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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]
Sun Yirang was the first serious researcher of oracle bones. Luo Zhenyu collected over 30,000 oracle bones and published several volumes, identified the names of the Shang kings, and thus positively identified the oracle bones as being artifacts from the Shang reign.
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.
There was also an "archery ritual" that Shang kings often conducted on the Huan River, demonstrated by an inscribed bronze turtle rewarded to a scribe named Zuoce Ban. [110] Oracle bones also reveal spiritual rituals such as holocaust, ale libation, exorcism, and dance rituals. [111] [112] [113]
From this evidence, scholars have assembled the implied king list and genealogy, finding that it is in substantial agreement with the later accounts, especially for later kings. According to this implied king list, Wu Ding was the twenty-first Shang king. [89] The Shang kings were referred to in the oracle bones by posthumous names.
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
Located in present-day Anyang, Henan, Yin served as the capital during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – c. 1046 BCE) which spanned the reigns of 12 Shang kings and saw the emergence of oracle bone script, the earliest known Chinese writing. Along with oracle bone script and other material evidence for the Shang's existence, the site was ...
Recorded on oracle bones as the 20th Shang king. Nivison proposed that he succeeded the throne on xinwei, 26 January 1263 BC. [54] Mother: Oracle bone scripts mention the name of one of Xiao Yi's wives as Bi Geng (妣庚): "小乙配妣庚" (Xiao Yi married Bi Geng). [55] She might or might not be Wu Ding's mother. Uncles: