Oracle bones (Chinese A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi), Japanese (kanji), less frequently Korean (hanja), and formerly Vietnamese (hán tự), and other languages. Chinese characters are also known as sinographs, and the Chinese writing system as sinography. Chinese characters represent the oldest: 甲骨; pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or ": jiǎgǔ) are pieces of bone Bones are rigid organs that form part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They function to move, support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue. Because bones come in a variety of shapes and have a complex internal and external structure or turtle plastron The plastron is the nearly flat part of the shell structure of a turtle or tortoise, what one would call the belly, similar in composition to the carapace; with an external layer of horny material divided into plates called scutes and an underlying layer of interlocking bones (underside) bearing the answers to divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty The inscriptions on the oracle bones are divinations, which can be gleaned for information on the politics, economy, culture, religion, geography, astronomy, calendar, art and medicine of the period, and as such provide critical insight into the early stages of the Chinese civilization. One site of the Shang capitals, later historically called the. They were heated and cracked, then typically inscribed using a bronze pin[1] in what is known as oracle bone script Oracle bone script refers to incised (or, rarely, brush-written) ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China. The vast majority record the pyromantic divinations of the royal house of the late Shāng dynasty at the capital of Yīn (modern Ānyáng, Hénán. The oracle bones are the earliest known significant[2] corpus of ancient Chinese writing Written Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated. These symbols are commonly known as Chinese characters (traditional/simplified Chinese: 漢字/汉字; pinyin: hànzì). Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the, and contain important historical information such as the complete royal genealogy of the Shāng dynasty[3]. These records confirmed the existence of the Shāng dynasty, which some scholars, until then, doubted.

Contents

Dating

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Discovery

Oracle bones pit at Yinxu Yinxu (Chinese: 殷墟; pinyin: Yīnxū; literally "Ruins of Yin" ) is the ruins of the last capital of China's Shang Dynasty (1766 BC - 1050 BC). The capital served 255 years for 12 kings in 8 generations, Anyang.

The Shāng-dynasty oracle bones are thought to have been unearthed periodically[4] by local farmers, perhaps starting as early as the Hàn dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This,[5] and certainly by 19th century China, when they were sold as dragon bones (lóng gǔ 龍骨) in the traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese Medicine, also known as TCM, includes a range of traditional medicine practices originating in China. Although well accepted in the mainstream of medical care throughout East Asia, it is considered an alternative medical system in much of the Western world markets, used either whole or crushed for the healing of various ailments.[6] The turtle shell fragments were prescribed for malaria[7], while the other animal bones were used in powdered form to treat knife wounds[8]. They were first recognized as bearing ancient Chinese writing by a scholar and high-ranking Qing dynasty official[8], Wáng Yìróng (王懿榮; 1845–1900) in 1899. A legendary[8] tale states that Wang was sick with malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by a eukaryotic protist of the genus Plasmodium. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas , Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria, killing between one and three million people, the majority of whom, and his scholar friend Liú È (劉鶚; 1857–1909) was visiting him and helped examine his medicine. They discovered, before it was ground into powder, that it bore strange glyphs, which they, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions Chinese Bronze inscriptions are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese bronze artifacts such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shāng dynasty to the Zhōu dynasty and even later. Early bronze inscriptions were almost always cast , while later inscriptions were often engraved after the bronze was cast, recognized as ancient writing. As Xǔ Yǎhuì (許雅惠 2002, p. 4) states:

"No one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into peoples’ stomachs."

