Exploring Anyang and the Shang Dynasty

Anyang, China. Over 450 kilometers south of Beijing. Ever since 1928, this unassuming city has been a magnet for scholars of the ancient world. For An Yang is the birthplace of Chinese archaeology. It's the longest running excavation in China and one of its most important. 2009. Archaeologists from across the globe converge on Anyang. Their mission is to crack the puzzle of the Shang Dynasty. Chinese history is full of colorful stories about the Shang. But no one knew what was legend and what was fact. In their quest for the truth, the archaeologists have to look back to 1976 and the discovery of a lone tomb in a farmer's field. Like the tomb of Egypt's Tutankhamun, it is full of riches worthy of a king. 15,000 tombs have been found at Anyang, but this one is unique. For it's the only unlooted royal tomb of the Shang era. It would have dawned on them rather slowly as they've excavated this tomb that, in fact, they had found the largest unlooted Shang tomb that's ever been found. I mean, this is essentially the Qingtai tomb of China. The tomb dates to just 75 years after Tutankhamun's burial and a thousand years before China's first emperor. Packed full of treasures, the tomb contains finely carved jade creatures and figurines, bone and ivory artifacts exquisitely carved, thousands of cowrie shells. Over a hundred battle axes, spears and daggers with lethal blades. Impressive collection of beautiful intricately made bronze vessels. It's clearly the tomb of a leading military commander or wealthy prince. When archaeologists decipher the name on some of the bronzes, they are in for a surprise. This is the tomb of a woman, the legendary Fu Hao. She's believed to have been one of the three main wives of King Wu Ding. He may have had as many as 60. Of all of King Wu Ding's consorts, Fu Hao is by far the most prominent. You could perhaps argue that she's favored somehow. The Shang were known to be invincible warriors. The contents of Fu Hao's tomb suggest one reason why. There are over a hundred different weapons. Now, this one, interestingly, is sort of a... It's almost like a hybrid between a battle axe and this, which is more spiky. You would either swing it like this, or with one hand like this and perhaps holding a shield. So not only could you hack somebody with it and the blade go into them, you can also lop heads off. The large number of weapons suggests Fu Hao was involved in military campaigns. The weapons are testimony to her military prowess. And the discovery of a bronze ewer axe suggests she was of high rank. Fu Hao has a very famous example. The blade is about a foot wide. It's the largest UX, I think, that's been found so far. Now, this not only indicates status, but probably warrior status. Legend also tells that Fu Hao was a military commander of first rank, leading Wu Ding's most famous generals. And how she may have courageously raised an unprecedented 13,000 troops to fight the Shang's enemies, known as the Qiang. All the evidence suggests Fu Hao was indeed a warrior. Campbell searches for even more clues to her military career. There's a fantastic aid to find out more about Fu Hao, a resource almost unparalleled in this era of history. These are oracle bones. The Shang were one of the first civilizations to have writing. Tiny inscriptions record the questions Wu Ding and his successors posed to their dead ancestors, scratched onto animal scapulas and turtle shells. The Shang believed their ancestors had the power to influence everything, including military campaigns. The Oracle Bones chronicle key events in the life of Shang royalty and are the earliest record of Chinese history. These tiny characters are also the direct ancestors of modern-day Chinese script. It's the oldest writing system still in use today. Of the roughly 200,000 oracle bones found in storage pits across Anyang so far, about 330 divinations feature Fu Hao. They reveal much about her life, her military campaigns, her health, and even her pregnancy. This is a special treat to get to see the original bones. Normally specialists work from rubbings of the bone. Ah, it's a little bit hard to read. Yes, Fu Hao. The text is tiny, and scholars still struggle to interpret all of the characters. But Campbell arrives at a ballpark meaning. Stepping back and putting it all together, the prince wants to take Fu Hao to enter this particular... He wants to gather up troops to launch an attack and bring Fu Hao with him to do something that's not clear. Basically what the prince is divining about is whether or not he should go ahead with this military plan. Oracle bones tell of almost constant war during Wu Ding's reign. He was even known as Ding the Warlike. Wu Ding and his beloved Fu Hao were leaders of a society founded on war. A cabra discovery in her tomb suggests a possible reason why. Fu Hao shared her grave with 16 people, sacrificed at her burial. Harvard archaeologist Rowan Fladd believes Fu Hao's tomb confirms the legends of the Shang's passion for human sacrifice. So this is a plan of Fu Hao's tomb. There's one in this pit, which was underneath Fu Hao herself. Then there were eight other individuals who were outside the coffin, but inside the chamber. Then there were three in niches that were carved into the sides of the tomb trench. On top of the tomb chamber, in between the two niches, there were four more individuals. There was one here that was just really a head. He probably wasn't smiling. There was another individual here who had been cut in half. Among these 16 individuals, there were two females and there were also two children. It's quite plausible that these children would have been buried within the tomb chamber. Closer to Fu Hao, and they may in fact have been Fu Hao's relatives or even her children. Archaeologists believe the Shang performed two different types of human sacrifice. Retainers, members of her household, including her servants, who were buried close to her coffin. And people who were offered up as ritual sacrifices. Experts think these were prisoners of war from outside the Shang Kingdom. Occasionally these individuals would have had their heads chopped off. We find pits with heads alone and then other pits with headless individuals, for example. The scale of human and animal sacrifices at Anyang was enormous. In total we have thousands of human sacrifices of the various sorts. It seems as if the Shang's reputation for human sacrifice is justified. Their passion for warfare would have guaranteed them a constant supply of strangers to sacrifice. The weapons and human sacrifice is buried with foolishness. Fu Hao confirmed the legend of the Shang as warlike. But the treasures in her tomb would reveal a different side to China's first dynasty. Fu Hao was laid to rest with an impressive array of treasures. The most striking are the bronzes. Almost 500 were recovered from her tomb, weighing 1600 kilograms. This material was buried with them, that is taken out of circulation. They wanted to continue to have this material in the next world. So clearly the Shang elite placed an incredibly high value on this commodity. The Shang were some of the most technologically advanced bronze makers in all the ancient world. During their era... Bronze production reached a pinnacle in China. Bronzes were status symbols, as important in life as in death. Fu Hao and King Wu Ding used them for ritual ceremonies. Offerings of food and wine were made to their dead ancestors, who they believed required sustenance from the living. Other ancient civilizations were working with gold and used it in abundance in royal tombs. Gold was available across China. There's no trace of it in Fu Hao's tomb. One very interesting question is, why don't we see more gold in this rich, powerful, complex society? We value gold because it's shiny, it doesn't tarnish, it's found in smaller quantities, so it's a rare commodity. