Pieces of ox scapula or turtle plastron used for pyromancy in Shang China
Oracle bone
A Shang dynasty oracle bone from the Shanghai Museum
Chinese
甲骨
Literal meaning
Shells and bones
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Jiǎgǔ
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Jeaguu
Wade–Giles
Chia3-ku3
IPA
[tɕjǎ.kù]
Wu
Romanization
Chiaʔ-kueʔ
Hakka
Romanization
Gap5-gut5
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization
Gaap-gwāt
Jyutping
Gaap3-gwat1
Southern Min
Tâi-lô
Kah-kut (col.) Kap-kut (lit.)
Oracle bones (Chinese: 甲骨; pinyin: jiǎgǔ) are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, plastromancy if turtle plastrons were used. A recent count estimated that there were about 13,000 bones with a total of a little over 130,000 inscriptions in collections in China and some fourteen other countries.[1]
Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and similar topics.[2] These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well.[3] Pyromancy with bones continued in China into the Zhou dynasty, but the questions and prognostications were increasingly written with brushes and cinnabar ink, which degraded over time.
The oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing, using an early form of Chinese characters.[a] The inscriptions contain around 5,000 different characters and a lot of them still being used today,[6] though the total is uncertain because some may be different versions of the same character. Specialists have agreed on the form, meanings, and sound of a little more than a quarter of them, roughly 1,200 with certainty, but several hundred more under discussion. These known characters comprise much of the core vocabulary of modern Chinese.[10] They provide important information on the late Shang period, and scholars have reconstructed the Shang royal genealogy from the cycle of ancestral sacrifices they record.[11][b] When they were discovered in the end of the nineteenth century and deciphered in the early twentieth century,[12] these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, which some scholars had until then doubted.
Oraculology is the discipline for the study of oracle bones and the oracle bone script.[13]
^Wilkinson 2022, p. 1277.
^Keightley 1978a, pp. 33–35.
^Keightley 1978a, pp. 40–42.
^Qiu 2000, p. 61.
^Keightley 1978a, p. xiii.
^ abQiu 2000, p. 49.
^Qiu 2000.
^Boltz 2003.
^Woon 1987.
^Wilkinson 2022, p. 1278.
^Keightley 1978a, pp. xiii, 185–187.
^Menzies 1917, p. 2.
^Wang, Yuxin; 王宇信 (2010). Jia gu xue dao lun = History of China historiography. Jianzhen Wei (Di 1 ban ed.). Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ISBN 978-7-5004-8878-1. OCLC 690131145.
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