|

Inscribed
oracle bones from the reign of King Wu Ding 11981189
BCE
Courtesy
of The National Library of China
|
Oracle
bones
11981189 BCE
Oracle
bones were used for imperial divination and are
the earliest known texts in Chinese. Although
the inscriptions were incised more than 3000 years
ago, they were already a part of a systemic and
mature form of writing.
Topics
of divination ranged from the performance of an
ancestral cult, to protective wishes for 'no harm'
in the next ten-day week. Other questions relate
to the outcome of Royal hunts, harvests or childbirth,
queries on impending disasters, enemy invasion,
victory in battle, and good fortune or bad omens.
The
inscriptions are placed vertically in columns
and read from top to bottom, with the arrangement
of the characters depending on the shape of the
animal bone used.
They
record the king's interpretation of the cracks
which appeared when the bones were heated by applying
hot metal rods or heated sticks of wood to the
hollows on the rough (back) side, so that T-shaped
fissures would appear on the smooth (front) sides.
The
interpretations could variously be interpreted
as auspicious, inauspicious or neutral. After
the king had made his forecast or interpretation,
the number of each crack, along with a notation
about the good fortune of a particular crack,
was incised beside it. A complete record of the
divination was then incised into the bone. The
characters and the cracks were occasionally filled
with vermilion or black pigments. After the usefulness
of the oracle bones had expired, they were buried
in storage pits.
The National Library of China has a very large
collection of oracle bones, numbering over 34,000
pieces, and over 70,000 sheets of rubbings taken
from inscribed oracle bones.
|