Oracle Bone Inscriptions story

From Yin Ruins to Oracle Bones in the Western Zhou Dynasty

The knowledge of Oracle Bone Inscriptions (that is, it was identified as an ancient script) began in Ji Hai, Guangxu (1899), and the appraiser was the epigraphist Wang. He bought it from Fan, an antique dealer in wei county, Shandong Province, and took the lead in affirming its value. The discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang Yin Ruins has attracted great attention from Chinese and foreign academic circles. At that time, in China, archaeology had begun to be influenced by modern western technologies and methods. By May 1928, Academia Sinica, the highest scientific research institution in China at that time, was established, with several research institutes, among which Fu Sinian, Dean of the College of Literature of Sun Yat-sen University, was the acting director of the Institute of Historical Languages. After he took office, he attached great importance to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins. On August 12 this year, Dong Zuobin, an associate professor at Sun Yat-sen University and a 34-year-old native of Nanyang, Henan Province, was appointed to Anyang for investigation.

The purpose of Dong Zuobin's trip is to find out the situation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's burial and excavation, and see if it is worth a systematic and scientific excavation. After on-the-spot investigation, he found that the excavation of Yin Ruins has reached an urgent juncture, and "one day late means one day less". After reading the report, Fu Sinian immediately agreed to excavate the ruins of Yin Ruins in Xiaotun Village. With the support of Dean Cai Yuanpei, the excavation began on June 7th, 1928+05438, with a special appropriation of 1000 silver dollar for purchasing equipment and deploying personnel. This opened the prelude to the scientific excavation of Oracle bones in Yin Ruins, and also played the great progress of modern archaeological science in China.

The excavation of Yin Ruins was carried out for fifteen times, and it was interrupted in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in June 1937. There are 249 18 pieces of Oracle bones unearthed, and a large number of other artifacts. Among them, several issues were presided over by anthropologists and sociologists who returned from studying in the United States, and several issues were presided over by Shi and Dong Zuobin respectively. It turns out that most of these talents are not from archaeology, but with a strong sense of mission. With the research methods of related disciplines, personal historical literacy, the foundation of Chinese studies and the spirit of diligent exploration, through the important practice of archaeological excavation in Yin Ruins, they have finally made great achievements in archaeology, ancient philology and history, and promoted the development of these disciplines. 1April, 950, the excavation of Yin Ruins, which was interrupted for thirteen years, was resumed. From then until 199 1 year1October, many archaeological excavations were carried out in Yin Ruins, and a large number of Oracle bones were found, including 6243 pieces with characters. Especially in 1973, tens of thousands of Oracle bones were unearthed south of Xiaotun. Experts speculate that after the mid-Yin period, the divination organs moved from the north to the south of the village. This batch of Oracle Bone Inscriptions provides new materials for the study of Yin ruins culture by stages.

Since Oracle Bone Inscriptions was unearthed in the Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan Province, people have been talking about it, so that "Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins" has almost become synonymous with "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". With the deepening of research, some scholars began to speculate that Oracle Bone Inscriptions should also exist in the Western Zhou Dynasty. 1940, He Tianxing published "Speculation on the Discovery of Oracle Bones in Shaanxi" in the first edition of Academic published in Shanghai. According to the clue of Ten Faces of King Wen in the Book of Songs, it is speculated that the Yin people had long been in contact with the Zhou people, and the Zhou people who were also superstitious about divination had already learned the methods of divination with tortoise shells and animal bones and lettering, and kept the habit of survival. According to the record in Water Mirror Note, a turtle with gossip on its back was found in the county (which belongs to Anzhou). Combined with the sentence of "Kao Bu, whose home is Wei Guizheng" in the Book of Songs, it is speculated that Oracle Bone Inscriptions found in Anzhou, and this Oracle Bone Inscriptions belongs to Zhou nationality. This speculation began to be confirmed in the early 1950s.

