Before leaving the Shang dynasty, which may be described as the semi-historical period of Chinese history, a few words as to its culture will be in place.  The Shang and Chóu dynasties have left to the Far-eastern world most valuable legacies in the shape of monuments of national art, chiefly sacrificial vessels and bells made of bronze and covered with characteristic ornaments, sometimes also with hieroglyphic inscriptions.  Under the Emperor Shï-huang-ti works of literature and of art had a narrow escape from being consigned to oblivion, owing to the persecution of this enemy of all ancient civilization.  Lovers of these precious monuments of antiquity had to bury, immure, or conceal them, lest they might be discovered and destroyed under a cruel law.  Later centuries rediscovered them, when a period of renaissance set in, culminating in the imperial collections of the T'ang dynasty in the eighth, and again in the twelfth, century, under the great imperial collector Hui-tsung, and finally under K'ién-lung of the present dynasty. (Hirth, 1911)