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Reconstruction of oracle bone pit YH127 at Yinxu. By the time of the establishment of the Institute of History and Philology by Fu Sinian at the Academia Sinica in 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced back to modern Xiaotun (小屯村) village at Anyang in Henan.
Oracle bone science is a systematic and scientific inquiry into the inherent laws of the oracle bone script itself and uses it as a basis for glimpsing the history, society, and customs of the ancient world. The oracle bones should not be confused with orthography. [11]
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
The framework of early ancient Chinese history was reconstructed, making it possible to assess the credibility of traditional accounts of Shang history. The 150 000 oracle bones unearthed at Yinxu comprise much of the earliest evidence of written Chinese. Bronze and jade relics constitute evidence of the funeral customs of Yinxu, including ...
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.
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.
A chunk of long gu (fossil mammalian bone) Long gu are generally mammal fossils, petrified wood, or even oracle bones. [3] Animals which can be identified as long gu include rhinoceros, bears, hipparion, stegodon, hyena, mastodon, orangutan, porcupine, and giant panda. [4] [5] [6]
Oracle bones serve as the primary source for studies of Shang religion. [2] They focused on the religious life of the king and the royal family. [3] A typical ritual would feature many key roles; David Keightley conjured such a ritual based on actual inscriptional records, attempting to reconstruct a ceremonial scene normally observed by the Shang court.