Editor's Introduction

Abstract

The excavation report on M5, popularly known as the "Fu Hao" burial, revealed an unprecedented discovery in the history of Anyang excavations. M5 was intact, and an uncommonly large number of burial artifacts were inscribed. The significant answer to questions raised by this find are contingent upon identification of the figure whose name is inscribed on the majority of the burial's bronze vessels. Since this figure, whose name is usually read Fu Hao, can be identified with royalty, the M5 burial represents what heretofore has not been found at any Shang capital — an intact royal burial. It isn't surprising then that when the excavation report appeared, an article on the identification of the tomb owner was simultaneously published by a group of oracle bone scholars.¹ The significance of the burial is manifold. With the identification of the tomb owner and chronological orientation of the burial artifacts, it will be possible to put into perspective historically and artistically certain aspects of the Late Shang period. As an introduction to this translation, I briefly discuss the contribution of scholarly research to resolving questions of identification of the interred and to dating of the excavated bronzes.