The origin of Oracle Bone Inscriptions

The origin of Oracle Bone Inscriptions

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the cultural product of Shang Dynasty (about17th century BC-1century BC), about 3600 years ago. Shang rulers are superstitious about ghosts and gods. Before they act, they often use tortoise shells and animal bones to predict good luck or bad luck. Later, they carved the items they possessed and Oracle Bone Inscriptions or related notes that should be checked afterwards on the Oracle bones. Their writing is called Oracle Bone Inscriptions. It has been 65,438+000 years since Oracle Bone Inscriptions was discovered in Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan in the late Qing Dynasty. At present, the number of Oracle bones unearthed exceeds 150000, most of which are relics of Pan Geng royal family who moved to Yin and died. In order to go out to Yin Ruins, they are also called Yin Ruins. Because the inscriptions are mostly Oracle Bone Inscriptions, it is also called Zhenbu. At present, there are 4,500 * * characters unearthed in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and more than 2,000 characters have been identified, with orthography 1000 characters. It recorded the social, political, economic and cultural information of China more than 3,000 years ago. This is the earliest and most precious historical relic in existence.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions recorded the origin of official script in Han Dynasty in China, which was later called Chinese characters. In order to keep consistent with Song Shu, Shu Ming and regular script, ... can be called letters from home (books), ancient books (books), Jin Shu (books), erudite books (books) and various books (books). In order to correspond to "Chinese characters", it can be called Shang (Xia and Yin) characters.

By comparing Chinese characters with Shang characters (Oracle Bone Inscriptions) and Zhou characters (Jinwen), we can understand the original meaning of Chinese characters. Unlike Shuowen, this website divides the origin of Chinese characters into pictographs, pictophonetic characters and pictographs. This is a further differentiation of hieroglyphics [visible; Quiet], like a voice [invisible; Listen but don't smell], like things [visible; Dynamic], image meaning [invisible; Thinking] .. is nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, ... and other parts of speech. ) Oracle inscriptions open a window to observe people's lives in the Yellow River basin 3000 years ago.

oracle bone script

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was written in Shang Dynasty (A.D. 1400). These words are engraved on animal bones or tortoise shells, hence the name Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the tortoise with animal bones. Characters are carved with a knife, so they are also called "Wen Qi" and "Qike". Except for a few chronicles, most of the characters belong to the records of governors and fortune tellers at that time. People use brushes and small copper knives to write and depict characters on tortoise shells or animal bones. The materials used at that time were mostly tortoise shells and shoulder blades of cattle, so later generations collectively called them "Oracle Bone Inscriptions", also known as "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" or "Zhenbu". . In addition, because Oracle Bone Inscriptions was unearthed in Anyang County, Henan Province, it was originally the ancient capital of the Yin Dynasty, so it was also called "Yin Ruins".

There were about150,000 pieces in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty. These Oracle bones are generally broken, and only a few parts are intact. There are about 4500 Oracle characters that have been sorted out, except for repetition and variant characters. Among them, about 900 words can be accurately recognized, most of which are commonly used words. In addition, there are about 3,500 words that cannot be confirmed, most of which are special names such as names and place names.

What is the content of Oracle Bone Inscriptions? Although it has been more than 3,000 years since Oracle Bone Inscriptions, it is already relatively stereotyped. And the writing is very skilled and mature. In addition to divining the good or ill luck of a certain time and day, offering sacrifices (often killing many people, cattle, sheep, dogs and other livestock), conquest, hunting and the prosperity of the year, there are also divining weather, travel, childbirth, children, diseases and so on.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions was first discovered in Xiaotun Village near Anyang, Henan Province. At that time, farmers who inadvertently brought them to the sun used these bones as medicinal materials and sold them to pharmacies. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, some bone fragments spread to Liu E, and Liu E immediately found that the words on these bone fragments were earlier than those written by Zhong Dingwen on the bronze wares of the Zhou Dynasty. Later, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei, Guo Moruo, Dong Zuobin and other scholars also began to study these characters, and further determined the age of these characters as Shang Dynasty.

Most of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's contents are the records of divination by the royal family in Shang Dynasty. Shang people were superstitious about ghosts and gods, and they had to ask questions about big and small issues. Some divination is about sunny and rainy days, some is about agricultural harvest, some is about diseases and seeking children, hunting, fighting, sacrifice and other big things to ask! Therefore, Oracle Bone Inscriptions's content can provide a glimpse of people's life and the historical development of Shang Dynasty.