It is not known how Wang and Liu actually came across these “dragon bones”, but Wang is credited with being the first[8] to recognize their significance, and his friend Liu was the first to publish a book on oracle bones[9]. Word spread among collectors of antiquities, and the market for oracle bones exploded. Although scholars tried to find their source, antique dealers falsely claimed that the bones came from Tāngyīn (湯陰) [8] in Hénán. Decades of uncontrolled digs[10] followed to fuel the antiques trade, and many of these pieces eventually entered collections in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan[11]. The first Western collector was the American Rev. Frank H. Chalfant[12], while Presbyterian minister James Mellon Menzies (明義士) (1885–1957) of Canada bought the largest amount[13]. The Chinese still acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Menzies as "the foremost western scholar of Yin-Shang culture and oracle bone inscriptions." His former residence in Anyang was declared in 2004 a "Protected Treasure" and the James Mellon Menzies Memorial Museum for Oracle Bone Studies was established[14][15][16]

Official excavations

By the time of the establishment of the Institute of History and Philology headed by Fù Sīnián Fù Sīnián , was a famous Chinese educator and linguist, and one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. He was also one of the creators of the Academia Sinica, and was named director of the Institute of History and Philology upon its founding in 1928. In 1933 he published his East Yi West Xia theory about the origin of prehistory at the Academia Sinica The Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences. In 2009, Academia Sinica has been ranked 19th in 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced back to modern Xiǎotún (小屯) village at Ānyáng Anyang is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, People's Republic of China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively in Hénán Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He) Province. Official archaeological excavations in 1928-1937 led by Lĭ Jì (李濟; 1896–1979), the father of Chinese archaeology[17], discovered 20,000 oracle bone pieces, which now form the bulk of the Academia Sinica's collection in Taiwan Taiwan, also known as Formosa , is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, and comprises most of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s. The term "Taiwan" has also become a commonly used alternative name both domestically and and constitute about 1/5 of the total discovered[18] . The inscriptions on the oracle bones, once deciphered, turned out to be the records of the divinations performed for or by the royal household. These, together with royal-sized tombs[19], proved beyond a doubt for the first time the existence of the Shāng Dynasty, which had recently been doubted, and the location of its last capital, Yīn. Today, Xiǎotún at Ānyáng is thus also known as the Ruins of Yīn, or Yīnxū (殷墟) Yinxu (Chinese: 殷墟; pinyin: Yīnxū; literally "Ruins of Yin" ) is the ruins of the last capital of China's Shang Dynasty (1766 BC - 1050 BC). The capital served 255 years for 12 kings in 8 generations.

Materials

In this Shang Dynasty The inscriptions on the oracle bones are divinations, which can be gleaned for information on the politics, economy, culture, religion, geography, astronomy, calendar, art and medicine of the period, and as such provide critical insight into the early stages of the Chinese civilization. One site of the Shang capitals, later historically called the oracle bone (which is incomplete), a diviner asks the Shang king if there would be misfortune over the next ten days; the king replied that he had consulted the ancestor Xiaojia in a worship ceremony.

The oracle bones are mostly tortoise Tortoises or land turtles are land-dwelling reptiles of the family of Testudinidae, order Testudines. Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise has both an endoskeleton plastrons The plastron is the nearly flat part of the shell structure of a turtle or tortoise, what one would call the belly, similar in composition to the carapace; with an external layer of horny material divided into plates called scutes and an underlying layer of interlocking bones (ventral or belly shells, probably female[20]) and ox Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius. Cattle are raised as livestock for meat (beef and veal), as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, scapulae In anatomy, the scapula, omo , or shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus (arm bone) with the clavicle (collar bone) (shoulder blades), although some are the carapace A carapace is a dorsal section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods such as crustaceans and arachnids as well as vertebrates such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tortoises, the underside is called the plastron (dorsal or back shells) of tortoises, and a few are ox rib bones[21], scapulae of sheep, boars, horses and deer, and some other animal bones[22]. The skulls of deer, ox skulls and human skulls[23] have also been found with inscriptions on them, although these are very rare, and appear to have been inscribed for record-keeping or practice rather than for actual divination[24]; in one case inscribed deer antlers are reported, but Keightley (1978) reports that they are fake[25]. Neolithic diviners in China had long been heating the bones of deer, sheep, pigs and cattle for similar purposes; evidence for this in Liáoníng Liaoning (simplified Chinese: 辽宁; traditional Chinese: 遼寧; pinyin: Liáoníng) is a northeastern province of the People's Republic of China. Its one-character abbreviation is Liao (辽 pinyin: liáo) has been found dating to the late fourth millennium BCE[26]. However, over time, the use of ox bones increased, and use of tortoise shells does not appear until early Shāng culture. The earliest tortoise shells found that had been prepared for oracle bone use (i.e., with chiseled pits) date to the earliest Shāng stratum at Èrlĭgāng The Erligang culture (1600 - 1400 BC) is the term used by archaeologists to refer to a Bronze Age archaeological culture in China. The primary site was discovered at Erligang, just outside of the modern city of Zhengzhou, Henan, in 1951 (Zhèngzhoū Zhengzhou , formerly called Zheng County (simplified Chinese: 郑县), is a prefecture-level city, and the capital of Henan province, People's Republic of China. It also serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational centre of the province, as well as being a major transportation hub for Central China. It lies on the southern, Hénán Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He))[27]. By the end of the Èrlĭgāng the plastrons were numerous[28], and at Ānyáng Anyang is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, People's Republic of China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively scapulae and plastrons were used in roughly equal numbers[29]. Due to the use of these shells in addition to bones, early references to the oracle bone script often used the term 'shell and bone script', but since tortoise shells are actually a bony material, the more concise term "oracle bones" is applied to them as well.