Shaanxi comes first in 195 1? An animal scapula with drilling, burning and trillion marks was unearthed in the county, which is obviously an Oracle bone. 1952, another square chiseled tortoise shell was unearthed at the site in the eastern suburb of Luoyang, Henan Province. 1954, a piece of written Oracle Bone Inscriptions was found in the ruins of the Zhou Dynasty in Fangdui Village, Zhao Hong County, Shaanxi Province, and people finally realized that Oracle Bone Inscriptions really existed outside the Yin Ruins. After the 1970s, Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty was discovered in Joo Won?, the birthplace of Zhou people, and in the surrounding vassal states of the Western Zhou Dynasty. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions can be divided into divination, divination, divination, divination, divination and hunting, divination and special names, place names, official names and the moon. Most of its times belong to Zhou Wenwang, Zhou Wuwang and Zhou Chengwang, and a few belong to Zhou Muwang. 199 1 year, a piece of Oracle Bone Inscriptions carved on it was found in Wangxiao Xizhou site in Xingtai, Hebei Province. 1996, dozens of Oracle bones were unearthed in Yandou site in fangshan county, Beijing, three of which have characters. Up to now, there are 9 places in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with 3 12 pieces and 1033 characters. There are both the ruins of the capital city of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the ruins of remote vassal states, so it can be speculated that there will be excavations in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty in the future. Because almost all the Oracle bones of the Western Zhou Dynasty were unearthed under modern scientific archaeological excavations, the horizon was clear. Compared with other contemporary artifacts, experts and scholars' research on the Oracle bones of the Western Zhou Dynasty suddenly entered a comprehensive and in-depth stage, and achieved gratifying research results in the interpretation of characters (smaller than most Oracle bones in Yin ruins) and the relationship between Yin and Zhou Dynasties.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Ancient Chinese Characters

Chinese characters, together with ancient Egyptian sacred script and ancient cuneiform script, are called ancient ideographs. The development of Chinese characters can be divided into two stages: the ancient writing stage and the official script stage. The stage of ancient Chinese characters in China began in Shang Dynasty (represented by Oracle Bone Inscriptions) and ended in Qin Dynasty, which lasted more than 1000 years. In chronological order, there are Shang Dynasty scripts, Western Zhou Spring and Autumn scripts, Six Kingdoms scripts, Qin Dynasty scripts and so on. From the perspective of writing carriers, there are Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, Wen Tao, seal script, bamboo slips and silks, stone carvings, etc. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, as the earliest systematic writing, had a wide and far-reaching influence on other ancient Chinese characters.

Since Oracle Bone Inscriptions is already a systematic and mature script, there must be other older and more primitive scripts before that. The Book of Changes said: "In ancient times, rule was made up of knotted knots, and later saints easily used books." However, the function of knotting notes is only to evoke people's memories in kind, so it is absolutely impossible to evolve into words. The original words should be produced from paintings. Among a large number of information with patterns left by ancient residents, such as rock paintings, stone symbols and family emblems, how to judge which one is just a picture and which one is a text? In the past, some scholars believed that the older the visual pattern, the more inclined it was to the original intention of painting. The more symbolic elements, the simpler the structure, and the more inclined to the original intention of the text. But later, it was found that it was difficult to measure by this standard in different languages. So later, some linguists changed the definition of pictures to words: once there is a fixed connection between pictures and language forms, the transition to words is completed. For example, when you see the word "big" in human form and the word "deer" in deer shape, people immediately think that it refers to "big deer", not other meaning, such as raising and hunting deer, so Chinese characters are born out of pictures. But this process is very long.

Chinese characters are ideographic characters, also known as square characters, which are different from Latin letters (such as English) and other phonography. But in fact, Chinese characters also have many phonetic components. China's traditional philology comprehensively and correctly summarizes the basic context and characteristics of the formation and development of Chinese characters, which is the famous theory of "Six Books": pictographic, ideographic, knowing, pictographic, phonetic, transliteration and borrowing. In the early stage of the development of Chinese characters (mainly before the Western Zhou Dynasty), their pictographs were high, and ideographic characters and annotations were commonly used, as were Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen. With the evolution of Chinese characters' glyphs and the standardization of writing, when the official script was formed, many original ideographic characters could not see the meaning and became symbols. Therefore, Chinese characters developed late and became an ideographic-note-symbol writing system.

