Abstract: From the ancient city ruins of the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C.-1046 B.C.) including Yanshi, Huanbei and Yinxu in Huannan, the layout principle of the palace city and ancestral temple of the royal family in the Shang Dynasty is in highly consistence with obvious inherited features. The ancestral temple district of Yanshi city ruin is in the structure of the southern part (the enshrined place for the past kings), the middle part (for the past feudal dukes), and the northern part (for the six natural gods). That of Huanbei is in the structure of the southern part (the enshrined place for the past kings) and the northern part (for the past feudal dukes) and that of Huannan is in the structure of the southern part (the enshrined place for the earlier past kings), the middle part (for the later past kings) and the northern part (for the past feudal dukes). The grouping principle in the construction of ancestral temple district was followed by the kings during the Shang Dynasty. According to the ancient texts preserved in present days, the Emperor Guangwu LIU Xiu (5 B.C.-57 A.D.) in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Gaozu LI Yuan (556 A.D.-635 A.D.) in the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizu ZHAO Kuangyin (927 A.D.-976 A.D.) in the Song Dynasty, Emperor Taizu ZHU Yuanzhang (1328 A.D.-1398 A.D.) in the Ming Dynasty and other emperors all established temples for four successive generation ancesters, and their descendants followed the system. The archaeological discovery reveals that the system had exsited when the King Shangtang Dayi established his kingdom and was long adhered by the royal family of Shang Dynasty. And each of the kings of the Shang Dynasty set up an independent ancestral temple for his own father. After the accumulation by the fourth or fifth generation, the royal family built the architectural complex of the ancestral temple, enshrining the ancesters from the grandfather and great grandfathers in previous four or five generations. That architectural complex may be set in a straight line from the west to the east, and the main temple rooms arranged from earlier ancesters to the later. In the period of the Yinxu ruin of the late Shang Dynasty, the structure of the five successive ancestor temples situated in a front and back order is more prevalent. This system of five successive ancestor temple group directly affects the rules of the ancestral temple setting of the royal family in the Zhou Dynasty (1045 B.C.-256 B.C.). For example, in the Jing Palace and the Kang Palace in the Zhou Dynasty both have the temples for the past kings in five successive generations.

Key words: the district of palace city and ancestral temple, temples for the four successive generation ancesters, the principle of grouping ancestral temples, set in a straight line, the system of grouping five successive ancestor temples