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Shang would have had these same attitudes towards this metal. The Shang elite favored bronze over all other metals. They knew how to make bronzes on a scale unmatched anywhere in the ancient world. Archaeologists are intrigued by their size. At a meter and a half tall and weighing over 800 kilos, the largest Shang bronze is almost the size and weight of a VW Beetle. It's the biggest cast bronze from ancient history. ever found. Fu Hao was buried with almost 500 bronzes, a third of them ritual drinking vessels. Archaeologists wanted to find out how they made them. They excavated several bronze foundry sites at Anyang. One recent discovery unearthed 90,000 fragments of clay molds, revealing the complex process the Shang used to produce such intricate vessels. First, a full-scale clay model is made with basic decoration. Clay is applied to create an outer mold, and fine details, often patterns and animal motifs, are added. The Shang used the highly sophisticated piece mold casting method, cutting the mold into sections, reassembling them with an inner core, before pouring the molten bronze inside. They also improved the characteristics of the bronze itself. Hundreds of years of experimentation led the Shang to perfect their technique. A combination of copper, tin, and lead ores would mean they could produce bronzes of the finest quality. Tin and lead both have low melting points, so some genius in the ancient world discovered that by mixing these with copper, you can create an alloy with a lower melting point that's easier to work with. Experts conclude the Shang were some of the greatest bronze producers in history. Analysis of residues in some of the vessels reveals the Shang would have used them for drinking rice wine. But the metals might have affected what Fu Hao was drinking. Now a team of toxicologists at Boston's Children's Hospital decide to investigate. Doctors Mark Kellogg and Terence Law normally analyze blood and urine samples, but today they're analyzing water and wine. They're working with three modern-day bronze vessels. Made with copper, tin, and lead. The first two hold water and white wine, while a third contains Chinese rice wine. So, interesting that we have the lead on the surface. of the water so it's definitely not dissolving into the water like it does into the wines they use atomic absorption spectroscopy to measure how much metal leaches out of the vessels into the liquids What most intrigues the team is the lead content in the bronze vessels. This is so dangerous to health that today environmental levels of lead are closely monitored. The first results are worrying. It's the high acidity of the rice wine that does the damage. After just one minute, the lead reaches two and a half thousand micrograms per liter. This peak here with this amount of absorption is a very high level of lead. It would be toxic to a human. After four days, the level of lead in the rice wine rises to a staggering 80,000 micrograms. Over a thousand times higher than the recommended daily limit of just 75. The Shang were drinking a highly toxic brew. It's hard to imagine that the Shang actually ingested these fluids with the amount of lead that was present. We handled this with gloves. We were afraid to touch it. We're going to have to dispose of this through special pathways. And the Shang were not occasional drinkers. The volume of bronzeware found at Anyang suggests drinking was a key part of Shang life and might explain why later dynasties portray them as heavy drinkers. Medical toxicologist Dr. Alan Wolfe looks at the results. 2,590 micrograms per liter of lead. Just amazing in just one minute. That's incredible. Lead poisoning might explain why the Shang died so young. Analysis of skeletons show men lived to an average age of 35, while women lived to just 30. Drinking lead contaminated wine, you know, 500 mLs or a liter per day, that could be life-threatening within weeks, in my opinion. Even if it wasn't, they would undoubtedly have the serious effects of chronic lead poisoning. Lead is a neurotoxin and can cause changes in behavior and personality. In high quantities, lead attacks the central nervous system, resulting in seizures or coma. Fu Hao's skeleton didn't survive for scientists to discover how she died. But is it possible lead poisoning may have killed her? We don't have Fu Hao's body. We speculate a lot about what her life was like. But the fact that there were so many bronze ceremonial vessels, drinking goblets, and materials found in her burial site suggests that without a doubt, Fu Hao, if she was drinking contaminated rice wine, she would have suffered the effects of chronic lead poisoning. And who knows? It may have even shortened her life. It seems the Shang's passion for bronze may have proved deadly. As the archaeologists examine the 1900 treasures in Fu Hao's tomb, they piece together a picture of this extraordinary ancient warrior queen. A woman who liked beautiful things and was beloved by her king, Wu Ding. A woman of astonishing wealth and so respected by her king that she took part in ritual ceremonies and was entrusted to lead troops on the battlefield. King Wu Ding's capital at Anyang is in the Yellow River Valley over 450 km south of Beijing. Wait. When he buried Fu Hao, his kingdom was about the size of New Mexico. As the archaeologists investigate the contents of her tomb, they realize Wu Ding's connections stretch far beyond the borders of his kingdom. Trade flourished under the Shang. Historians had recorded that they increased trade and brought the Shang kingdom to a height of prosperity never before seen. Now, archaeology would add weight to that argument. Shang expert Li Yongdi draws up an inventory of where Fu Hao's treasures might have come from. First, the metal ores used in bronze production. Lead may have been mined locally, but the Shang would have had to look further afield for their copper and tin. It's quite likely that travel all the way down to the middle and lower Yangtze River to obtain copper from this region. We now know there are very large tin mines in the Hunan region and in the Guangxi region. Next, the more unusual bronze daggers with an animal head design. They certainly show a very clear connection with the north and maybe even in the Siberian region. The weapons might suggest that Fu Hao or her ancestors originally came from the north, from the Mongolian steppes. A fascinating clue reinforces this idea. The archaeologists find a tiny clay head. It's one of the few pieces of evidence for what the Shang may have looked like. The high forehead, round eyes and high cheekbones are features typical of people from Mongolia. But Fu Hao's tomb contains other treasures from sources even further away. Four bronze mirrors may have come from Central Asia, over 1500 kilometers away. And then there's her 750 precious jades. We now know that Xinjiang has one of the best sources of jades. That's almost 2000 kilometers away. Fu Hao's tomb, it turns out, is full of exotic treasures, with links stretching great distances. More than a thousand years before the famous Silk Route, the Shang already had trade connections, stretching as far as the Eurasian Steppe. But perhaps the most unusual items are the cowrie shells. There were almost 7,000 in the tomb. They were placed in the coffin with the jades, suggesting they were highly prized. They might have come from the nearest coast, over 500 kilometres to the east, but they may also have been sourced from oceans as far as almost 5,000 kilometres away. You can easily find them along the sea coast of China, down to Southeast Asia, along and go to the Indian Ocean and even into Africa. The Kauris may have got to Anyang along a southern silk route from the Indian Ocean, crossing southwest China and north to the Shang capital. Lee concludes Wu Ding's Anyang was a remarkable city for its time. I think too often people forget the fact that even though it was almost 3,000 years ago, Anyang was a Bronze Age metropolis. It was utilizing resources from all over China. And