Between Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the original writing symbols, no remains of ancient Chinese characters were found by archaeological means. However, through the investigation of the present situation of minority languages, we found two living fossils in ancient Chinese characters: Ersu Saba and Naxi Dongba. Sursaba is the writing of a person who calls himself "Sur" in western Sichuan. There are four kinds of Sulsaba books that can be collected now, namely almanac, fortune telling, lottery, ghost telling and so on. There are nearly 200 emblems in Ersusaba, which are very pictographic. Many of them are stick figures based on real objects, and there are also a few understandable words. Another more mature fossil script in Saba, Birsu is the famous Dongba script of Naxi nationality in Yunnan. Dongba has more than 20,000 volumes of scriptures. In terms of word formation, Dongba is similar to other ancient Chinese characters, which have ideographic and phonetic meanings, but they are at different stages of development. For example, if there is the word "sun" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, add a little (or a horizontal circle or a small circle) to the circle, and Dongba will add more "ten" strokes to show that it is radiant. There is also a word-making method, such as using "turquoise" to remember the "green" in Dongba language; "Fire" means "red", and this kind of "righteous borrowing" is also found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Because Ersusaba and Dongba are more primitive than Oracle Bone Inscriptions, in turn, we can see that Oracle Bone Inscriptions is mature and systematic.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Calligraphy Art

Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins is the earliest systematic writing in China, and it is also a relatively mature writing. On the other hand, the horizontal dense structure of ancient Chinese characters has really begun to take shape in calligraphy, such as the use of pens, structure and composition, which breeds the beauty of calligraphy art and is worth appreciating and tasting. As far as Oracle bone inscriptions are concerned, Guo Moruo expressed great appreciation for his calligraphy in the preface to the Nazi Encyclopedia of Yin Qi published in 1937: "Oracle Bone Inscriptions is engraved on Oracle bones, and its exquisite inscriptions and beautiful words have fascinated our descendants for thousands of years. The style of writing varies from person to person and from world to world. Generally speaking, Wu Ding's world is full of bold words, Di Yi's world is beautiful, and Wen Xian is beautiful. The density of lines, the structure of words, the care of circles, and the order ... It is enough to know that the existing contract is a proxy book, and the contract book is Yin Zhong Wang. "

"Zhong Wang Yan Liu" refers to the four ancient calligraphers. "Zhong Wang and Yan Liu" in the Yin Dynasty was naturally a historian who carved Oracle Bone Inscriptions. It is they who left a wealth of historical materials and precious ancient calligraphy works to future generations (although this is an unconscious creation). If you take a cursory look at Oracle Bone Inscriptions's calligraphy form, you will find that the early fonts are very large, such as many Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Wuding period included in Luo Zhenyu's Book of Yin Ruins Qi Jing Dialect, which are very atmospheric and eye-catching; By the time of Di Yi and Di Xin in the last years of Shang Dynasty, the characters became small and trivial. As for Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty, it is even more subtle. This is the difference between style and habit.

We can further describe Oracle Bone Inscriptions's style types as follows: First, vigorous and vigorous; Second, it is beautiful and light; The third is neat and tidy; The fourth type is graceful and delicate; Fifth, the well-developed Gu Zhuo type. In short, although Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a carved character, his brushwork is meaningful, his style is mixed, or his skeleton is open, which makes people feel relaxed and happy. Or fine silk Xiu Xiu, in the form of hairpin flowers, between the lines, there are many exquisite calligraphy. Because of this, the wonderful flower "oracle calligraphy" is still active in today's calligraphy art garden.

The so-called "oracle calligraphy" generally has two meanings. First, it refers to the calligraphy works neatly imitated according to the font structure and calligraphy characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. This kind of works can collect ancient Chinese characters and combine them into new sentences as needed. Although the content is new, the writing is as rich and elegant as that written by Yin people three thousand years ago. However, there are only more than 2,000 words in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, among which many rare words (especially names and places) have not been released, and few of them are really useful. Therefore, once you encounter a word that is not in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and it can't be replaced in the written couplets and inscriptions, you have to split it with radicals and splice it yourself; If you can't spell it again, you will have to turn to other ancient Chinese characters such as inscriptions on bronze. The leading figure in this creation is Luo Zhenyu. 192 1 year, after research, he wrote Oracle Bone Inscriptions as a couplet with a brush and published "Yin Ji Ruins". Then Zhang Yu, Gao Dexin, Wang Jilie and others also imitated Ji Zi's creation. Some predecessors of ancient philology, such as Dong Zuobin, Shang Chengzuo, Yu, are also good at oracle calligraphy, which is oracle calligraphy's works in the true sense. On the other hand, it refers to the modern calligraphy works that I created by drawing lessons from the characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. They regard Oracle Bone Inscriptions as an inspiration, just a little inspiration in artistic creation, not pursuing "similarity". Therefore, they don't write strictly according to the characteristics of oracle calligraphy, but may combine the characteristics of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscriptions and Warring States scripts to create. Although this kind of calligraphy art is related to ancient philology, it is not the same.