The discovery of oracle bone inscriptions

Bone writing is a cultural product of the Shang Dynasty (about 17th century B.C.-11th century B.C.), with a history of about 3600 years. The rulers of the Shang Dynasty were superstitious about ghosts and gods, and they often used tortoise shells and animal bones to divine good and bad fortune before they acted, and then they carved on the bones of the bones of the bones to record the things they had occupied and the divinatory words or the relevant records that were fulfilled afterward, and the words were called oracle bone inscriptions. Since the end of the Qing dynasty in Henan Anyang Yin ruins found in the text of the bones, a full 100 years, the current number of unearthed in more than 150,000 pieces, mostly for the Pan Geng moved Yin to Zhou died royal relics. To out to the Yin ruins, it is also known as the Yin ruins text; because the carving is mostly for divination, so it is also known as the Ching Bu text. Oracle bone writing currently unearthed single word **** 4500, has been recognized more than 2000 words, recognized more than a thousand words. It has recorded the information of Chinese social politics, economy and culture more than three thousand years ago. It is the earliest and most precious historical relics in existence.

The oracle bone script is one of the calligraphic styles of Chinese characters, and it is also the most ancient and mature script in China. Oracle script is also known as Qi script, tortoise shell script or tortoise shell and animal bone script. The people of Shang Dynasty used tortoise shell and animal bone for divination and then carved the time of divination, the name of the diviner, and the thing to be divined with a knife beside the omen, and some of them also carved the lucky and bad fortune after a number of days. However, the specific situation due to the oracle bone staging and there is a difference in detail, roughly the Wuding period of the most complete inscription, but also the largest number of extant period. Scholars call this kind of record divination, and this kind of writing is oracle bone script. A large number of oracle bones inscribed with divinatory inscriptions have been unearthed in Yinxu, and all of these characters have the basic structure of Chinese characters. A large number of oracle bones and inscriptions not only recorded the political, economic, military and meteorological, divination, but also marked the near maturity of the script.

More than a century ago, the discovery of the oracle bone inscriptions was an earth-shattering rewrite of Chinese history, revolutionized modern scholarship, and opened up new paths for the art of Chinese calligraphy.

China is a country that worships the written word. Cangjie's creation of characters, which "rained corn on the sky and made ghosts cry at night," is often compared to Nüwa's refining of stones to mend the sky and Pangu's opening up of the heavens and the earth in mythological genealogy. Compared to ancient legends, the discovery of the oracle bones is like a recent myth that has been passed down from pen to paper among those who care about the story. This year is the 115th anniversary of the discovery of the oracle bone, Yantai, Shandong Province, Wang Yirong Memorial Museum inaugurated on August 11 and opened to the public, once again as the earliest discoverer of the oracle bone Wang Yirong to the foreground. At present, in the vigorous promotion of Chinese traditional culture, revisit the discovery of the oracle bone script journey, help us reshape the ancient Chinese characters of the heart of awe and reverence.

A piece of oracle bone surprised the world

In the fall of 1899, a few months short of the new century is coming. The oracle bones, which had been sleeping underground for more than 3,000 years, suddenly woke up at this moment and gave the new century a surprise.

On this day, an appraiser surnamed Fan (the old name for itinerant traders) brought some tortoise shells from afar, and according to the agreement to find the then Minister of the Imperial College, Wang Yirong.

Over half a century of Wang Yirong at this time has been in charge of the country's highest educational institutions for many years, is a famous people in the field of full of knowledge, with deep attainments in jinshi. The qing historical manuscripts, especially mentioned: "yirong pan involved in books and history, hobby goldstone." At the time of the collection, Wang Yirong enjoys "get a word of public, cited as a definitive" of the prestige and influence.

As the traces engraved on the tortoiseshell and cast in the bronze on the gold more similarities, y versed in the text of the goldstone, has a rich knowledge base of Wang Yirong, soon recognized the tortoiseshell engraved marks is more ancient than the gold text of a text, and thus "ecstasy", began to buy heavy money.

People will later be inscribed on the tortoise shell and animal bones on the ancient script collectively known as oracle bone writing. The ancient age of the oracle bone writing for the wrong and harmonious, known as the first piece of Chinese calligraphy history and the first Chinese calligraphy art of the treasure. Guo Moruo believes that to achieve such skills, is the need for long-term painstaking practice, so the oracle bones have a lot of practicing bone, the engraver with the stemmed text on which to practice, leaving a lot of stemmed table.

Research has shown that oracle bone inscriptions are the earliest known systematic scripts in China, mostly divination records of the Yin and Shang royal families, containing rich information about social life. It and ancient Egyptian papyrus script, ancient Babylonian . Clay script and the ancient Indian script and known as the world's four major ancient scripts, and with the Han and Jin Jin wood slips, Dunhuang documents, the Cabinet Library books and archives are known as the four major discoveries of modern Chinese academia. The discovery of the oracle bones rewrote the records of the history of world civilization and advanced the history of Chinese letters by more than 1,000 years, which led to the excavation of the Shang capital, Yinxu, and contributed to the birth of modern archaeology in China, making the 20th century a brand new start for China's academic trajectory.

