The civilization on the Yellow River at Anyang and Loyang arose about 2000 B.C. It arose relatively late among the ancient river valley civilizations of the world, but it rose quickly to brillance. The Shang was the first of those brilliant civilizations for which there are records.

The Shang Empire emerged about 1800 B.C. and survived until about 1000 B.C. The excavation at the Shang capital of Anyang reveal chariots, bronze weapons and the compound bow, indicating a conquest of invaders from the steppe regions of Asia.

The Shang people were especially skilled in casting bronze. They cast beautiful devotional vessels as tripod urns. These vessels were elaborately and aesthetically decorated, often with a particular motif called the tao tieh. This sophisticated design involved a double image of a horned mask and back-to-back dragons,

Apparently the tao tieh evolved from a shaman's mask of the sort shown here.

And here.

The Shang also built war chairots and could field several thousand of them for pitched battles.

The Shang people also developed writing as ideographic characters which later evolved into the Chinese characters.

The Kingdom of Shang was long thought to have been only a myth, but was verified by archeological evidence to have existed as a city-state confederation in the vicinity of present day Shandong Province. The traditional dates for its existence are from 1760 BCE to 1122 BCE.

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