Chapter 2: The Zhou Dynasty
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2019-12-09T01:55:31+00:00
The Zhou marks a turning point in our understanding of Chinese literacy, because from our knowledge, the transition between Shang and Zhou is also the transition between a literate government and an illiterate government [1]. Zhou government was built around mutual literacy among elites, even if proliferation to the common people was uncommon, to say the least. However, our textual record from the Zhou is a fraction of what it might be, as a large part of Zhou writings were likely done on perishable materials like bamboo, and are no longer known to us
Those that remain still manage to paint a picture of a government with extensive record-keeping, occasionally transferred from perishable goods to bronzes in the case of particularly important documents, like the record of a coronation [2]. Scribes are often recorded as accompanying officials on government business, and literacy continued to proliferate from a scribal form in the Shang.
Writing was a skill for the elite in the Zhou dynasty, but already it had begun down a path that would continue to the Han and beyond- a path where writing is integral for governance, and where interactions with government would become intrinsically linked to interactions with the written word. Over time, it would become harder and harder to actively interact with government with no functional literacy, even if the literate elements of Zhou society were contemporaneously isolated from the illiterate populace.
1. Li Feng, Writing and Literacy in Early China (University of Washington Press, 2011), 272-3
2. Feng, Writing and Literacy in Early China, 277