The appearance of oracle bones in the world, in the early 20th century caused an "earthquake" in the academic world. Zhang Taiyan in the "State of the art on the balance" strongly questioned the authenticity of the oracle bones, Liang Qichao said that the discovery of the oracle bones so that "Chinese archaeology has been shaken by this surprising revolution".

The discovery of the oracle bones brought about by the effect of shocked the world, the North China Plain on the little-known village of Tun has become famous. For a time, some of the insight of the literati, foreigners also searched around, after the word oracle bone dispersed to more than a dozen countries and regions of the world, many museums to hide China's oracle bone for the honor. Guo Moruo has a poem: the culture of the Central Plains Yin founding, view this better than reading ancient books. A piece of oracle bone shocked the world, assortment of a euphony shocked the world.

Discoverer of the controversy

For the discovery of the oracle bones, the early collection and the study of oracle bones of scholars have mentioned, it is generally recognized that Wang Yirong is the earliest discoverer.

Canadian missionary Ming Yishi, who often rode an old white horse along the banks of the Huan River to acquire oracle bones, said of Wang Yirong in Yinxu Buqi that "what is known as oracle bone puzzles, he really found the first person". Wang Guowei also said that the oracle bone inscriptions "were first unearthed in Weixian County, where the appraiser obtained several pieces of them and sold them to Fushan Wang Wenmin (posthumous name of Wang Yirong). Wen Min secret, a time out, successively returned to the".

Wang Yirong in the fall of 1899 began to acquire the word oracle bone, but regrettably, he did not have to carry out an in-depth study of this text, that is, in the following August, when the Eight-Power Allied Forces captured Beijing to throw himself into a well and died.

On the discovery of oracle bones, in addition to the discovery of Wang Yirong said, there have been shaving said, or antique merchants said, but has not been the mainstream voice, because the academic community does not generally agree with this non-text or academic significance of the "discovery".

Since the 1980s, a number of Tianjin newspapers and magazines have published articles proposing the discovery of Wang Xiang, based mainly on Wang Xiang's own account. Li Xianteng, a scholar who worked in Tianjin, also wrote an article in Guangming Daily in support of this statement, and pointed out that the rumors circulating in society that Wang Yirong had found a loophole in the Chinese traditional medicine "Dragon Bone" on the oracle bone inscription. Wang Xiang is also an early collection of oracle bones and researchers, after the founding of New China was the director of the Tianjin Museum of Culture and History, after the collection of oracle bones donated to the state.

Relay on the Road to Discovery

On the road to discovery, whichever step is missing may change the trajectory and direction of history, which in turn affects the final outcome. The discovery of the oracle bones brought an unexpected vitality to Chinese scholarship in the 20th century, and in turn, the perseverance of scholars has enriched the discovery and given it more and more significance.

Discovering the age of the oracle bones

Liu Osprey, the author of The Journey of the Old Man, is considered the first to recognize the oracle bones as a Shang dynasty script and to state the basis for it. After the martyrdom of Wang Yirong, the Wang family in order to pay off the debt, he collected most of the oracle bones transferred to his close friend Liu Osprey. 1903, Liu Osprey from the collection of oracle bones in the selection of 1,058 pieces of stone printed and published China's first recorded oracle bones of the work of the Tieyun Zangguo, so that the oracle bones for the first time from the private collection of the scholars can study the public data, Hu Shi praised the book for the study of oracle bones of the "trailblazer". "The book was praised by Hu Shi as a pioneer in the study of oracle bones. In the "iron cloud hidden turtle", Liu Osprey for the first time put forward the oracle bone text is "Yin people knife and pen text" assertion. He believes that "the bells and tripods of the hieroglyphic, the world are designated as Shang ware", the oracle bone in the hieroglyphic words, and one of the "Zuyi", "Zuxin", "Mother Geng "and other characters" to the name of the heavenly stem, really for the Yin things of the evidence also". The discovery of the era to which the oracle bone inscriptions belonged made the oracle bone inscriptions jumped to become the earliest known Chinese writing system at that time, such a status has been maintained to date.

Discovery of the oracle bones

Luo Zhenyu first saw the oracle bones in the house of Liu Ouyi. He was shocked, y felt the history of the heavy responsibility given: this is fortunate that the mountains and rivers effective spirit, three thousand years and a leak of its secret, and appropriate my life, so seek to spread and far away from the person, its my responsibility also Fu.

At that time, antique dealers in order to monopolize the oracle bone, falsely claimed that the oracle bone unearthed in Henan Tangyin, Weihui and other places. Guo Moruo spoke highly of Luo Zhenyu's work: "This kind of zeal, this kind of knowledge, can be said to have never been archaeologists." After the trip to Anyang, Luo Zhenyu determined that Xiaotun Village was the "Yin Ruins" mentioned in the "Records of the Grand Historian Xiang Yu", which directly led to the subsequent excavation of Yin Ruins.

