Site · China
Anyang (Yinxu)
Imperial China, 1300–1046 BCE
Yinxu is the last Shang capital, occupied from about 1300 to 1046 BCE, and the source of the oracle-bone inscriptions that are the earliest Chinese writing. Its royal cemetery, bronze foundries and palace platforms established Chinese archaeology as a discipline and confirmed the historicity of the Shang kings. Most Shang bronzes in Western collections were looted from Anyang tombs before 1928.
| Country | China |
|---|---|
| Dates | 1300–1046 BCE |
| Status | National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit and UNESCO World Heritage Site (Yin Xu, 2006) |
| Managed by | Yinxu Museum, Anyang, under the National Cultural Heritage Administration |
| Access | The Yinxu palace-temple area and the royal cemetery at Xibeigang are open daily, and a large new Yinxu Museum opened in 2024 beside the Huan River. |
| Coordinates | 36.127, 114.318 (public site) |
What was found
Excavations by Academia Sinica from 1928 and by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences since 1950 recovered over 150,000 inscribed oracle bones, the royal tombs with chariot burials and hundreds of sacrificial victims, the intact tomb of Lady Fu Hao with 468 bronzes and 755 jades, and the Houmuwu ding, the heaviest ancient bronze known.
Rules
Nothing may be collected; China's Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics makes all archaeological finds state property, criminalises illegal excavation and forbids export, and the US–China CPIA agreement restricts import of Chinese archaeological material. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.
Elsewhere
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Anyang (Yinxu)" (Site). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/sites/anyang-yinxu. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-anyang-yinxu,
title = {Anyang (Yinxu)},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/sites/anyang-yinxu}},
year = {2026},
note = {Site article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.