The bones or shells were first sourced, and then prepared for use. Their sourcing is significant because some of them (especially many of the shells) are believed to have been presented as tribute to the Shāng, which is valuable information about diplomatic relations of the time. We know this because notations were often made on them recording their provenance (e.g. tribute of how many shells from where and on what date). For example, one notation records that “Què (雀) sent 250 (tortoise shells)”, identifying this as, perhaps, a statelet within the Shāng sphere of influence[30]. These notations were generally made on the back of the shell's bridge (called bridge notations), the lower carapace, or the xiphiplastron (tail edge). Some shells may have been from locally raised tortoises, however.[31] Scapula notations were near the socket or a lower edge. Some of these notations were not carved after being written with a brush, proving (along with other evidence) the use of the writing brush in Shāng times. Scapulae are assumed to have generally come from the Shāng’s own livestock, perhaps those used in ritual sacrifice, although there are records of cattle sent as tribute as well, including some recorded via marginal notations[32].

Preparation and usage

The bones or shells were cleaned of meat, and then prepared by sawing, scraping, smoothing and even polishing to create convenient, flat surfaces.[33][34] The predominance of scapulae and later of plastrons is also thought to be related to their convenience as large, flat surfaces needing minimal preparation. There is also speculation that only female tortoise shells were used, as these are significantly less concave[35]. Pits or hollows were then drilled or chiseled partway through the bone or shell in orderly series. At least one such drill has been unearthed at Èrlĭgāng The Erligang culture (1600 - 1400 BC) is the term used by archaeologists to refer to a Bronze Age archaeological culture in China. The primary site was discovered at Erligang, just outside of the modern city of Zhengzhou, Henan, in 1951, exactly matching the pits in size and shape[36]. The shape of these pits evolved over time, and is an important indicator for dating the oracle bones within various sub-periods in the Shāng dynasty. The shape and depth also helped determine the nature of the crack that would appear. The number of pits per bone or shell varied widely.

Divination

Replica of an oracle bone -- ox scapula

Since divination (-mancy) was by heat or fire (pyro-) and most often on plastrons or scapulae, the terms pyromancy Pyromancy is the art of divination by means of fire, plastromancy[37] and scapulimancy are often used for this process. Divinations were typically carried out for the Shāng kings, in the presence of a diviner. A very few oracle bones were used in divination by other members of the royal family or nobles close to the king. By the latest periods, the Shāng kings took over the role of diviner personally.[38]

