| Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Dawn of History |
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The earliest writing began to take shape in China way back in
Neolithic times. The very first rudimentary symbols appeared on the
earthenware of the Longshan Culture. These late Neolithic people
are known for their burnished black pottery first excavated in
Longshan, Shandong Province in 1928.
Earthenware artifacts from sites attributed to the Erlitou Culture
that came later were already carrying symbols that would be the
precursors of the written language of the famous oracle bones of
the Shang Dynasty (about 16th-11th centuries BC).
The Erlitou was an early bronze-age culture usually associated with
the Xia Dynasty (about 21st-16th centuries BC). The name derives
from discoveries at Erlitou in Yanshi County, Henan Province.
Oracle bone inscriptions were first discovered in the autumn of
1899. They came to light in Yinxu, near Xiaotun village, Anyang
city, Henan Province. This was the site of the capital city of the
Yin Dynasty, which is the name given to the later period of the
Shang.
The ancient custom of divination was born out of the mystical and
religious practices of the day. The Historical Records of
Sima Qian who lived in the days of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC
- AD 25) brings us an account. In ancient times the king would seek
inspiration through divination. A hot instrument was applied to the
back of tortoise shell or animal bone and the hidden meaning in the
cracks produced was then interpreted. The practice went on to be
refined with a written record of the divination being incised on
the 'oracle bone'. And so oracle bone inscriptions came into
being.
Divination was a widespread practice in the Shang Dynasty that saw
oracle bone inscription develop into a mature and comprehensive
writing system.
The discovery a century ago in Yinxu of these remarkable
inscriptions added a 1,000 years to the span of China's recorded
history. In his Origin of Chinese Civilization, the late
renowned archaeologist Xia Nai wrote of the Yinxu culture of the
Shang as a truly glorious ancient civilization, which was
significant for three distinctive features. These were its imperial
capital, its bronze-ware and the actual words of the people of
these days handed down to us over these many years, inscribed in
ancient Chinese characters.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, more
and more Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions have been
uncovered. Major finds include:?
- over 4,000 pieces of inscribed oracle bone unearthed in
Xiaotun, in the south of Yinxu in 1973.
- ?another 1,583 pieces from Huayuanzhuang, in the east of
Yinxu in 1991.?
- ?70 pieces of tortoise shell and ox shoulder blade
together with a few pottery relics recently excavated in two
sacrificial pits in Xiaotun, Anyang city, Henan
Province.?
- ?a find of over 200 pieces of inscribed oracle bone
deposited in five layers with a piece of bronze-ware, five pieces
of rare timber, a shell necklace and a frog-headed bone knife in a
sacrificial pit also in Xiaotun, Yinxu in 2002. These added much to
what had been discovered at the same location in 1973.?
- ?eight pieces of inscribed oracle bone at Daxinzhuang in
Jinan city, Shandong Province. This find is all the more important
for being an example of a Shang site located away from the main
locus of such discoveries around Yinxu.
Starting with finds in Hongdong, Shanxi Province in 1954, more
and more oracle bone inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty
(about 1,100 - 771 BC) have been brought to light successively in
Beijing, Shaanxi and Hebei provinces.
The body of knowledge now available to researchers tells of a
written language with over 4,600 known characters. Of these some
1,000 have already been deciphered.
And what's more, scholars have succeeded in gaining a real insight
into this ancient script. They have mastered the secrets of how its
words, phrases and sentences are constructed. Their scholarly
research has identified various ways in which words were
represented. Some were onomatopoeic seeking to directly
represent a particular sound or action. There were those which were
pictophonetic, with one element of the character conveying a
meaning and another a sound. Good use was also made of the
technique known as the phonetic loan where a written
character borrows an additional meaning from another word that
sounded much the same in the spoken language.
The superstitious kings of the Shang turned to divination to guide
them in those aspects of life that mattered most to them. This is
fortunate for the history of the Shang for it led them to leave us
oracle bone inscriptions dealing with such diverse topics as the
politics, economics, culture and even the norms of etiquette of
these far off times.
These ancient writings also embrace matters of geography and
astronomical phenomena. They include comprehensive written records
of solar and lunar eclipses, which can be used to confirm the
accuracy of modern astronomical calculations.
Some 150,000 inscribed oracle bones are held in collections around
the world. Of these some 80,000 to 90,000 are in China's mainland
with a further 20,000 in Taiwan.
The origins of archaeology in China go hand in hand with the
discovery of oracle bone inscriptions. Following on the heels of
the centenary of the famous discovery in Yinxu, have come a growing
number of symposia both at home and abroad. Today, ancient Chinese
writing is attracting worldwide attention.
(China.org.cn, translated by Shao Da, May 27, 2003)
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