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Early Chinese Civilizations

Early Chinese Civilizations. Geography of China. Mountains and deserts served as barriers that separated Chinese people from other Asian people. Shang Dynasty. Religious beliefs: rulers believed they could communicate with the gods to get help with their affairs

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Early Chinese Civilizations

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  1. Early Chinese Civilizations

  2. Geography of China Mountains and deserts served as barriers that separated Chinese people from other Asian people.

  3. Shang Dynasty • Religious beliefs: • rulers believed they could communicate with the gods to get help with their affairs • strong belief in life after death • human sacrifice • spirits of ancestors could bring good or evil

  4. Zhou Dynasty • Mandate of Heaven: • belief that kings received their authority to command, or mandate, from Heaven • it was the king’s duty to keep the gods happy, failure to do so would lead to decline and new dynasty would take over

  5. Dao: The proper “Way”

  6. Chinese Philosophies • Confucianism: • Concerned with human behavior-proper way to behave was in accordance with the Dao • View of the Dao-Duty and humanity

  7. Duty • Five Constant Relationships-parent and child, husband and wife, older and younger siblings, older and younger friends, and ruler and subjects • Allpeople had to subordinate their own interests to the broader needs of the family and the community. • “Work Ethic”-If each individual worked hard to fulfill his or her duties, then the affairs of society as a whole would prosper as well.

  8. Humanity • a sense of compassion and empathy for others • “Do not do unto others what you would not wish done to yourself” • “Measure the feelings of others by one’s own” • “Within the four seas all men are brothers”

  9. Daoism: • inaction rather than action • The best way to act in harmony with the universal order is to act spontaneously and let nature take its course by not interfering with it.

  10. Legalism: • “School of Law” • proposed that human beings were evil by nature • believed a strong ruler is required to create an orderly society

  11. Qin Dynasty • Changes in Chinese Politics: • Legalism was adopted as the regime’s philosophy • anyone who opposed the regime was punished or executed • centralized state

  12. Great Wall of China • created to protect against nomadic invaders from the north • linked existing walls together to create “The Wall of Ten Thousand Li” • present wall was ordered 1,500 years after the first Qin Emperor

  13. Han Dynasty • New developments in technology: • advances in textile manufacturing • water mills for grinding grain • iron casting • steel paper • rudders • fore-and-aft rigging for ships

  14. Purpose of the terra-cotta figures: they were a re-creation of Qin Shihuangdi’s imperial guard and were meant to be with the emperor on his journey to the next world

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