Did the Shang Dynasty offer sacrifices to the living, or even the royal family ate people?

Because it was a slave society at that time, the Shang Dynasty attached great importance to sacrificial activities, so they used living people as sacrifices. Moreover, at that time, the productivity was low, and the enemy would be caught and sacrificed to the ancestors and then eaten.

In Shang dynasty, people who were sacrificed were called people. From these two words, we can see that people are regarded as livestock. When holding sacrificial activities, people are sacrificed to ghosts and gods, but ghosts and gods only eat the souls of these sacrifices, not raw ones, so the meat is divided up by some nobles of Hui, Yin and Shang dynasties.

It is recorded in Oracle Bone Inscriptions that when people sacrifice animals, they will completely remove the internal organs of people or livestock, and some even kill them cruelly by beheading, pouring water, cooking or roasting with charcoal fire. As long as they can think of ways, they will use them.

The system of human sacrifice originated in ancient times. At that time, productivity was low and it was impossible to feed many people. Therefore, in order to get more food, the enemy will be caught and sacrificed to his ancestors, and then eaten. This system was popular for thousands of years and later became a sacrifice of Shang Dynasty. Not all the people who were sacrificed were eaten, but some of them were definitely eaten. In order to quell the flood, Shang Zhouwang once killed 30 people to sacrifice to the river god, and Zhou Wenwang's eldest son Boycott was also eaten as meat soup after the sacrifice. It was not until the Zhou Dynasty that the system of offering sacrifices to the living was abolished, but there was still a system of offering sacrifices to people.