During a divination session, the shell or bone was anointed with blood [39], and in an inscription section called the 'preface', the date was recorded using the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches The Chinese sexagenary cycle , also known as Stems-and-Branches (Chinese: 干支; pinyin: gānzhī), is a cyclic numeral system of 60 combinations of the two basic cycles, the ten Heavenly Stems (天干; tiāngān) and the twelve Earthly Branches (地支; dìzhī), and the diviner name was noted. Next, the topic of divination (called the 'charge') was posed[40], such as whether a particular ancestor was causing a king's toothache. The divination charges were often directed at ancestors, whom the ancient Chinese revered and worshiped, as well as natural powers and Dì (帝), the highest god in the Shāng society. A wide variety of topics were asked, essentially anything of concern to the royal house of Shāng, from illness, birth and death, to weather, warfare, agriculture, tribute and so on. One of the most common topics was whether performing rituals in a certain manner would be satisfactory.[41]

An intense heat source[42] was then inserted in a pit until it cracked. Due to the shape of the pit, the front side of the bone cracked in a rough 卜 shape. The character 卜 (pinyin: bǔ or pǔ; Old Chinese Old Chinese , or Archaic Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese spoken from the Shang Dynasty (Chinese Bronze Age, ended in the 11th century BC), well into the Former Han Dynasty (206 BC to 9 AD). There are several distinct sub-periods within that long period of time. The term, in contrast to Middle Chinese and Modern: *puk; "to divine") may be a pictogram A pictograph is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Earliest examples of pictographs include ancient or prehistoric drawings or paintings found on rock walls. Pictographs are also used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance of such a crack; the reading of the character may also be an onomatopoeia An onomatopoeia or onomatopœia (adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Onomatopoeia (as an uncountable noun) refers to the property of such words. Common occurrences of onomatopoeias include animal noises, such as "oink" or & for the cracking. A number of cracks were typically made in one session, sometimes on more than one bone, and these were typically numbered. The diviner in charge of the ceremony read the cracks to learn the answer to the divination. How exactly the cracks were interpreted is not known. The topic of divination was raised multiple times, and often in different ways, such as in the negative, or by changing the date being divined about. One oracle bone might be used for one session, or for many[43], and one session could be recorded on a number of bones. The divined answer was sometimes then marked either "auspicious" or "inauspicious," and the king occasionally[44] added a “prognostication”, his reading on the nature of the omen. On very rare[44] occasions, the actual outcome was later added to the bone in what is known as a “verification”. A complete record of all the above elements is rare; most bones contain just the date, diviner and topic of divination,[44] and many remained uninscribed after the divination[45].

This record is thought to have been brush-written on the oracle bones or accompanying documents, later to be carved in a workshop. As evidence of this, a few of the oracle bones found still bear their brush-written records[46], without carving, while some have been found partially carved. After use, shells and bones used ritualy[47] were buried in separate pits (some for shells only; others for scapulae only), in groups of up to hundreds or even thousands (one pit unearthed in 1936 contained over 17,000 pieces along with a human skeleton)[48].

Mythical origins of pyromancy

A mythical account published in the Míng dynasty The Ming Dynasty , or Empire of the Great Ming (simplified Chinese: 大明国; traditional Chinese: 大明國; pinyin: Dà Míng Guó, also anachronistically simplified Chinese: 大明帝国; traditional Chinese: 大明帝國; pinyin: Dà Míng Dìguó), was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led credits the mythical Fú Xī Fu Xi or Fu Hsi (Chinese: 伏羲; pinyin: fúxī; aka Paoxi ), mid 2800s BCE, was the first of the Three Sovereigns (三皇 sānhuáng) of ancient China. He is a culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping. However Cangjie is also said to have invented writing with the invention of plastromancy, while a Sòng dynasty The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first account tells of tribute of a divine tortoise shell from what is now Vietnam Vietnam (pronounced /ˌviː.ɛtˈnɑːm/ VEE-et-NAHM; Vietnamese: Việt Nam, listen ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam, listen (help·info)), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by People's Republic of China (PRC) to the, sent to the court of the mythical emperor Yáo Yao (2358 - 2258 BC)[citation needed] was a Chinese ruler, one of the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors. Also known as Taotang-shi (陶唐氏), he was born Yi Fangxun (伊放勳) or Yi Qi (伊祁) as the second son to Emperor Ku and Qingdu (慶都). He is also known as Tang Yao (唐堯)[49].