beyond. A millennium before the Roman Empire, Wu Ding's kingdom had trading connections that stretched thousands of kilometers across the world's highest mountain ranges and one of its most inhospitable deserts. Then, an unexpected discovery reveals the Shang kingdom was more than just trading long distances. Remains of a small city are found close to ancient copper mines over 600 kilometers south of Anyang, showing all the hallmarks of Shang culture. So the question, of course, is what is a Shang settlement doing so far south? This was set up to maintain Shang control, possibly as a military outpost. To control access both to the copper ores located in this region, but also to the transport network to get these ingots of metal back to the north. Archaeologist Robert Morocik thinks... Shanks Wu Ding needed these imperial outposts to guarantee supply of the metal ores. The movement of materials from mine to finished bronze vessel really is something like a highly choreographed industrial dance where every aspect has to be organized and controlled in order to end up with the kind of sophisticated, beautiful ritual vessel that is needed for the Shang ceremonial use. For Morocik, Wu Ding was doing more than trading long distances. He was also in the business of empire building. It might very well be that these local inhabitants had a friendly trading relationship with the Shang, that they were getting something out of the deal itself. It might be that they're producing the metal and then trading it to these very eager Shang buyers who then transport it back to the north. A thousand years before China's first emperor, Wu Ding and Fu Hao had an influence that stretched far beyond their capital at Anyang. May 2009, a construction site in Anyang. Builders have stumbled upon a previously unknown Shang Cemetery. This newly excavated tomb is the largest they've found here. Director of Archaeology at Anyang, Tang Jigen, has come to take a closer look. I think about more than 90% of the tombs were looted in the past. So it is really rare for us to find a tomb like this. So we are really excited about this time because we have a lot to learn. From the start, there are clues to suggest this is a high-status tomb. The tomb owner must be a very important person. His tomb is a tomb with rampant entrance, which is pretty unique. Which is a shape only used for the people with high status. high social position the ramped entrance is one clue and the tombs treasures seem to confirm this also most importantly the the the dead person was was offered a lot of bronzes potteries even jades the The tomb provides further evidence that Fu Hao lived in a time of great innovation and of trading connections that stretched way beyond China's borders. For nestling between the weapons is a curious bow-shaped object. It's quite possible these two objects are imported from the north or northwest. So we have strong evidence to suggest that these two are used for driving of chariots. Chariots. As archaeologists excavated around Anyang, they kept discovering these extraordinary wonders in the ground. Chariot burials over 3,000 years old have been unearthed, complete with horses and charioteers. The wooden structure has long since disintegrated. Leaving a complete shadow of the chariot beautifully preserved in the soil. Though many have been found around the world, it's believed these chariots are the first in China. And they appear at Anyang during Wu Ding's reign. They would have given the war-obsessed Shang the edge on the battlefield. Imagine seeing for the first time a chariot pulled by horses charging down on you. I mean this is a large and imposing vehicle. I mean it may have had a shock and awe, a psychological sort of advantage. The Shang Chariot was in a sense the Rolls Royce of the day. These were incredible status symbols. Picture Fu Hao standing there with her symbolic acts of status, her Yue acts, standing on her chariot, decked out in her armor. It would have been quite a sight. The Shang's technical expertise clearly extended far beyond their bronzeware. But the real mystery is that no chariots have been found in China. ...from before Wu Ding's reign. So where did they come from? Rowan Fladd at Harvard University first considers where the horses came from. Horses were first domesticated in the western step of Eurasia, so far to the west of Anyang. way out in this direction, perhaps in the Ukraine or places slightly further to the east of there. So one possible route of entrance for domesticated horses into the area around Anyang might have been through this corridor, the so-called Northern Silk Route. So the Shang may have been using their established trading routes to bring horses in from the west, and it seems they could have spotted the chariot at the same time. I think chariots clearly came from western parts of Eurasia, the western steppe. Did they come through the Gansu Corridor, from where we already have domesticated horses? Or perhaps they came up here through the eastern steppe. All of these are possible routes through which the chariot was first experienced and then adopted from. The Shang already had wheeled vehicles. But the evidence suggests... The chariots they go on to create were a product of ingenuity and the sharing of ideas. The chariots are pretty sophisticated technology. They have a very sophisticated use of bent wood. The spoked wheels that exist in chariots are a technological advancement. These aspects of the chariotry would have been difficult for people to develop independently, I think, and would have... Perhaps required the people in the Anyang area to have had some additional stimulus from interactions with people who were using chariots outside of this region. Wu Ding was king of a dynasty that was both ingenious and innovative. The Shang proved to be as technologically advanced with a chariot as they were with their bronzeware. Fu Hao's remains were never found, but hidden amongst the burial goods in this grave lies the greatest treasure of all. The skeleton of the tomb owner. It's a rare find. The skeletons are often crushed as the coffin disintegrates. Archaeologist He Yuling leads the excavation team. I realized at the time that a very important event may be happening in my life. The finds keep coming. Fragments of gold are found, suggesting the coffin was once decorated in gold leaf. Gold is rare in Shang tombs. Then another intriguing find. A small bronze hand. The position it was found was beside the lower part of the occupant's left leg. Here, beside the left shank. Here is where we found it. Its position suggests the hand was originally in the coffin. Since the real hand was never found, perhaps this oddity was a very early artificial limb. Fu Hao was laid to rest with a large collection of bronze weapons. So too was this tomb owner. Some feature the unusual animal head designs typical of the far north, and others bear a name. Ya, or General Chang. The earliest record of the Chang family dates back in the Oracle bones, and the records continue all the way to the Western Zhou Dynasty. From these discoveries, we can see that this family name is of great importance. Ya Chang lived during the reign of Wu Ding's son. Like Fu Hao, he was a warrior, and an important one. You can see, you know, we gather most of the bones. Archaeologists Jing Ji Chun and James Burton investigate how he died. Curiously, Ya Chang's remains were surrounded by peppercorns, and some are embedded in the bones. As Jing and Burton look closer, they discover the bones are riddled with injuries. Here's rib bones and there is a cut mark, you know, very obvious cut mark here, and so it's all the way down the left side. So apparently, you know, he was attacked from... by someone from the left side. It makes you wonder what he was doing with his right side. Exactly. And then like this. A deep crack in Yacheng's left thigh bone is evidence of another severe injury. But as Jing and Burton explore the bones further, they discover