Ten criteria for oracle bone literature, information about oracle bones

The oracle bone inscription is an ancient Chinese script, also known as "Qiwen", "Oracle Bone Bu Ci", Yinxu Script or "Tortoiseshell Beast Bone Inscription". It is an early form of Chinese characters, a mature script from the Shang Dynasty in China, and was first unearthed in Yinxu, Anyang City, Henan Province.

The oracle bone inscriptions, found in Yinxu in Anyang City, Henan Province, China, are a cultural product of the Shang Dynasty (c. 17th century BC - 11th century BC) and have a history of about 3,600 years.

Oracle, with a symmetrical, stable pattern. The three elements of calligraphy are the use of the pen, the knot, and the chapter. Judging from the number of fonts and the way they are structured, oracle bone inscriptions have developed to a more rigorous and systematic script.

The principle of "six books" of Chinese characters is reflected in the oracle bone inscriptions. However, the traces of the original pictorial text are still relatively obvious.

The origin of the oracle.

The rulers of the Shang Dynasty were very superstitious, such as whether there would be disasters in ten days, whether it would rain in the sky, whether there would be a good harvest in the crops, whether the war could be won, and which ghosts and gods should be sacrificed, so that fertility, illness, dreams, and other things had to be divined to understand the will of the ghosts and gods and the good luck of things. The materials used for divination are mainly the belly and back carapaces of turtles and the shoulder blades of cows. Usually small pits are dug or drilled into the back of the oracle bones intended for divination, which oracle osteologists call "drilling".

During divination, heat is applied to these small pits, causing cracks on the surface of the oracle bones. This rift is called a "mega". The word "divination" in the oracle bone inscription is like a sign.

Those who are engaged in divination judge good fortune and evil according to the various shapes of divination.

Oracle bone inscriptions, also known as "inscriptions", "oracle bone inscriptions" or "tortoiseshell animal bone inscriptions", mainly refer to the late Shang Dynasty (14th century BC) in China, the royal family used for divination and engraved on the tortoise shell or animal bones, after the fall of the Yin Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty, the oracle bone inscription was also used for a period of time. It is the earliest known systematic form of writing in China, which inherits the original carved symbols and the bronze inscriptions, which is the key form of the development of Chinese characters. Modern Chinese characters evolved from oracle bone inscriptions.

It is generally believed that Wang Yirong, a scholar of gold and stone in the late Qing Dynasty, discovered the oracle bone inscription from an oracle bone from Anyang, Henan Province in the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899). Xiaotun Village in the northwest of Anyang City is the location of the "Yin Ruins", the site of the national capital in the late Shang Dynasty. Over the past 100 years, more than 100,000 oracle bones have been unearthed through archaeological excavations and other means.

In addition, oracle bone inscriptions also appeared in other parts of Henan and Shaanxi, and the age lasted from the middle Shang period to the Spring and Autumn period.

The discovery of oracle bone inscriptions has promoted the in-depth study of ancient Chinese history and paleography by scholars from all over the world, and has created a new discipline - oracle bone science.