Is it really a cannibal custom for Shang people to cook their heads with bronzes?

There is no denying that there are such examples in cultural relics, but it is obviously inaccurate to say that Shang nobles are cannibals. More often, people are similar to livestock in their eyes, and they are all people.

(1) Fu Lianzhen

Fu Hao, the wife of Wu Ding in Shang Dynasty, was a woman with special status. A very special bronze ware was unearthed in her tomb, which is also a treasure of China National Museum. What is triple happiness? (Yan Yan reads it three times).

The function of this steamer is, to put it bluntly, a steamer, while the triple steamer is three small steamers connected together. This object consists of an upper part and a lower part. The upper part is called retort, the lower part is called retort, retort is hollow. When it is used, it should be filled with water first, and then the charcoal should be lit under the retort. Because of the bronze ware, this cultural relic has very good thermal conductivity. Soon the water in the retort began to steam when it was heated, and the steam rose into the retort through the grate in the middle, and finally the top ingredients were steamed out.

Incredibly, in 1984, an archaeologist dug up this pot for steaming things during archaeology. Only there was only one pheasant dug up at that time, and there was a head inside the pheasant. The calcium in these bones has been lost, in other words, it has been cooked. Obviously, this is not a special case. 15 years later, that is, 1999, the Shang Dynasty site in Anyang? Yin ruins? This thing was also unearthed in the museum, which also contained a head.

In other words, the pot used by businessmen to steam rice actually has a cooked head inside, so are businessmen really cannibals?

(2) cannibalism and human sacrifice

In fact, it is somewhat arbitrary to conclude that Shang nobles like to eat people just from the head of a businessman's steamer. After all, in the eyes of businessmen, these foods may not be enjoyed by themselves, and the head in the pot is most likely dedicated to ancestors, the so-called human food.

Many people regard Shang Zhouwang's record of cooking and killing Bo Yikao as the best evidence of cannibalism in Shang Dynasty, which is obviously out of date. Didn't you see that Liu Bang also cooked the story that Peng Yue gave to the princes? It can be seen that in ancient times, cooking and killing was a punishment, not a daily life. In the sacrificial sites of Yin Ruins, there are many human sacrificial pits, mostly ten pits in a row, many of which are human head pits. This clearly proves that the head is used for sacrifice? Props, so-called headhunters.

The main source of these animals is Qiang people with horns on their heads. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Qiang people are people with horns, which are used for herding sheep. But there is another way to write Qiang. A rope is pulled out of Qiang's neck, which means a shepherd tied by a rope. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Qiang is synonymous with human sacrifice. Oracle Bone Inscriptions often sees bloody scenes of dealing with Qiang people and cattle and sheep.

Like here? Hey? Slaughter, gut, cut in half and hung, similar to pigs and sheep hanging on meat shelves, but this is a real person. Therefore, from the perspective of human beings, businessmen deal with these prisoners of war or human beings, not for food, but more often for sacrifice.