Archaeological evidence of pre-Anyang pyromancy

While the use of bones in divination has been practiced almost globally, such divination involving fire or heat has generally been found in Asia and the Asian-derived North American cultures[50]. The use of heat to crack scapulae (pyro-scapulimancy) originated in ancient China, the earliest[51] evidence of which extends back to the 4th millennium BCE, with archaeological finds from Liáoníng Liaoning (simplified Chinese: 辽宁; traditional Chinese: 遼寧; pinyin: Liáoníng) is a northeastern province of the People's Republic of China. Its one-character abbreviation is Liao (辽 pinyin: liáo), but these were not inscribed. In Neolithic China at a variety of sites, the scapulae of cattle, sheep, pigs and deer used in pyromancy have been found[52], and the practice appears to have become quite common by the end of the third millennium BCE. Scapulae were unearthed along with smaller numbers of pitless plastrons in the Nánguānwài (南關外) stage at Zhèngzhoū Zhengzhou , formerly called Zheng County (simplified Chinese: 郑县), is a prefecture-level city, and the capital of Henan province, People's Republic of China. It also serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational centre of the province, as well as being a major transportation hub for Central China. It lies on the southern, Hénán Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He); scapulae as well as smaller numbers of plastrons with chiseled pits were also discovered in the Lower and Upper Èrlĭgāng The Erligang culture (1600 - 1400 BC) is the term used by archaeologists to refer to a Bronze Age archaeological culture in China. The primary site was discovered at Erligang, just outside of the modern city of Zhengzhou, Henan, in 1951 stages[53].

Significant use of tortoise plastrons does not appear until the Shāng culture sites.[54] Ox scapulae and plastrons, both prepared for divination, were found at the Shāng culture sites of Táixīcūn (台西村) in Hébĕi Hebei (Chinese: 河北; pinyin: Héběi; Wade-Giles: Ho-pei; Postal map spelling: Hopeh) is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "冀" (pinyin: jì), named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included what is now southern Hebei. The name Hebei means &, and Qiūwān (丘灣) in Jiāngsū Jiangsu (simplified Chinese: 江苏; traditional Chinese: 江蘇; pinyin: Jiāngsū; Wade-Giles: Chiang-su; Postal map spelling: Kiangsu) is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning (now Nanjing), and su, for the city of Suzhou. The[55]. One or more pitted scapulae were found at Lùsìcūn (鹿寺村) in Hénán Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He), while unpitted scapulae have been found at Èrlĭtóu The Erlitou culture is a name given by archaeologists to an Early Bronze Age urban society that existed in China from 2000 BCE to 1500 BCE. The culture was named after the site discovered at Erlitou (二里頭村) in Yanshi, Henan Province. The culture was widely spread throughout Henan and Shanxi Province, and later appeared in Shaanxi and Hubei in Hénán Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He), Cíxiàn (磁縣) in Hébĕi Hebei (Chinese: 河北; pinyin: Héběi; Wade-Giles: Ho-pei; Postal map spelling: Hopeh) is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "冀" (pinyin: jì), named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included what is now southern Hebei. The name Hebei means &, Níngchéng (寧城) in Liáoníng, and Qíjiā (齊家) in Gānsù [56]. Plastrons do not become more numerous than scapulae until the Rénmín (人民) Park phase[57].

As for pyromantic shells or bones with inscriptions, the earliest date back to the site of Èrlĭgāng in Zhèngzhoū, Hénán, where burned scapula of oxen, sheep and pigs were found, and one bone fragment from a pre-Shāng layer was inscribed with a graph (ㄓ) corresponding to Shāng oracle bone script. Another piece found at the site bears ten or more characters that are similar to the Shāng script but different in their pattern of use, and it is not clear what layer the piece came from[58].