the deepest injury of all. His hip bone bears the scars of a huge blow, most likely from a battle axe. the infection from wound was terminal. So these were probably the mortal wounds that resulted in his death. That suggests he was actively involved in combat while he had his position. Exactly. And the wound bears traces of peppercorns. It seems the sophisticated Shang had an understanding of battlefield medicine. Peppercorns have an antibacterial quality and may have been used to prevent the spread of infection. Like Fu Hao, Ya Chang was buried with human sacrifices. Nine are ritual sacrifices, believed to be war captives, outsiders from the frontier regions. The other six are so-called retainers, members of Ya Chang's household. And scientists can't wait to get their hands on them. For the first time, they can discover the ethnic origins of the Shang. The tiny clay head found at Anyang with its Mongolian features suggests the ancestors of Fu Hao and her king Wu Ding may have come from the Mongolian steppes. Now science may provide some more concrete evidence. This will be found in the teeth of Ya Chang and his human sacrifices. Your teeth trap the minerals from where you were born. Your bones will change chemically. They'll remodel and pick up your new diet. They grow, but the teeth don't do that. Once they're there, they're dead. chemistry of your childhood is locked in there. That chemical signature is the ratio of two isotopes of the element strontium. Found in rocks, it gets into the soil through natural weathering. Then it moves into the food chain from plants to animals and to humans, becoming part of our bones and teeth. The archaeologists send the samples here, the University of North Carolina. A tiny amount of enamel is scraped off the tooth. The analysis requires a sophisticated piece of hardware called a mass spectrometer. It measures the differences in the ratios and their timing, typically measured to a formidable looking 5 decibel places. The archaeological payoff can be significant. When the results come out, there's unexpected news. It just turned out that when we got that first set of data, it was completely backwards. Here's the result for the strontium analysis. Jing plots the results on a graph. The horizontal red striped area represents the local strontium signal. The blue bars are the victims of ritual sacrifice. The analysis places these people within the local range. Science overturns all previous assumptions. They are not war captives, as everyone had thought, but locals. So this is really exciting. And then, of course, it's against the traditional hypothesis that the victims of the ritual killing were captives from the war. Retainer sacrifices, members of the tomb owner's household, are assumed to be local people. Here again the results are surprising. The yellow bars represent the retainers and they're above the local range. These are the outsiders. Which suggests that they were born in the same area. somewhere else. The range of the results is large, suggesting Yachang's household contained a mix of people from across China. Three of the six retainers are most likely from the north. And Yachang, it turns out, is also an outsider. The strontium signal in his teeth is the strongest of all. Curiously, Yachang came from a different place to the rest of his household. It was really exciting when Jing came back and said, wow, that's clearly the strongest non-local signal. Actually, my first reaction was, this is a little too neat. The results spur Jing and Burton on to find out more. If not from Anyang, where did Ya Chang come from? The animal head weapons found in his tomb could suggest he was from Mongolia or even Siberia. Oxygen isotopes in his tooth enamel are now analyzed to try and solve this mystery once and for all. Water is made up of both hydrogen and heavy and light oxygen atoms. As rainfall moves in from the coast, heavy oxygen falls out of the atmosphere, leaving lighter and lighter water as you move inland. The oxygen in his teeth is the heaviest of all the samples that we've measured. And that's consistent with being closer to the ocean, which would imply further, possibly towards the southeast. So Ya Chang was a southerner. Scientists have yet to pinpoint an exact location, but it seems he was born near the modern Chinese city of Xinjiang, over 400 kilometres away. It's a revelation. Anyang was a cosmopolitan place. Important outsiders like Ya Chang were welcomed and made the Shang's capital city their home. This discovery leads one archaeologist to a radical vision of the world of Fu Hao and the Shang. Fu Hao's lord, King Wu Ding, was a visionary. Anyang flourished under his leadership. Professor Jing Ji Chun has spent most of his career investigating the Shang's last great capital and how Wu Ding came to create it. His researches have led him to an exciting new conclusion about the city he built. Sub-surface coring has established the outer limits of the Bronze Age city that once stood here, over 3,000 years ago. Jing and his team take core samples. They're searching for rammed earth. for letting it dry for the half hour. It's like a brick, you cannot really break it. The tightly packed earth is evidence of foundations of temples, palaces, and even tombs. Anyang was once 30 square kilometers, one of the largest Bronze Age cities in the world. But Anyang was not the first Shang capital. In 1999, the team make a new discovery. Another city, an earlier Shang capital, sighted across the river. All of a sudden, you have another city. So, of course, you know, we experienced all kinds of frustration, and, you know, even the people doubted the reality of the discovery. Jing names this lost city Huanbei. A thousand cores later, and it begins to take shape. It's a traditional rectangular walled city of almost five square kilometers, with a square palace and temple complex at its center. As they reach the city's foundations, they make their way to the city's main city, Make an intriguing find. A layer of red burnt earth. Very interesting. All the buildings within the interior city is covered by This is a layer of red-burned earth, which suggests the whole building, I mean the whole settlement within the interior city was burned down by the single fire. When they examine the cause, unusually they find no evidence of human life. This leads Jing to a dramatic conclusion. The fire was deliberate. The people who built this city, built this urban settlement, decided, for some reason, decided to move the settlement to somewhere else. So they settled the fire, they didn't want to leave anything here. And this is a very interesting story we can tell. Wu Ding moved his people south across the river and built a new capital. The city where he and Fu Hao lived was unique, nothing like the ancient Chinese cities that came before or after Anyang. Wu Ding created a capital with a new shape, more irregular and organic, and without city walls. The archaeological evidence, the bones and teeth, suggest its population was a mix of ethnic groups, like Yacheng. Jing concludes Wu Ding was a visionary who created a wealthy, cosmopolitan city full of dynamic people. But over 30 years after his death, Jing believes Anyang had become a very different place. The city had lost its multicultural diversity, and its strength began to wane. Seizing the opportunity, the Shang's neighbours and adversaries, the Western Zhou, swept into Anyang. The Zhou advanced eastwards to take control of central China. Over 500 years of Shang Ru was at an end. China's first dynasty developed the first known writing in East Asia. ...involved the idea of the war chariot and brought bronze making to its most advanced form in all the ancient world. And the woman at the heart of this civilization was the warrior queen, Fu Hao. Careful archaeological detective work has revealed her to be truly one of the most extraordinary women of the ancient world. And her king, Wu Ding, to have been one of the great cultural innovators of history.

