Human Sacrifice, Oracle Bones, and Shang China: Interview with Professor Rod Campbell

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

China's Shang Dynasty is something of an enigma. It produced the earliest written evidence in China, in the form of inscribed oracle bones, and decades of archaeology have shed light on its capital city and society. Yet much about it is still unclear, including precisely how the Shang understood themselves and their world. Professor Rod Campbell is one of the world's leading experts on the Shang, and his work has done a great deal to illuminate the Shang worldview and why they did the things they did, including human sacrifice on an enormous scale.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everybody, from Wandery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History.
0:14.9	I'm Patrick Wein, thanks for joining me.
0:17.5	Of all the times and places we've gotten to explore during this season of Tides of History,
0:20.8	my favorite might be Bronze Age China.
0:23.4	There are a whole bunch of reasons for this, the really striking nature of the archaeological
0:27.2	remains ranging from cities to human sacrifices to oracle bones, the obvious global importance
0:32.5	of understanding early China, and most of all the ways in which the archaeology, contemporary
0:37.3	written texts, and much later histories all intersect line up and clash with one another
0:42.0	as we attempt to understand this distant but complex and fascinating past.
0:46.4	Today's guest is one of the world's leading experts on the Chinese Bronze Age, especially
0:50.2	the Shang Dynasty.
0:51.6	Rod Campbell is associate professor of East Asian archaeology and history at New York University's
0:56.0	Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
0:58.7	Over the course of his career, he has excavated extensively at a number of sites in China and
1:02.7	published on a variety of themes and topics related to the Chinese Bronze Age.
1:07.1	His most recent book, A Really Insightful Look at the Shang and What Made Them Tic, is entitled
1:11.1	Violence, Kinship, and the Early Chinese State, The Shang and their World.
1:15.2	Professor Campbell, thank you so much for joining me today.
1:17.4	Thank you, Patrick.
1:19.1	It's an honor to be here.
1:20.1	I'm really excited about this.
1:21.9	Well, so I want to start with something really basic, which is just how did you get interested
	...

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