The earliest time of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery was twenty-five years before Guangxu in the late Qing Dynasty. It was found in the south bank of Huan River Grange, Xiaotun Village, Anyang County, Henan Province. When the villagers were farming, they dug up some fragments of tortoise shells and animal bones in the soil, most of which were engraved with obscure sentences. At that time, villagers used keel to resell pharmacies as medicine villages. It was not until the 25th year of Guangxu (1899) that it was discovered by the archaeologist Wang, and it was recognized as valuable for the study of historical materials, and was introduced to the academic circles. Later, Liu E, Sun Yirang, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei and Ye Yusen successively collected and studied, among which Luo Zhenyu strongly advocated it, which established the status of "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". The earliest Oracle Bone Inscriptions's works were published by Liu E in the 29th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1902), followed by Sun Yirang's Examples of Wen Qi, Luo Zhenyu's Textual Research on Shang divination, Textual Research on Wen Qi in Yin Ruins and To Be Asked. Shang Chengzuo's Collection of Yin Ruins, Wang Guowei's Textual Research on the First Duke and Last King of Yin Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Wang Xiang's Collection of Rocks, Yin Qi Ji, Shi Qi, Xue Qi and Zhu Fangpu's Collection of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Oracle Bone Inscriptions. There are also European and American missionaries and Japanese scholars who collected a large number of Oracle bones and published many monographs in China when the Academia Sinica continued to explore in the Republic of China 17. In the past thirty years, Mr. Dong Zuobin has made the greatest contribution to Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Dong Shi personally participated in the excavation of Oracle bones. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Yin Dynasty, he divided the research stage of Oracle Bone Inscriptions into two stages: the first stage was from the 25th year of Guangxu to Ding Mao in the 16th year of the Republic of China (1899- 1927), and the second stage was from Chen Wu in the 17th year of the Republic of China to Ugly in the 38th year of the Republic of China (1928- 1949). The evolution of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's fonts: Oracle Bone Inscriptions developed from engraving and writing, and generally speaking, it developed from engraving to writing. According to the divination in Yin Dynasty, Dong Zuobin divided the Zhen divination crowd into five periods. Taking the changes of Oracle bone inscriptions, calligraphy style and ancient times as examples, this paper expounds its glyph. From the first period to the fifth period, Oracle Bone Inscriptions's writing styles are different and have their own characteristics. The calligraphy style in the first period (Wuding period) was the most magnificent, and the large Oracle bones were the representative works. This large font is often very strong, the carved strokes are very thick, and it is full of Zhu Mo (cinnabar, ink). There are also neat and beautiful fine print, all of which are extremely wonderful. All these have the demeanor of Wu Ding, the Chinese star and the British king, and their boldness of vision and skill are quite amazing. His calligraphers are Wei, Yong and Bin. The second period (Zujia, Zu Geng era) had a more sincere style. Zujia and Zu Geng were the sages who inherited the first phase of Wu Ding, so the soothsayers at that time strictly followed the rules and did not change much. His calligraphers have travel, greatness and travel, namely. In the third stage (Yan Xin and Geng Ding), the calligraphy style changed and declined. The old calligraphers died in the early stage, and the bold calligraphy style swept the floor. At present, calligraphers are naive and weak, and even make many clerical mistakes. None of the authors of this issue have signed their names. In the fourth period (Wuyi and Wen Ding), the names of people who didn't sign books were engraved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions. During this period, the new calligraphers in Wuyi and Wen Ding era made great efforts to make their works vivid and unrestrained. Only one calligrapher, De, was found in this issue, but none was found. In the fifth period (first, Di Xin era), except for a few inscriptions with animal heads, the rest were extremely serious and neat. The reason is: Wang Yi is determined to start work. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's paragraphs, lines and characters are even, such as small letters. His writing style has changed and he has made a new one. His calligraphers are Swimming and Yellow.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's divination method is to drill a hole in the back of the processed tortoise shell or animal bone, drill it to the place that is about to penetrate but not yet penetrated, and then burn it with fire, and cracks will appear around the hole drilled in the front of the tortoise shell. These lines are called "signs". The person in charge of observing the grain, that is, the person in charge of divination, is called a "fortune teller". After judging good and bad, the content of divination is written and portrayed on Oracle bones. Besides good or bad luck, some Oracle Bone Inscriptions is used to take notes. Most inscriptions on Oracle bones are carved with a knife, some are written with a pen and then portrayed, and some are directly portrayed. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, most books are carved straight from top to bottom, which is still a common format in Chinese today. In fact, Oracle Bone Inscriptions is not the earliest writing in China, and China's writing actually existed before Oracle Bone Inscriptions. For example, some words on pottery, Wen Tao, appeared more than 6,000 years ago. If words represent the beginning of civilization, then we can see that the pace of Chinese civilization has already begun before Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

Inscription of scapula

It was unearthed in Xiaotun, Annan, Henan Province and kept by the Institute of History and Language of Academia Sinica. In18th century BC, Shang Dynasty was the only country in East Asia that used written languages at that time. Yin Shang was superstitious about ghosts and gods, and always used tortoise shells or shoulder blades of cattle, collectively referred to as Oracle bones. According to Mr. Dong Zuobin's Oracle Bone Inscriptions Dating, we know that Oracle Bone Inscriptions's font structure has different forms in different times, which belongs to the first issue of Oracle Bone Inscriptions.