Anyang, China. Over 450 kilometers south of Beijing. Ever since 1928, this unassuming city has been a magnet for scholars of the ancient world. For An Yang is the birthplace of Chinese archaeology.

It's the longest running excavation in China and one of its most important. 2009. Archaeologists from across the globe converge on Anyang. Their mission is to crack the puzzle of the Shang Dynasty. Chinese history is full of colorful stories about the Shang. But no one knew what was legend and what was fact.

In their quest for the truth, the archaeologists have to look back to 1976 and the discovery of a lone tomb in a farmer's field. Like the tomb of Egypt's Tutankhamun, it is full of riches worthy of a king. 15,000 tombs have been found at Anyang, but this one is unique. For it's the only unlooted royal tomb of the Shang era. It would have dawned on them rather slowly as they've excavated this tomb that, in fact, they had found the largest unlooted Shang tomb that's ever been found.

I mean, this is essentially the Qingtai tomb of China. The tomb dates to just 75 years after Tutankhamun's burial and a thousand years before China's first emperor. Packed full of treasures, the tomb contains finely carved jade creatures and figurines, bone and ivory artifacts exquisitely carved, thousands of cowrie shells.

Over a hundred battle axes, spears and daggers with lethal blades. Impressive collection of beautiful intricately made bronze vessels. It's clearly the tomb of a leading military commander or wealthy prince. When archaeologists decipher the name on some of the bronzes, they are in for a surprise.

This is the tomb of a woman, the legendary Fu Hao. She's believed to have been one of the three main wives of King Wu Ding. He may have had as many as 60. Of all of King Wu Ding's consorts, Fu Hao is by far the most prominent. You could perhaps argue that she's favored somehow.

The Shang were known to be invincible warriors. The contents of Fu Hao's tomb suggest one reason why. There are over a hundred different weapons.

Now, this one, interestingly, is sort of a... It's almost like a hybrid between a battle axe and this, which is more spiky. You would either swing it like this, or with one hand like this and perhaps holding a shield. So not only could you hack somebody with it and the blade go into them, you can also lop heads off. The large number of weapons suggests Fu Hao was involved in military campaigns.

The weapons are testimony to her military prowess. And the discovery of a bronze ewer axe suggests she was of high rank. Fu Hao has a very famous example. The blade is about a foot wide.

It's the largest UX, I think, that's been found so far. Now, this not only indicates status, but probably warrior status. Legend also tells that Fu Hao was a military commander of first rank, leading Wu Ding's most famous generals.

And how she may have courageously raised an unprecedented 13,000 troops to fight the Shang's enemies, known as the Qiang. All the evidence suggests Fu Hao was indeed a warrior. Campbell searches for even more clues to her military career. There's a fantastic aid to find out more about Fu Hao, a resource almost unparalleled in this era of history. These are oracle bones.

The Shang were one of the first civilizations to have writing. Tiny inscriptions record the questions Wu Ding and his successors posed to their dead ancestors, scratched onto animal scapulas and turtle shells. The Shang believed their ancestors had the power to influence everything, including military campaigns. The Oracle Bones chronicle key events in the life of Shang royalty and are the earliest record of Chinese history. These tiny characters are also the direct ancestors of modern-day Chinese script.

It's the oldest writing system still in use today. Of the roughly 200,000 oracle bones found in storage pits across Anyang so far, about 330 divinations feature Fu Hao. They reveal much about her life, her military campaigns, her health, and even her pregnancy. This is a special treat to get to see the original bones.

Normally specialists work from rubbings of the bone. Ah, it's a little bit hard to read. Yes, Fu Hao. The text is tiny, and scholars still struggle to interpret all of the characters. But Campbell arrives at a ballpark meaning.

Stepping back and putting it all together, the prince wants to take Fu Hao to enter this particular... He wants to gather up troops to launch an attack and bring Fu Hao with him to do something that's not clear. Basically what the prince is divining about is whether or not he should go ahead with this military plan.

Oracle bones tell of almost constant war during Wu Ding's reign. He was even known as Ding the Warlike. Wu Ding and his beloved Fu Hao were leaders of a society founded on war.

A cabra discovery in her tomb suggests a possible reason why. Fu Hao shared her grave with 16 people, sacrificed at her burial. Harvard archaeologist Rowan Fladd believes Fu Hao's tomb confirms the legends of the Shang's passion for human sacrifice. So this is a plan of Fu Hao's tomb. There's one in this pit, which was underneath Fu Hao herself.

Then there were eight other individuals who were outside the coffin, but inside the chamber. Then there were three in niches that were carved into the sides of the tomb trench. On top of the tomb chamber, in between the two niches, there were four more individuals.

There was one here that was just really a head. He probably wasn't smiling. There was another individual here who had been cut in half. Among these 16 individuals, there were two females and there were also two children. It's quite plausible that these children would have been buried within the tomb chamber.

Closer to Fu Hao, and they may in fact have been Fu Hao's relatives or even her children. Archaeologists believe the Shang performed two different types of human sacrifice. Retainers, members of her household, including her servants, who were buried close to her coffin. And people who were offered up as ritual sacrifices. Experts think these were prisoners of war from outside the Shang Kingdom.

Occasionally these individuals would have had their heads chopped off. We find pits with heads alone and then other pits with headless individuals, for example. The scale of human and animal sacrifices at Anyang was enormous.

In total we have thousands of human sacrifices of the various sorts. It seems as if the Shang's reputation for human sacrifice is justified. Their passion for warfare would have guaranteed them a constant supply of strangers to sacrifice. The weapons and human sacrifice is buried with foolishness. Fu Hao confirmed the legend of the Shang as warlike.

But the treasures in her tomb would reveal a different side to China's first dynasty. Fu Hao was laid to rest with an impressive array of treasures. The most striking are the bronzes.

Almost 500 were recovered from her tomb, weighing 1600 kilograms. This material was buried with them, that is taken out of circulation. They wanted to continue to have this material in the next world.

So clearly the Shang elite placed an incredibly high value on this commodity. The Shang were some of the most technologically advanced bronze makers in all the ancient world. During their era...

Bronze production reached a pinnacle in China. Bronzes were status symbols, as important in life as in death. Fu Hao and King Wu Ding used them for ritual ceremonies. Offerings of food and wine were made to their dead ancestors, who they believed required sustenance from the living. Other ancient civilizations were working with gold and used it in abundance in royal tombs.

Gold was available across China. There's no trace of it in Fu Hao's tomb. One very interesting question is, why don't we see more gold in this rich, powerful, complex society?

We value gold because it's shiny, it doesn't tarnish, it's found in smaller quantities, so it's a rare commodity. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Shang would have had these same attitudes towards this metal. The Shang elite favored bronze over all other metals. They knew how to make bronzes on a scale unmatched anywhere in the ancient world.

