A Shang Dynasty Zoo: What Animal Bones at Yinxu Reveal About Ancient China
Today, we’ll talk about a surprising discovery at Yinxu that suggests Shang dynasty kings may have raised tigers, elephants, and other wild animals in a kind of royal “zoo” more than 3,000 years ago.
A Shang Dynasty Zoo: What Animal Bones at Yinxu Reveal About Ancient China
Today, we’ll talk about a surprising discovery at Yinxu that suggests Shang dynasty kings may have raised tigers, elephants, and other wild animals in a kind of royal “zoo” more than 3,000 years ago.
At the beginning of 2026, a new archaeological discovery announced at the annual Henan Archaeological Achievements Forum quickly drew widespread attention in China. Excavations in the royal cemetery area of the ancient ruins of Yinxu in Anyang suggested something astonishing. Three thousand years ago, the capital of the Shang dynasty may have contained something resembling a royal “zoo,” a place where a remarkable variety of wild animals from across the Central Plains were gathered, raised, and ultimately sacrificed in ritual ceremonies.
The discovery emerged from work carried out in late 2024 along the northern bank of the Huan River. Winter sunlight slanted into a newly excavated sacrificial pit that archaeologists had just cleared to the bottom. Nearby, Li Zhipeng, a zoo archaeologist from the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, crouched beside a partially exposed skeleton. The outline of a skull, spine, and limbs could be seen emerging from the soil. At first glance, some archaeologists guessed it might be a dog. Li leaned closer and examined a crucial feature of the bones. After a few seconds, he raised his head with quiet excitement. It was not a dog. It was a wolf.
The small pit contained more surprises. Two large feline skeletons lay nearby, with wide skulls and long canine teeth. Li quickly identified them as a tiger and a leopard. When specialists began naming the species one by one, the team standing around the pit was stunned. Tigers, foxes, wolves. These were wild animals that normally lived far from human settlements. Why would they appear together inside a Shang dynasty sacrificial pit?
Perhaps the most extraordinary finds were two nearly complete skeletons of a creature known in ancient Chinese texts as “si,” often translated as the sacred water buffalo. The horns were missing, but the limb bones were intact. These were the only two complete specimens of the animal ever discovered from the Shang period. The species had already disappeared by the Han dynasty. For centuries it had been known only through ancient writings and artistic images on bronze vessels. One famous example is the “ox square ding,” a bronze vessel excavated in 1935, and another is the rare bovine-shaped bronze vessel unearthed at Yinxu, one of China’s oldest and largest archaeological sites, and was selected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. Now, three thousand years later, the real animal had reappeared in the sunlight of a modern excavation. To some archaeologists, these bones are as valuable as any bronze artifact.
The pits contained many other animals as well. Archaeologists identified deer, roe deer, serow (a kind of goat-antelope), wild boar, porcupine, and various birds including swans, cranes, and geese. Some skeletons even had small bronze bells still preserved near their necks. These bells were not random decorations. They were signs that the animals had once been domesticated or at least kept under human control. According to researchers, this may represent the earliest known group of artificially raised wild animals in China.
The royal cemetery area of Yinxu lies on the north bank of the Huan River, directly across from the palace and ancestral temple ruins on the south bank. During the late Shang dynasty, this was the highest level ritual and burial ground reserved for the royal family. Archaeologists first discovered sacrificial pits here in 1978. Most of those contained horses, with occasional remains of elephants or monkeys mixed in. Although the numbers were small, they hinted at a complex ritual system involving animals. At that time, however, excavation techniques were limited, and many questions remained unanswered.
More than forty years later, a new round of archaeological investigation began in 2021. Researchers from the Anyang workstation of the Institute of Archaeology conducted a large-scale survey of the royal cemetery and surrounding areas. They discovered two large ditches encircling parts of the site. One of them ran very close to the sacrificial pits excavated in 1978. This raised an important question. Which came first, the ditch or the pits? Did they serve related functions?
To answer this question, archaeologists placed a new excavation square at the point where the ditch and the pits intersected. By studying the layers of soil, they hoped to determine the chronological relationship between the features. At the same time, the new excavation offered a chance to reexamine the pits using modern archaeological methods that had not been available decades earlier.
Today, archaeology is far more than digging and dating. Ancient DNA analysis can trace the genetic origins of animals. Isotope studies can reveal where they lived and what they ate. Organic residue analysis can even provide clues about ritual practices. What once seemed like a simple burial of animal bones can now be treated as a rich dataset containing information about climate, diet, royal life, and religious beliefs.
As excavation continued, archaeologists discovered that the pits were arranged in rows running east to west. They came in two main sizes. Larger pits were nearly square and relatively deep, while smaller pits were rectangular and shallower. Together they reflected the complex ritual system of the late Shang dynasty.
The team eventually excavated thirty-four new pits and reopened twenty-five pits first investigated in 1978. By the end of 2024, as researchers began comparing the newly uncovered remains with earlier discoveries, they realized something unusual. The animals in the newly excavated pits seemed different from those found before.
Another striking detail caught the archaeologists’ attention. Thirteen of the newly excavated pits contained bronze bells placed alongside animal bones. In total, twenty-nine bells were discovered. Their positions were remarkably consistent. Almost every bell appeared near the animal’s neck or head. Some pits contained only one bell, while others contained several. One pit with wolves and large carnivores contained three bells. Another pit with a human and large predators contained four.
One pit, nicknamed the “bird pit,” held scattered bones of swans, cranes, geese, falcons, and eagles. Because the bones were poorly preserved, the exact number of birds could not be determined. Ten bronze bells were found in the same pit, though their original positions were unclear.
