Casting a lasting shadow

Many of the exhibited bronze items are also inscribed with words of people paying homage to their families.

"Ancient people once focused more on sacrificial rituals for Heaven," Li Xiaoyang adds. "But, during Yinxu's era, they tended to more intensively worship their ancestors, as revealed by these ritual bronze items."

With the king as its core and clans as its units, Shang civilization established a solid structure and, thus, laid a foundation for the social order of early-stage China — the integration of family and state — he explains.

Shang people may have devoted the precious and heavy bronze vessels to their long passed ancestors, but, like us today, they also sought a comfortable life. Cheaper pottery seems a better choice. From pipelines and wine cups, to "towels" for bathing, a world made of ceramic unveils a host of kaleidoscopic Shang stories in the galleries.

Within the museum is a gallery exclusively dedicated to Ya Zhang, an aristocrat and a general, which houses some highlighted exhibits, like an ox-shaped ritual vessel called zun.

Indeed, the 577 burial objects from this 35-year-old man's tomb, including bronzes, jades and bone artifacts, as well as hundreds of arrowheads, gold fillets and seashells (used as money), demonstrate his wealth and power.

"Technology can also help us to study how he lived, survived several injuries, and died in battle," He Yuling, the exhibition curator and a researcher specializing in the Shang era at the Institute of Archaeology, says. "Seeing Ya Zhang's whole life exhibited here, his bravery may resonate with today's visitors."