Archaeologists are intrigued by their size. At a meter and a half tall and weighing over 800 kilos, the largest Shang bronze is almost the size and weight of a VW Beetle. It's the biggest cast bronze from ancient history.

ever found. Fu Hao was buried with almost 500 bronzes, a third of them ritual drinking vessels. Archaeologists wanted to find out how they made them. They excavated several bronze foundry sites at Anyang.

One recent discovery unearthed 90,000 fragments of clay molds, revealing the complex process the Shang used to produce such intricate vessels. First, a full-scale clay model is made with basic decoration. Clay is applied to create an outer mold, and fine details, often patterns and animal motifs, are added.

The Shang used the highly sophisticated piece mold casting method, cutting the mold into sections, reassembling them with an inner core, before pouring the molten bronze inside. They also improved the characteristics of the bronze itself. Hundreds of years of experimentation led the Shang to perfect their technique. A combination of copper, tin, and lead ores would mean they could produce bronzes of the finest quality.

Tin and lead both have low melting points, so some genius in the ancient world discovered that by mixing these with copper, you can create an alloy with a lower melting point that's easier to work with. Experts conclude the Shang were some of the greatest bronze producers in history. Analysis of residues in some of the vessels reveals the Shang would have used them for drinking rice wine. But the metals might have affected what Fu Hao was drinking. Now a team of toxicologists at Boston's Children's Hospital decide to investigate.

Doctors Mark Kellogg and Terence Law normally analyze blood and urine samples, but today they're analyzing water and wine. They're working with three modern-day bronze vessels. Made with copper, tin, and lead. The first two hold water and white wine, while a third contains Chinese rice wine.

So, interesting that we have the lead on the surface. of the water so it's definitely not dissolving into the water like it does into the wines they use atomic absorption spectroscopy to measure how much metal leaches out of the vessels into the liquids What most intrigues the team is the lead content in the bronze vessels. This is so dangerous to health that today environmental levels of lead are closely monitored.

The first results are worrying. It's the high acidity of the rice wine that does the damage. After just one minute, the lead reaches two and a half thousand micrograms per liter.

This peak here with this amount of absorption is a very high level of lead. It would be toxic to a human. After four days, the level of lead in the rice wine rises to a staggering 80,000 micrograms. Over a thousand times higher than the recommended daily limit of just 75. The Shang were drinking a highly toxic brew. It's hard to imagine that the Shang actually ingested these fluids with the amount of lead that was present.

We handled this with gloves. We were afraid to touch it. We're going to have to dispose of this through special pathways.

And the Shang were not occasional drinkers. The volume of bronzeware found at Anyang suggests drinking was a key part of Shang life and might explain why later dynasties portray them as heavy drinkers. Medical toxicologist Dr. Alan Wolfe looks at the results. 2,590 micrograms per liter of lead. Just amazing in just one minute.

That's incredible. Lead poisoning might explain why the Shang died so young. Analysis of skeletons show men lived to an average age of 35, while women lived to just 30. Drinking lead contaminated wine, you know, 500 mLs or a liter per day, that could be life-threatening within weeks, in my opinion. Even if it wasn't, they would undoubtedly have the serious effects of chronic lead poisoning. Lead is a neurotoxin and can cause changes in behavior and personality.

In high quantities, lead attacks the central nervous system, resulting in seizures or coma. Fu Hao's skeleton didn't survive for scientists to discover how she died. But is it possible lead poisoning may have killed her? We don't have Fu Hao's body. We speculate a lot about what her life was like.

But the fact that there were so many bronze ceremonial vessels, drinking goblets, and materials found in her burial site suggests that without a doubt, Fu Hao, if she was drinking contaminated rice wine, she would have suffered the effects of chronic lead poisoning. And who knows? It may have even shortened her life.

It seems the Shang's passion for bronze may have proved deadly. As the archaeologists examine the 1900 treasures in Fu Hao's tomb, they piece together a picture of this extraordinary ancient warrior queen. A woman who liked beautiful things and was beloved by her king, Wu Ding.

A woman of astonishing wealth and so respected by her king that she took part in ritual ceremonies and was entrusted to lead troops on the battlefield. King Wu Ding's capital at Anyang is in the Yellow River Valley over 450 km south of Beijing. Wait.

When he buried Fu Hao, his kingdom was about the size of New Mexico. As the archaeologists investigate the contents of her tomb, they realize Wu Ding's connections stretch far beyond the borders of his kingdom. Trade flourished under the Shang.

Historians had recorded that they increased trade and brought the Shang kingdom to a height of prosperity never before seen. Now, archaeology would add weight to that argument. Shang expert Li Yongdi draws up an inventory of where Fu Hao's treasures might have come from.

First, the metal ores used in bronze production. Lead may have been mined locally, but the Shang would have had to look further afield for their copper and tin. It's quite likely that travel all the way down to the middle and lower Yangtze River to obtain copper from this region.

We now know there are very large tin mines in the Hunan region and in the Guangxi region. Next, the more unusual bronze daggers with an animal head design. They certainly show a very clear connection with the north and maybe even in the Siberian region. The weapons might suggest that Fu Hao or her ancestors originally came from the north, from the Mongolian steppes.

A fascinating clue reinforces this idea. The archaeologists find a tiny clay head. It's one of the few pieces of evidence for what the Shang may have looked like. The high forehead, round eyes and high cheekbones are features typical of people from Mongolia. But Fu Hao's tomb contains other treasures from sources even further away.

Four bronze mirrors may have come from Central Asia, over 1500 kilometers away. And then there's her 750 precious jades. We now know that Xinjiang has one of the best sources of jades.

That's almost 2000 kilometers away. Fu Hao's tomb, it turns out, is full of exotic treasures, with links stretching great distances. More than a thousand years before the famous Silk Route, the Shang already had trade connections, stretching as far as the Eurasian Steppe. But perhaps the most unusual items are the cowrie shells.

There were almost 7,000 in the tomb. They were placed in the coffin with the jades, suggesting they were highly prized. They might have come from the nearest coast, over 500 kilometres to the east, but they may also have been sourced from oceans as far as almost 5,000 kilometres away.

You can easily find them along the sea coast of China, down to Southeast Asia, along and go to the Indian Ocean and even into Africa. The Kauris may have got to Anyang along a southern silk route from the Indian Ocean, crossing southwest China and north to the Shang capital. Lee concludes Wu Ding's Anyang was a remarkable city for its time. I think too often people forget the fact that even though it was almost 3,000 years ago, Anyang was a Bronze Age metropolis. It was utilizing resources from all over China.

