Culture (1600–221 BC) — China's Origins
Headings: Ancient Chinese Culture (1600–221 BC) — Development and Features
Ancient Chinese Culture (1600–221 BC) — Development and Features
How Ancient Chinese Culture Was Defined
Ancient Chinese Culture Was Defined by Sima Qian
The Reliability of Sima Qian's History
The Origins of Chinese Culture
The Distinctiveness of the Ancient Cultures
9 Aspects of Chinese Ancient Culture
1. Pictographic Characters for Writing
2. A High Esteem for Writing, Literature and Historical Records
3. The Style of Arts and Crafts
4. A Preference for Jade
5. Tea Culture
6. The Silk Culture
7. Worship of Heaven and Rulers
8. Folk Religion and Daoism
9. A Tradition of Mega Building Projects
How China's Ancient Culture Was Transferred to the Imperial Dynasties (1046–206 BC)
The Imposition of Qin Culture (221–206 BC)
The Vestiges of the Ancient Culture Now
Explore Ancient China with Local Experts

Content: Writing was probably an important feature of daily life, but most of their writings have been lost since they would have written them on parchments or others things that deteriorated. This emphasis on writing and education was an important part of ancient culture, and it was also important in all the imperial eras beginning with the Qin conquest in 221 BC and ending in 1912. The Shang and Zhou emphasized the importance of historical record keeping and venerated the records, and later people did too. This is a key aspect of their ancient culture that is still seen in modern Chinese culture. 3. The Style of Arts and Crafts
The Shang produced large, heavy, and geometrically intricate bronze objects in characteristic styles that the Zhou clan who were initially subjects of the Shang Dynasty continued after they took over the empire. Their bronze work was very different in style than the bronzes of the contemporaneous Sanxingdui civilization in Sichuan even though it is known that there was trade between the two cultures. It shows that the ancient people of the Shang and Zhou dynasties maintained a distinct artistic culture with their own motifs and never adopted the alien style of the Sanxingdui. Anyone familiar with Chinese artistic style can see that the Sanxingdui masks' facial features are very different than those of ancient Chinese art and that the geometrical patterns and decorations of the Sanxingdui are foreign. The Sanxingdui bronze object pictured below for example seems oddly irregular and off-balance, with projections seeming to defy the center of gravity, but the people of the Shang and Zhou and succeeding eras generally created objects