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Wang Yirong, Chinese politician and scholar, was the first to recognize the oracle bones as ancient writing. Shang-era oracle bones are thought to have been unearthed occasionally by local farmers [14] since as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, and perhaps starting as early as the Han dynasty. [15]
Despite the pictorial nature of the oracle bone script, it was a fully functional and mature writing system by the time of the Shang dynasty, [19] meaning it was able to record the Old Chinese language, and not merely fragments of ideas or words. This level of maturity clearly implies an earlier period of development of at least several hundred ...
Under the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty (up to c. 1046 BC), pieces of bone, usually plastrons of tortoises or scapula of oxen, were used in pyromantic divination and then inscribed. The used oracle bones were deposited in pits at the Shang cult centre now known as Yinxu (near modern Anyang, Hebei) and forgotten for
The Shang kings were referred to in the oracle bones by posthumous names. The last character of each name is one of the 10 celestial stems, which also denoted the day of the 10-day Shang week on which sacrifices would be offered to that ancestor within the ritual schedule.
A turtle shell used for divination during the Shang dynasty. The form of early Chinese divination was pyro-osteomancy (or pyromancy), denoting burning animal bones to seek answers to human inquiries. [120] Oracle bone divination with scapulae and turtle shells was a source of state power for the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250 – 1046 BCE).
Wang Yirong (Chinese: 王懿榮; pinyin: Wáng Yìróng; 1845–1900) was a director of the Chinese Imperial Academy, best known as the first to recognize that the symbols inscribed on oracle bones were an early form of Chinese writing. [1]
Scapulimancy (also spelled scapulomancy and scapulamancy, also termed omoplatoscopy or speal bone reading) is the practice of divination by use of scapulae or speal bones (shoulder blades). It is most widely practiced in China and the Sinosphere as oracle bones, but has also been independently developed in other traditions including the West.
Historians have come to associate the site with Yinxu, the traditional name of the Shang capital for the last twelve kings of the dynasty, starting with Pan Geng. Excavations at Anyang resumed in 1950, under the auspices of a new Institute of Archaeology, and a permanent field station was established there in 1958.