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Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastra of turtles. The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the ruling Shang dynasty royal family. These divinations took the form of scapulimancy where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself.
Out of an estimated 150,000 inscriptions that have been uncovered, the vast majority were unearthed at Yinxu, the site of the final Shang capital (modern-day Anyang, Henan). The most recent major discovery was the Huayuanzhuang cache found near the site in 1993. Of the 1,608 Huayuanzhang pieces, 579 bear inscriptions.[1] Each of the last nine Shang kings are named in the inscriptions[a] beginning with Wu Ding, whose accession is variously dated between 1250 and 1200 BC.[2][3] Oracle bone inscriptions corresponding to Wu Ding's reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC (±10 years).[4] Following the overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou dynasty in c. 1046 BC, divination using milfoil became more common; far fewer oracle bone inscriptions are dated to the Western Zhou.[5] No Zhou-era sites with a comparable cache of inscriptions to Yinxu have been found; however, examples from this period appear to be more widespread, having been found near most major population centers. New sites have continued to be discovered since 2000.[6]
The oracle bone inscriptions—along with several roughly contemporaneous bronzeware inscriptions using a different style—constitute the earliest corpus of Chinese writing, and are the direct ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts developed over the next three millennia.[7] Their study is essential for the research of Chinese etymologies. It is also the direct ancestor of over a dozen East Asian writing systems. The length of inscriptions ranges from 10 to over 100 characters, but a few dozen is typical. The subjects of concern in inscriptions are broad, and include war, ritual sacrifice, and agriculture, as well as births, illnesses, and deaths in the royal family. As such, they provide invaluable insights into the character of late Shang society.
^Shen 2002, p. 86.
^Li, Xueqin (2002). "The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project: Methodology and Results". Journal of East Asian Archaeology. 4: 321–333. doi:10.1163/156852302322454585.
^Keightley 1978, p. 228.
^Liu, Kexin; Wu, Xiaohong; Guo, Zhiyu; Yuan, Sixun; Ding, Xingfang; Fu, Dongpo; Pan, Yan (2020). "Radiocarbon Dating of Oracle Bones of the Late Shang Period in Ancient China". Radiocarbon. 63 (1). Cambridge University Press: 155–175. doi:10.1017/RDC.2020.90. Archived from the original on 2022-03-14.
^Nylan, Michael (2001). The five "Confucian" classics, p. 217
^Flad, Rowan K. (2008). "Divination and Power: A Multiregional View of the Development of Oracle Bone Divination in Early China". Current Anthropology. 49 (3): 403–437. doi:10.1086/588495. ISSN 0011-3204. S2CID 62795316.
^Boltz 1994, p. 31.
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