Post-Shāng oracle bones

After the Zhōu conquest, the Shāng practices of bronze casting, pyromancy and writing continued. Oracle bones found in the 1970s have been dated to the Zhōu dynasty, with some dating to the Spring and Autumn period. However, very few of those were inscribed; these very early inscribed Zhōu oracle bones are also known as the Zhōuyuán oracle bones. It is thought that other methods of divination supplanted pyromancy, such as numerological divination using milfoil (yarrow) in connection with the hexagrams of the I Ching, leading to the decline in inscribed oracle bones. However, evidence for the continued use of plastromancy exists for the Eastern Zhōu, Hàn, Táng[59] and Qīng[60] dynasty periods, and Keightley (1978, p. 9) mentions use in Taiwan as late as 1972[61].

Notes

  1. ^ Not all oracle bones were inscribed after divination. (Xu Yahui p.30)
  2. ^ The oracle bones are not the earliest writing in China--a very few isolated mid to late Shang pottery, bone and bronze inscriptions may predate them. However, the oracle bones are considered the earliest significant body of writing, due to the length of the inscriptions, the vast amount of vocabulary (very roughly 4000 graphs), and the sheer quantity of pieces found -- at least 100,000 pieces (Qiu 2000, p.61; Keightley 1978, p.xiii) bearing millions (Qiu 2000, p.49) of characters, and around 5,000 different characters (Qiu 2000, p.49), forming a full working vocabulary (Qiu 2000, p.50 cites various statistical studies before concluding that “the number of Chinese characters in general use is around five to six thousand”). It should be noted that there are also inscribed or brush-written Neolithic signs in China, but they do not generally occur in strings of signs resembling writing; rather, they generally occur singly and whether or not these constitute writing or are ancestral to the Shang writing system is currently a matter of great academic controversy. They are also insignificant in number compared to the massive amounts of oracle bones found so far. See Qiú 2000, Boltz 2003, and Woon 1987.
  3. ^ Zhōu Hóngxiáng (周鴻翔) 1976 p.12 cites two such scapulae, citing his own “商殷帝王本紀” Shāng–Yīn dìwáng bĕnjì, pp. 18-21
  4. ^ Qiu 2000, p.60
  5. ^ Zhōu Hóngxiáng (周鴻翔) 1976 p.1, citing Wei Juxian 1939, “Qín-Hàn shi fāxiàn jiǎgǔwén shuō”, in Shuōwén Yuè Kān, vol. 1, no.4; and He Tianxing 1940, "Jiǎgǔwén yi xianyu gǔdài shuō”, in Xueshu (Shànghǎi), no. 1
  6. ^ Fairbank, 2006, p. 33.
  7. ^ Xu Yahui p.4-5 cites The Compendium of Materia Medica and includes a photo of the relevant page and entry.
  8. ^ a b c d e Xu Yahui p.4
  9. ^ Xu Yahui p.16
  10. ^ Xu Yahui p.6 cites eight waves of illegal digs over three decades, with tens of thousands of pieces taken.
  11. ^ Zhou 1976, p.1
  12. ^ Rev. Chalfant acquired 803 oracle bone pieces between 1903 and 1908, and hand-traced over 2500 pieces including these. Zhōu 1976, p.1-2.
  13. ^ Xu Yahui p.6
  14. ^ Wang Haiping (2006). "Menzies and Yin-Shang Culture Scholarship – An Unbreakable Bond." Anyang Ribao (Anyang Daily), August 12, 2006, p.1
  15. ^ See Linfu Dong (2005). Cross Culture snd Faith: the Life and Work of James Mellon Menzies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press
  16. ^ Geoff York (2008). "The unsung Canadian some knew as 'Old Bones' James Mellon Menzies, a man of God whose faith inspired him to unearth clues about the Middle Kingdom." Globe and Mail, January 18, 2008, p. F4-5
  17. ^ Xu Yahui, p.9
  18. ^ over 100,000 pieces have been found in all (Qiu 2000, p.61; Keightley 1978, p.xiii)
