Tao Tie Wen (饕餮纹 Gluttonous Grain) Shang and Zhou Bronze Inscription

Tao Tie Wen (饕餮纹 Gluttonous Grain) Shang and Zhou Bronze Inscription

Reading Yu Qiuyu's book and learned about oracle bone script characters, Shang Dynasty bronze, and Tao Tie Wen  (饕餮纹 Gluttonous Grain)  the Bronze Inscription (google searched pattern samples, another link) that even predates oracle bone script characters. Truly some beautiful spirited drawing that somehow shares similar style with Native American animal drawing. Amazing!

I guess without any research those probably also tattoo patterns that ancient people mark on their body, that mystical, horrifying, beautiful and powerful design of curve lines give a shocking experience when one looks at them. Many athletes and people now do a half body, full arm tattoo, a lot of religious imagery or art or flower.

Source Books:
Shang Civilization:  English Chinese
Art, Myth and Ritual: English Chinese (Out of Print)

Especially the [Art, Myth and Ritual] briefly tells how Art, Symbol, premature character to writing system developed, past down and guarded by authority's families, that proves information is power in daily work of making bronze war weapon and ritual items, so common can be ruled and managed easily, also information of resource and includes stone material for tools and live material for food as animal, herd. the common (the slaves) are kept and separated by family and households, each family master and pass down one skill and plays a part of whole society, so common don't need to learn the technique of characters, writings, ritual (politics), management of war, making of weapons and high rank items such as the bronze tripods to cups that only served in tribe leaders' house, while common use clay material. it's pretty much as today's society too. So everyone is an artist in ancient time, each household focuses on making one type of things, and if the population of the tribe grows to large size, become difficult to manage, the authority family father and his sons, elder brother and his brothers would separate and rebuild another tribal city in distant location, along they redistribute the households that carry different skills in combination to survive and thrive in new settled environment, colonization. and the kings (brothers or father and sons) will use marriage of their grand daughters and grand sons to maintain the network of defense, offensive alliance, also trades in prosperous and help in disastrous periods, they keep their family records, trace their generations and structure of relationship, set annual gathering date, renew their vows thru ceremony, the ritual. of course after a few generations, their relationship becomes distant, so conflicts occur among them.

Authority occupy and facilitate their servants to invent:
bronze cast and forge technology and the families of that job (for weapons and luxury items)
writing system to record and interpretation knowledge, distribution for their propaganda
resource information, locations discover and control heavy metal, herds (material wealth)

the Commons are slaves households, their life job:
to learn and pass down their family skill
to serve the authority with their unique skill
pay their tax
Serve in war time, in peace time participate war exercise after autumn
breed children and marriage their children at their 15 year old age

About Shaman, Oracle Bone Ritual Script:
it's a trick of the authority to fool the common to fight their war, do their orders, or relocation, or anything that involve leading the mass to achieve something. People believe and request for 'Signs', also in New Testament, the best way to organize the common (the unlearned, the faithful) is thru work of God, or heaven, or supernatural power, some kind of mythical birds appeared to somebody 'who is telling it as it is' related to the authority, or the priest gets a good result only he or she can interpret the cracks and script on the burnt bone, well, the priest never even bother how many bones he burn at same time, no body knows he picks the best one or he would not even bother anyway the mob are simpletons have few ways with characters, they'll take anything for good if the priest says so, the priest who lives high ranking life (even appears more respectful than the king, he states king's authority, and king offers him the temple and sacrifice which all from the labor of the common) well doing king's request (asking) can produce a satisfactory of everyone at any time. If the king lost the battle or failed certain project, the priest would tell the other part of meaning, how the authority interpret. The ritual is crowd control.
Xia dynasty last about 500 years, Shang last about 600 years, the authority family remain rich and powerful always, the common (slave households) stay poor (dependable) and simple (weak). This dominate system should keep the ancient dynasties long and stable.

However Shang emperors might be lenient on taxing the common and slaves, even human sacrifice is part of their culture, common or slaves take share farming system, the field is cut in 9 equal pieces as this Chinese character (井) indicates, 8 households (men) work together to farm these 9 piece field, and each household takes 1 out of 9 portion corps and the extra portion they offer to the emperor, the ruling class. Today's American tax is 30%. Also the rich class and poor gap might be larger if somehow future archaeologists unearth Park Ave sites, Long Island sites, and Jackson Hts sites, I bet they would find gold toilets in numbers, silver spoons... in rich sites, and 20 sets of skeletons in one household space that include central American origin, Asian origin, Tibetan origin, African origin, Midwest White origin.... in other cheap rent neighborhood. so it's really hard to come a conclusion by university professors who have never seen most 21st century neighborhoods and without spreadsheet comparisons, also Shang Emperors share same healthcare with their common slaves too, I guess.