What is the earliest and most complete text?

The earliest written text is the oracle bone spring liquid script.

The oracle bone inscription, also known as "Qiwen", "Oracle Bone Bu Ci", "Yinxu Script" or "Tortoiseshell Beast Bone Inscription", is the earliest mature writing system found in China so far, and is the source of Chinese characters and the root of China's excellent traditional culture. The remains of oracle bone inscriptions in the early Shang Dynasty are mainly found in Zhengzhou**, and the late Shang Dynasty is represented by the Yin Ruins in Anyang.

The oracle bone inscription is the most important text in the late Shang Dynasty, and the archaeological discovery has a large number of bones, totaling more than 100,000 pieces, the content is mainly the divination record of the Shang royal family, and the family emblem of the tribes of many states can also be seen. The oracle bone inscription has about 4,000 words and reflects the basic composition of the text symbol system. The oracle bone inscription already has various types of Chinese character configurations, as well as the "four bodies" in the traditional "Six Books", that is, pictograms, signifiers, huiyi, and shape and sound, indicating that in the late Yin and Shang periods, the Chinese characters represented by the oracle bone inscription had basically established the configuration mode.

The background of the birth of Oracle

The royal family and nobles of the Shang Dynasty all sought the gods for divination from national events to private life, such as sacrifices, climate, harvests, expeditions, field hunting, sickness, childbirth, going out, etc., so as to know the good fortune and the good fortune to decide what to do. As a result, divination became a major event in the political life of the country, and the imperial court set up special institutions and diviners. The oracle bones with inscriptions are preserved as national archives and piled up in the cellars.

The Book of Rites and Tables contains: "Yin people respect gods, lead the people to serve gods, first ghosts and then rituals." "It is known that during the Yin Shang period, before dealing with large and small affairs, the king had to use oracle bones for divination, pray to ghosts and gods, and engrave the things asked on the oracle bones afterwards.

After the death of the Shang Dynasty, divination gradually became extinct in the Zhou Dynasty, and its writing gradually became unknown.

The above content refers to the Encyclopedia - Oracle.

The earliest oracle bone inscriptions found in China date back to the middle and late Shang Dynasty. Probably between 1300 BC and 1046 BC, the largest number of oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed in Yinxu, reaching more than 100,000 pieces.

The oracle bone inscription is a sacrificial divination script engraved on the bones and tortoiseshells of animals, from which the modern Chinese character is derived, and is an Egyptian hieroglyph much earlier than the oracle bone confessional inscription, which appeared around 3100 BC. Hieroglyphs are beautifully written and highly decorative, and are commonly found on temple sculptures.

The hieroglyphs have a history of more than 5,100 years, more than 1,000 years before the sock reform oracle, but it is not the earliest. According to current archaeological finds, the earliest writing was invented by the Sumerians in the valley of the two rivers in Western Asia, dating back 5,500 years. Graphic text is generally engraved on clay tablets, which is mysterious and difficult to understand.

The Sumerian civilization was probably the earliest known human civilization, and the graphic writing it created was not similar to any other known language, where did the Sumerians come from. Where the Sumerian civilization originated remains a mystery to this day.

1. What is the earliest writing in the world?

2. What was the earliest writing in the world?

3. What are the five main types of writing in the world?

4. What are the earliest texts in the world?

1.The world's earliest writing (cuneiform) appeared about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

2.The earliest oracle bone inscription in China is from the Shang Dynasty, which is 3,000 years old.

The oracle bone inscription is the earliest and relatively complete ancient script found in China, dating back more than 3,600 years. Oracle is also known as"Yinxu script"、"Indeed"It is the text engraved on the tortoiseshell animal bone in the Yin Shang era.

In the prehistoric and early history of China, before the emergence of Chinese characters, the symbol that most resembled writing was Taowen. There are many materials that have been unearthed in Taowen, but it is not as long as the oracle bone inscription, with only a single symbol. From the Neolithic period to the late Shang Dynasty, the earliest pottery inscriptions that have been unearthed are Banpo pottery, about 4800-4300 BC.

In addition, during the period of Dawenkou culture, Longshan culture and Liangzhu culture, there were also pottery inscriptions. Most of the pottery inscriptions are engraved on the black wide band pattern and black inverted triangle pattern on the outer edge of the pottery bowl, and very few are engraved on the outer wall of the pottery pot and the bottom of the pottery bowl, and there is only one pottery inscription on the general utensils. Scholars have different opinions on the nature of these pottery inscriptions.

Qiu Xigui thinks that it is a "sign", Guo Moruo thinks that it is a "symbol with a literal nature", and Yu Shengwu and other scholars believe that it belongs to the category of words. Mr. Tang Li'an (Lan) said of the Dawenkou cultural pottery inscription that this is "the distant ancestor of the current script, and they have a history of about 5,500 years." It is very difficult to decipher the Tao inscription, and so far there are only a few words that can guess that it is equivalent to a certain character of the descendants.

However, it should be certain that Tao Wen has a relationship with Chinese characters.

The earliest writing in the world is cuneiform.

It is an ancient script originating from the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and was invented by the Sumerians around 3200 BC and is one of the earliest scripts in the world. In its history of about 3,000 years, cuneiform writing was gradually simplified and abstracted from the original hieroglyphic system, and the number of characters decreased from about 1,000 in the early Bronze Age to about 400 in the late Bronze Age. Most of the cuneiform scripts that have been found are written on clay tablets, and a few on stone, metal, or wax tablets.

The scribe used sharpened reed rods or wooden sticks to carve on soft clay tablets, which became hard and difficult to deform after being dried or roasted.

Western scholars believe that the Sumerians were the ones who invented the script.

Evolution (examples):

See the following figure (head word) for specific picture words:

The evolution of a word.

1: 3000 BC, early graphic characters.

2: Late 2800 BC graphic characters. Turn 90 degrees to the left.

3: Inscription from 2600 BC with simplified strokes.

4: Clay slabs. Early cuneiform.

5: The second half of the 3rd millennium BC.

6: The first half of the 2nd millennium BC.

7: First half of the 1st millennium BCE, classical Assyrian cuneiform.

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