c. 1300 BCE–c. 1201 BCE
Shang oracle bones
Religion · Chinese traditions · Ritual and ancestors
Divination inscriptions preserved on bone and turtle shell document ritual questions at the Shang court. They are material evidence of court practice, rather than a complete description of popular religious life.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- century · approximate
- End
- century · approximate
- Dating in the source document
- ca. siglo XIII a. C.
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- 2026-09-04
Reading the date: dating window; it does not mean the event lasted for that entire interval.
Sources
- A (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- 2004-10-01
- What this date describes
- The cited source or edition; it may postdate the historical event.
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.