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Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron which were used in pyromancy – a form of divination – during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – c. 1050 BCE) in ancient China. Scapulimancy is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, plastromancy if turtle plastrons were used.
Oracle bone script fragment featuring a character for 'spring' in the top-left which has no known modern descendant. Some characters are only attested in the oracle bone script, dropping out of later usage and usually being replaced by newer characters. An example is a fragment bearing character for 'spring' that has no known modern counterpart.
The used oracle bones were deposited in pits at the Shang cult centre now known as Yinxu (near modern Anyang, Hebei) and forgotten for millennia. After Wang Yirong discovered in 1899 that ancient bone fragments on sale for medicinal purposes bore an early form of Chinese characters, there was great interest in
North China Plain during the Late Shang period, showing sites with pottery styles similar to Anyang (black) and sites with other styles (red) [131] [132] [133] The oracle bones describe the Shang world in terms of three concentric regions. [134] [135] At the centre was the capital and ritual centre Dàyì Shāng (大邑商 'Great Settlement ...
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. [116] Oracle bone divination with scapulae and turtle shells was a source of state power for the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250 – 1046 BCE).
Oracle bones before the Late Shang period are not of the same ordered style as Late Shang materials. A large amount of such bones appear in pre–Late Shang sites, suggesting the prevalence of divination, although it was also likely to be practised by the non-royal people together with those elites. [290]
Oracle bones were first recognised for their true nature in 1898, and scholars have been labouring to decipher them ever since. They circulated among collectors and antique dealers , and to this day some 200,000 oracle bone fragments from the Xiaotun site in Anyang have been counted.
Keightley was best known for his work on oracle bones and their ability to tell the history of Shang China. His work on oracle bone research is discussed in several of his articles and edits, "Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China" goes most in depth about the history on oracle bones.