And beyond. A millennium before the Roman Empire, Wu Ding's kingdom had trading connections that stretched thousands of kilometers across the world's highest mountain ranges and one of its most inhospitable deserts. Then, an unexpected discovery reveals the Shang kingdom was more than just trading long distances.

Remains of a small city are found close to ancient copper mines over 600 kilometers south of Anyang, showing all the hallmarks of Shang culture. So the question, of course, is what is a Shang settlement doing so far south? This was set up to maintain Shang control, possibly as a military outpost.

To control access both to the copper ores located in this region, but also to the transport network to get these ingots of metal back to the north. Archaeologist Robert Morocik thinks... Shanks Wu Ding needed these imperial outposts to guarantee supply of the metal ores. The movement of materials from mine to finished bronze vessel really is something like a highly choreographed industrial dance where every aspect has to be organized and controlled in order to end up with the kind of sophisticated, beautiful ritual vessel that is needed for the Shang ceremonial use. For Morocik, Wu Ding was doing more than trading long distances.

He was also in the business of empire building. It might very well be that these local inhabitants had a friendly trading relationship with the Shang, that they were getting something out of the deal itself. It might be that they're producing the metal and then trading it to these very eager Shang buyers who then transport it back to the north. A thousand years before China's first emperor, Wu Ding and Fu Hao had an influence that stretched far beyond their capital at Anyang.

May 2009, a construction site in Anyang. Builders have stumbled upon a previously unknown Shang Cemetery. This newly excavated tomb is the largest they've found here.

Director of Archaeology at Anyang, Tang Jigen, has come to take a closer look. I think about more than 90% of the tombs were looted in the past. So it is really rare for us to find a tomb like this. So we are really excited about this time because we have a lot to learn.

From the start, there are clues to suggest this is a high-status tomb. The tomb owner must be a very important person. His tomb is a tomb with rampant entrance, which is pretty unique.

Which is a shape only used for the people with high status. high social position the ramped entrance is one clue and the tombs treasures seem to confirm this also most importantly the the the dead person was was offered a lot of bronzes potteries even jades the The tomb provides further evidence that Fu Hao lived in a time of great innovation and of trading connections that stretched way beyond China's borders. For nestling between the weapons is a curious bow-shaped object.

It's quite possible these two objects are imported from the north or northwest. So we have strong evidence to suggest that these two are used for driving of chariots. Chariots. As archaeologists excavated around Anyang, they kept discovering these extraordinary wonders in the ground. Chariot burials over 3,000 years old have been unearthed, complete with horses and charioteers.

The wooden structure has long since disintegrated. Leaving a complete shadow of the chariot beautifully preserved in the soil. Though many have been found around the world, it's believed these chariots are the first in China.

And they appear at Anyang during Wu Ding's reign. They would have given the war-obsessed Shang the edge on the battlefield. Imagine seeing for the first time a chariot pulled by horses charging down on you.

I mean this is a large and imposing vehicle. I mean it may have had a shock and awe, a psychological sort of advantage. The Shang Chariot was in a sense the Rolls Royce of the day. These were incredible status symbols.

Picture Fu Hao standing there with her symbolic acts of status, her Yue acts, standing on her chariot, decked out in her armor. It would have been quite a sight. The Shang's technical expertise clearly extended far beyond their bronzeware. But the real mystery is that no chariots have been found in China.

...from before Wu Ding's reign. So where did they come from? Rowan Fladd at Harvard University first considers where the horses came from.

Horses were first domesticated in the western step of Eurasia, so far to the west of Anyang. way out in this direction, perhaps in the Ukraine or places slightly further to the east of there. So one possible route of entrance for domesticated horses into the area around Anyang might have been through this corridor, the so-called Northern Silk Route.

So the Shang may have been using their established trading routes to bring horses in from the west, and it seems they could have spotted the chariot at the same time. I think chariots clearly came from western parts of Eurasia, the western steppe. Did they come through the Gansu Corridor, from where we already have domesticated horses? Or perhaps they came up here through the eastern steppe.

All of these are possible routes through which the chariot was first experienced and then adopted from. The Shang already had wheeled vehicles. But the evidence suggests...

The chariots they go on to create were a product of ingenuity and the sharing of ideas. The chariots are pretty sophisticated technology. They have a very sophisticated use of bent wood.

The spoked wheels that exist in chariots are a technological advancement. These aspects of the chariotry would have been difficult for people to develop independently, I think, and would have... Perhaps required the people in the Anyang area to have had some additional stimulus from interactions with people who were using chariots outside of this region. Wu Ding was king of a dynasty that was both ingenious and innovative.

The Shang proved to be as technologically advanced with a chariot as they were with their bronzeware. Fu Hao's remains were never found, but hidden amongst the burial goods in this grave lies the greatest treasure of all. The skeleton of the tomb owner.

It's a rare find. The skeletons are often crushed as the coffin disintegrates. Archaeologist He Yuling leads the excavation team. I realized at the time that a very important event may be happening in my life. The finds keep coming.

Fragments of gold are found, suggesting the coffin was once decorated in gold leaf. Gold is rare in Shang tombs. Then another intriguing find.

A small bronze hand. The position it was found was beside the lower part of the occupant's left leg. Here, beside the left shank. Here is where we found it. Its position suggests the hand was originally in the coffin.

Since the real hand was never found, perhaps this oddity was a very early artificial limb. Fu Hao was laid to rest with a large collection of bronze weapons. So too was this tomb owner.

Some feature the unusual animal head designs typical of the far north, and others bear a name. Ya, or General Chang. The earliest record of the Chang family dates back in the Oracle bones, and the records continue all the way to the Western Zhou Dynasty.

From these discoveries, we can see that this family name is of great importance. Ya Chang lived during the reign of Wu Ding's son. Like Fu Hao, he was a warrior, and an important one.

You can see, you know, we gather most of the bones. Archaeologists Jing Ji Chun and James Burton investigate how he died. Curiously, Ya Chang's remains were surrounded by peppercorns, and some are embedded in the bones. As Jing and Burton look closer, they discover the bones are riddled with injuries. Here's rib bones and there is a cut mark, you know, very obvious cut mark here, and so it's all the way down the left side.

So apparently, you know, he was attacked from... by someone from the left side. It makes you wonder what he was doing with his right side.

Exactly. And then like this. A deep crack in Yacheng's left thigh bone is evidence of another severe injury. But as Jing and Burton explore the bones further, they discover the deepest injury of all. His hip bone bears the scars of a huge blow, most likely from a battle axe.

the infection from wound was terminal. So these were probably the mortal wounds that resulted in his death. That suggests he was actively involved in combat while he had his position.