These bells convinced scholars that the animals buried in the pits were not simply hunted shortly before sacrifice. They had been raised in captivity. Niu Shishan, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, explained that dog skeletons frequently appear in Shang dynasty burials, and many of those dogs wore bronze bells. Dogs had been domesticated for thousands of years and lived closely with humans. The same logic likely applied to these wild animals. Even more revealing, the bells were carefully sized to match the animals. Large animals wore large bells, and smaller animals wore smaller ones. This suggests deliberate design rather than improvisation.
Another clue emerged from the bones themselves. Almost all the animals were juveniles. None had reached full adulthood. This raises a vivid possibility. Shang aristocrats may have captured or obtained these animals when they were young and raised them in royal parks or enclosures. While still immature, perhaps before they developed dangerous claws or horns, they wore bronze bells and lived within the royal grounds. Eventually they were selected as sacrificial offerings in rituals intended to communicate with the gods.
Archaeological discoveries often sound dramatic, but the daily work of excavation can be slow and exhausting. Li Xiaomeng, an assistant researcher involved in the project, remembers many frustrating moments. One of the most difficult tasks was identifying the boundary of a pit. The soil used to fill the pit was almost identical in color to the surrounding earth. The only solution was to pour water repeatedly over the surface. Once the soil absorbed the water, subtle color differences appeared, allowing the outline of the pit to gradually emerge.
In one case, the team spent three days simply confirming the shape of a single pit. They scraped the surface once and marked a boundary. Students scraped it again and discovered a different outline. A third attempt produced yet another variation. Eventually the team soaked the soil thoroughly and tried again the next day. This time the boundary returned to the original shape. The entire process changed the pit’s size by only five centimeters.
Another pit presented a different challenge. Nearly four meters long and more than two and a half meters deep, it was one of the largest at the site. Excavated briefly in 1978, it had been abandoned when archaeologists suspected it had already been disturbed. When excavation resumed in 2021, researchers discovered that the pit still contained important remains at the bottom. Eventually they uncovered a combination of three human skeletons and one elephant.
The elephant’s neck still bore a bronze bell.
Cleaning the pit was painstaking work. Archaeologists noticed traces of carbonized matting covering the bottom, possibly the remains of a woven mat used during the ritual. Using bamboo picks, they carefully removed soil grain by grain. The work was physically demanding. Workers could remain in the pit for only short periods before their backs began to ache. Sometimes they balanced awkwardly on small footholds in the pit wall, almost like rock climbers, just to reach the right angle for cleaning.
When they finally finished, the faint pattern of the ancient mat emerged from the soil. Beneath it lay the elephant and the human skeletons. It was a silent scene from three thousand years ago.
The animals discovered in these pits, including elephants and the sacred water buffalo, also provide clues about the ancient climate of northern China. Many of these species today live only in tropical or subtropical regions. Yet three thousand years ago they apparently thrived in the region around Anyang.
Studies of ancient climate have long suggested that the Shang period was warmer than today. The meteorologist Zhu Kezhen once proposed that average temperatures were roughly one and a half to two degrees Celsius higher. However, the climate may also have been relatively dry. Archaeological surveys show that ancient wells at Yinxu sometimes reach depths of more than ten meters before hitting water. In the twentieth century, the water table in the same area was much higher.
Animal remains provide a vivid illustration of these environmental conditions. Asian elephants, for example, once roamed far north in China. During the Neolithic period their range extended as far as the region near modern Beijing. By the Han dynasty they had retreated south to the Huai River valley. By the Song dynasty they were confined to areas south of the Yangtze River. Today wild Asian elephants survive in China only in a small region of Yunnan Province.
The presence of elephants, rhinoceroses, and other animals at Yinxu suggests that the environment three thousand years ago was suitable for them. Even if some animals were brought from distant regions, they would have needed a favorable climate to survive in captivity.
In this sense, the animals with bronze bells around their necks are not only relics of ritual practice, they are messengers from the past, offering evidence of a warmer world in ancient northern China.
Some pits containing large predators also included human skeletons. Archaeologists believe these individuals may have been the caretakers who raised the animals. Just as a chariot burial might include a driver buried with his horses, the handlers responsible for feeding and controlling these creatures may have been sacrificed alongside them when the time came for ritual offerings.
Taken together, the discoveries reveal a remarkably organized system. According to Niu Shishan, the Shang dynasty appears to have practiced standardized procedures in hunting, raising animals, processing their remains, and conducting rituals. Royal hunting grounds supplied animals, enclosures or parks housed them, and specialized personnel cared for them. Finally, at regular intervals, sacrificial ceremonies took place in the royal cemetery area.
Maintaining such a system would have required enormous resources. Large herbivores needed vast quantities of fodder, while predators required steady supplies of meat. The Shang capital itself may have had a population of nearly two hundred thousand people, and scholars estimate the total population of the Shang realm at more than seven million.
Many questions remain unanswered. Were the animals captured in the wild and raised briefly before sacrifice, or were they bred in captivity over multiple generations? Did some arrive as tribute from distant regions? Future research using DNA analysis and isotope studies may reveal where the animals came from and what they ate.
For now, archaeologists can only piece together fragments of the story. Bones that cannot yet be identified may eventually yield their secrets through new scientific techniques. The ancient “zoo” of the Shang kings has already revealed much about ritual, power, and the relationship between humans and animals in early Chinese civilization. Yet it still holds many mysteries waiting beneath the soil, ready for future scholars to uncover.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Li Jing, translator Yu Shougang, and copy editor JT. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.