n there appears some evidence of star-worship. The deities
seem to have been conceived as a kind of celestrial court of Shang Ti,
as his "officials". In the field of material culture, horse-breeding
becomes more and more evident. Some authors believe that the art of
riding was already known in late Shang times, although it was certainly
not yet so highly developed that cavalry units could be used in war.
With horse-breeding the two-wheeled light war chariot makes its
appearance. The wheel was already known in earlier times in the form of
the potter's wheel. Recent excavations have brought to light burials in
which up to eighteen chariots with two or four horses were found
together with the owners of the chariots. The cart is not a Chinese
invention but came from the north, possibly from Turkish peoples. It has
been contended that it was connected with the war chariot of the Near
East: shortly before the Shang period there had been vast upheavals in
western Asia, mainly in connection with the expansion of peoples who
spoke Indo-European languages (Hittites, etc.) and who became successful
through the use of quick, light, two-wheeled war-chariots. It is
possible, but cannot be proved, that the war-chariot spread through
Central Asia in connection with the spread of such
Indo-European-speaking groups or by the intermediary of Turkish tribes.
We have some reasons to believe that the first Indo-European-speaking
groups arrived in the Far East in the middle of the second millenium
B.C. Some authors even connect the Hsia with these groups. In any case,
the maximal distribution of these people seems to have been to the
western borders of the Shang state. As in Western Asia, a Shang-time
chariot was manned by three men: the warrior who was a nobleman, his
driver, and his servant who handed him arrows or other weapons when
needed. There developed a quite close relationship between the nobleman
and his chariot-driver. The chariot was a valuable object, manufactured
by specialists; horses were always expensive and rare in China, and in
many periods of Chinese history horses were directly imported from
nomadic tribes in the North or West. Thus, the possessors of vehicles
formed a privileged class in the Shang realm; they became a sort of
nobility, and the social organization began to move in the direction of
feudalism. One of the main sports of the noblemen in this period, in
addition to warfare, was hunting. The Shang had their speci