Exactly. And the wound bears traces of peppercorns. It seems the sophisticated Shang had an understanding of battlefield medicine. Peppercorns have an antibacterial quality and may have been used to prevent the spread of infection.

Like Fu Hao, Ya Chang was buried with human sacrifices. Nine are ritual sacrifices, believed to be war captives, outsiders from the frontier regions. The other six are so-called retainers, members of Ya Chang's household. And scientists can't wait to get their hands on them.

For the first time, they can discover the ethnic origins of the Shang. The tiny clay head found at Anyang with its Mongolian features suggests the ancestors of Fu Hao and her king Wu Ding may have come from the Mongolian steppes. Now science may provide some more concrete evidence. This will be found in the teeth of Ya Chang and his human sacrifices. Your teeth trap the minerals from where you were born.

Your bones will change chemically. They'll remodel and pick up your new diet. They grow, but the teeth don't do that. Once they're there, they're dead. chemistry of your childhood is locked in there.

That chemical signature is the ratio of two isotopes of the element strontium. Found in rocks, it gets into the soil through natural weathering. Then it moves into the food chain from plants to animals and to humans, becoming part of our bones and teeth. The archaeologists send the samples here, the University of North Carolina. A tiny amount of enamel is scraped off the tooth.

The analysis requires a sophisticated piece of hardware called a mass spectrometer. It measures the differences in the ratios and their timing, typically measured to a formidable looking 5 decibel places. The archaeological payoff can be significant. When the results come out, there's unexpected news.

It just turned out that when we got that first set of data, it was completely backwards. Here's the result for the strontium analysis. Jing plots the results on a graph.

The horizontal red striped area represents the local strontium signal. The blue bars are the victims of ritual sacrifice. The analysis places these people within the local range. Science overturns all previous assumptions.

They are not war captives, as everyone had thought, but locals. So this is really exciting. And then, of course, it's against the traditional hypothesis that the victims of the ritual killing were captives from the war. Retainer sacrifices, members of the tomb owner's household, are assumed to be local people. Here again the results are surprising.

The yellow bars represent the retainers and they're above the local range. These are the outsiders. Which suggests that they were born in the same area. somewhere else.

The range of the results is large, suggesting Yachang's household contained a mix of people from across China. Three of the six retainers are most likely from the north. And Yachang, it turns out, is also an outsider. The strontium signal in his teeth is the strongest of all.

Curiously, Yachang came from a different place to the rest of his household. It was really exciting when Jing came back and said, wow, that's clearly the strongest non-local signal. Actually, my first reaction was, this is a little too neat.

The results spur Jing and Burton on to find out more. If not from Anyang, where did Ya Chang come from? The animal head weapons found in his tomb could suggest he was from Mongolia or even Siberia.

Oxygen isotopes in his tooth enamel are now analyzed to try and solve this mystery once and for all. Water is made up of both hydrogen and heavy and light oxygen atoms. As rainfall moves in from the coast, heavy oxygen falls out of the atmosphere, leaving lighter and lighter water as you move inland.

The oxygen in his teeth is the heaviest of all the samples that we've measured. And that's consistent with being closer to the ocean, which would imply further, possibly towards the southeast. So Ya Chang was a southerner. Scientists have yet to pinpoint an exact location, but it seems he was born near the modern Chinese city of Xinjiang, over 400 kilometres away. It's a revelation.

Anyang was a cosmopolitan place. Important outsiders like Ya Chang were welcomed and made the Shang's capital city their home. This discovery leads one archaeologist to a radical vision of the world of Fu Hao and the Shang.

Fu Hao's lord, King Wu Ding, was a visionary. Anyang flourished under his leadership. Professor Jing Ji Chun has spent most of his career investigating the Shang's last great capital and how Wu Ding came to create it.

His researches have led him to an exciting new conclusion about the city he built. Sub-surface coring has established the outer limits of the Bronze Age city that once stood here, over 3,000 years ago. Jing and his team take core samples.

They're searching for rammed earth. for letting it dry for the half hour. It's like a brick, you cannot really break it.

The tightly packed earth is evidence of foundations of temples, palaces, and even tombs. Anyang was once 30 square kilometers, one of the largest Bronze Age cities in the world. But Anyang was not the first Shang capital.

In 1999, the team make a new discovery. Another city, an earlier Shang capital, sighted across the river. All of a sudden, you have another city. So, of course, you know, we experienced all kinds of frustration, and, you know, even the people doubted the reality of the discovery. Jing names this lost city Huanbei.

A thousand cores later, and it begins to take shape. It's a traditional rectangular walled city of almost five square kilometers, with a square palace and temple complex at its center. As they reach the city's foundations, they make their way to the city's main city, Make an intriguing find.

A layer of red burnt earth. Very interesting. All the buildings within the interior city is covered by This is a layer of red-burned earth, which suggests the whole building, I mean the whole settlement within the interior city was burned down by the single fire. When they examine the cause, unusually they find no evidence of human life. This leads Jing to a dramatic conclusion.

The fire was deliberate. The people who built this city, built this urban settlement, decided, for some reason, decided to move the settlement to somewhere else. So they settled the fire, they didn't want to leave anything here. And this is a very interesting story we can tell.

Wu Ding moved his people south across the river and built a new capital. The city where he and Fu Hao lived was unique, nothing like the ancient Chinese cities that came before or after Anyang. Wu Ding created a capital with a new shape, more irregular and organic, and without city walls. The archaeological evidence, the bones and teeth, suggest its population was a mix of ethnic groups, like Yacheng.

Jing concludes Wu Ding was a visionary who created a wealthy, cosmopolitan city full of dynamic people. But over 30 years after his death, Jing believes Anyang had become a very different place. The city had lost its multicultural diversity, and its strength began to wane. Seizing the opportunity, the Shang's neighbours and adversaries, the Western Zhou, swept into Anyang.

The Zhou advanced eastwards to take control of central China. Over 500 years of Shang Ru was at an end. China's first dynasty developed the first known writing in East Asia. ...involved the idea of the war chariot and brought bronze making to its most advanced form in all the ancient world. And the woman at the heart of this civilization was the warrior queen, Fu Hao.

Careful archaeological detective work has revealed her to be truly one of the most extraordinary women of the ancient world. And her king, Wu Ding, to have been one of the great cultural innovators of history.

Transcript for:Exploring Anyang and the Shang Dynasty

Transcript for:
Exploring Anyang and the Shang Dynasty