In addition to his research, Luo Zhenyu also set oracle bone inscriptions into couplets, becoming the first person to introduce oracle bone inscriptions into the field of modern calligraphy.

Discovery of oracle bones can verify the Shiji - Yinbenji

Wang Guowei is believed to be the first to embellish oracle bones. Many of the brittle bones were broken into small pieces when they were unearthed, and Wang Guowei found the ones that belonged to the same section from thousands of small pieces and glued them together to form a large text that could be read through. This greatly improved the effectiveness of oracle bone recognition and research.

Around the 1920s, the trend of skepticism was prevalent. During this critical period, Wang Guowei utilized the newly discovered oracle bone inscriptions to verify the names and order of the first princes and kings of the Yin Shang Dynasty, confirming the reliability of the Historical Records of the Yin Dynasty, and creating a two-fold method of verification against excavated artifacts and ancient documents, which advanced the history of China by more than 1,000 years. Guo Moruo commented, "We have to say that the discovery of Yinxu is the beginning of the new historiography, and Wang Guowei's performance is the beginning of the new historiography, that evaluation is not excessive."

Discovery of Yin Ruins

The discovery of the oracle pried up the soil covering Yin Ruins for more than 3,000 years, triggering the scientific excavation of Yin Ruins that lasted more than 80 years since 1928, and the hidden world of the ancient Yin dynasty buried in the depths of history gradually appeared in front of the world. The discoveries made by archaeologists in Yinxu mainly include more than 50 sites of palace and temple complexes, more than 10 tombs of kings, thousands of tombs of nobles and commoners, thousands of sacrificial pits, handicraft workshops, as well as a large number of oracle bones, bronzes, jades, potteries, bone tools, etc., which show a three-dimensional image of the Chinese slave society for the people. Yinxu has thus become the cradle of Chinese archaeologists, and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006.

The excavations organized by scientific institutions are different from the piecemeal efforts of the private sector, and the successive unearthed full-page tortoises and basically intact ox scapulae make the beauty of the layout, structure, and chapters of oracle-bone calligraphy unprecedentedly complete, and have become an important source of information for the study of the characteristics of oracle-bone calligraphy.

Although the turtle lives three thousand years, it will never be immortalized in the text

The Chronology of Oracle Bones, published in 1937, records the early sale of oracle bones as medicinal herbs: "There are zero and whole sales, retail powdered bone for the fine surface, the name of the 'knife tip medicine,' which can heal wounds. The powdered bones were sold in retail as fine noodles, called 'knife tip medicine', which could heal wounds, and were sold at the 'Spring Fair' every year. The whole batch is sold in the herbal store, each catty price system money six. There are words, more than scraped off."

Because encountered Wang Yirong, oracle bones from the worthless "medicinal materials" into a valuable research materials, to avoid the continued destruction of man-made. Over the past century, about 150,000 pieces of oracle bones have been unearthed in Yinxu, leaving a valuable chapter in the history of world civilization.

The "salvage" discovery of the oracle bones allows people to once again recognize the power of knowledge and the value of intellectuals. In the face of the writing on the oracle bone, some people think that it is redundant scratches, some people recognize that it is a kind of text. "Though the tortoise lives three thousand years, it will never be immortalized in writing", Luo Zhenyu's ink writing means a lot.

After the oracle was unearthed, generation after generation of intellectuals to carry on the past, do not begrudge each other, in order to discover the work, the promotion of the work, the work of the interpretation of the work and the enhancement of the achievement of the "a piece of oracle bone shocked the world" of the Chinese legend. To our regret, a century later, once prominent oracle bone science, as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences "special discipline construction program" to be specially supported by the "extinct science", is facing a weakening of the talent team, the reality of the plight of the lack of reserve force. From the "obvious" to "extinct", the vicissitudes of the changes are saddening.

Water has a source, wood has this. Oracle is the source of the Chinese text and the growth of the root, from a cultural point of view, whether it is the macro cultural development, or micro calligraphy art, to return to the original new, can not help but focus on the Oracle. Oracle has a long history of more than 3,000 years, but the history of the oracle bone was discovered, was recognized only a short 100 years, continue to discover and understand the task is still very difficult.

Over the past 100 years, after several generations of scholars of oracle bones, after the fire, sleep feed or waste of efforts, so far more than 4,500 oracle bones have been found in a single word, there are still about 3,000 single word has not been interpreted and read. Some scholars compare the decipherment of an oracle bone character to the discovery of a supernova, which shows the great difficulty. Luo Zhenyu, a former scholar of oracle bone science, had compiled the unreadable characters into "Yinxu Shuqi to be asked to compile" for the world, he said with hope: "Today's do not know, the other day or know. What I do not know today, others may know." Deeply hope for the future of new academic strength. Today, in the pen has become a crisis under the situation, we revisit a century ago the discovery of the oracle bone, perhaps from the Wang Yirong, Liu Osprey, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei and other academic sages in the footsteps of inspiration, better fulfill the intellectuals to succeed the past sage, to open the historical mission of the study, so that the traditional Chinese culture of this old tree continues to blossom with the new flowers of the academy.