  19. ^ Eleven royal-sized tombs were found --Xu Yahui p.10; note that this exactly matches the number of kings who should have been buried at Yīn (the 12th king died in the Zhou conquest and would not have received a royal burial).
  20. ^ Keightley 1978, p.9 – the female shells are smoother, flatter and of more uniform thickness, facilitating pyromantic use.
  21. ^ According to Zhōu 1976 p.7, only four rib bones have been found.
  22. ^ such as ox humerus or astragalus (ankle bone); see Zhōu 1976, p.1
  23. ^ Xu Yahui p.34 shows a large, clear photograph of a piece of inscribed human skull in the collection of the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, presumably belonging to an enemy of the Shang.
  24. ^ Keightley 1978, p.7; note that there appears to be some confusion in published reports between inscribed bones in general, and bones that have actually been heated and cracked for use in divination
  25. ^ Keightley 1978, p.7, note 21; Xu Yahui p.35 does show an inscribed deer skull, thought to have been killed by a Shang king during a hunt.
  26. ^ Keightley 1978, p.3
  27. ^ Keightley 1978 p.8
  28. ^ Keightley 1978, p.8
  29. ^ Keightley 1978, p.10
  30. ^ Keightley 1978, p.9; Xu Yahui p.22. Some cattle scapulae were also tribute (Xu Yahui p.24.)
  31. ^ Keightley 1978, p.12 mentions reports of Xiǎotún villagers finding hundreds of shells of all sizes, implying live tending or breeding of the turtles onsite.
  32. ^ Keightley 1978, p.11
  33. ^ Xu Yahui p.24; Zhou 1976 p.12 notes that evidence of sawing is present on some oracle bones, and that the saws were likely of bronze, although none have ever been found.
  34. ^ For details of the preparations, see Keightley 1978, pp.13-14.
  35. ^ Keightley 1978, p.9
  36. ^ Keightley 1978 p.18
  37. ^ According to Keightley 1978, p.5, citing Yang Junshi 1963, the term plastromancy was coined by Li Ji
  38. ^ Qiu 2000, p.61.
  39. ^ Xu Yahui p.28, citing the Rites of Zhōu
  40. ^ There is scholarly debate about whether the topic was posed as a question or not; Keightley prefers the term 'charge', since grammatical questions were often not involved
  41. ^ For a fuller overview of the topics of divination and what can be gleaned from them about the Shāng and their environment, see Keightley 2000.
  42. ^ The nature of this heat source is still a matter of debate
  43. ^ Most full (non-fragmentary) oracle bones bear multiple inscriptions; the longest of which are around 90 characters long: Qiu 2000, p.62
  44. ^ a b c Xu Yahui p.30
  45. ^ Qiu 2000, p.62
  46. ^ Qiu 2000, p.60 mentions that some were written with a brush and either ink or cinnabar, but not carved
  47. ^ Those that were for practice or records, where buried in common rubbish pits (Xu Yahui p.32)
  48. ^ Xu Yahui p.32
  49. ^ Keightley 1978, p.8, n.26
  50. ^ Keightley 1978 p.3, p.4, and p.4 n.11 & 12.
  51. ^ Keightley 1978 p.3
  52. ^ Keightley 1978, p.3; p.6, n.16
  53. ^ Keightley 1978, p.8, note 25, citing KKHP 1973.1, pp.70, 79, 88, 91, plates 3.1, 4.2, 13.8
  54. ^ Keightley p.8
  55. ^ Keightley 1978, p.8, note 25 cites KK 1973.2 p.74
  56. ^ Keightley 1978 p.6, n.16
  57. ^ Keightley 1978, p.8, note 25 cites Zhèngzhoū Èrlĭgāng, p.38
  58. ^ Qiu Xigui 2000 p. 41cites Kexue Press 1959:38, also Fig. 30
  59. ^ Keightley 1978 p.4 n.4
  60. ^ Keightley 1978, p.9, n.30, citing Hu Xu 1782-1787, ch. 4, p.3b on use in Jiāngsū
  61. ^ Keightley cites Zhāng Guangyuan 1972

References

Time in religion and mythology
Time and fate deities · Eternity · Immortality · Eschatology · Golden Age · Divination · Prophecy · Fate · Calendar

Categories: Archaeology of China | Shang Dynasty | Writing media | Divination

 

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