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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. A recent count estimated that ...
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.
Also found at the site were a number of oracle bones, including inscribed examples showing a regional variety of the oracle bone script, the earliest known form of Chinese characters. The settlement was rediscovered in 1933 by Cheeloo University professor Fredrick S. Drake during surveys along the adjacent Qingdao–Jinan railway , and subject ...
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
However, since the term "large seal" is variously used to describe zhòuwén (籀文) examples from the ca. 800 BC Shizhoupian compendium, or inscriptions on both late W. Zhou bronze inscriptions and the Stone Drums of Qin, or all forms (including oracle bone script) predating small seal, the term is best avoided entirely. [16]
An example of Chinese bronze inscriptions on a bronze vessel – early Western Zhou (11th century BC). The earliest known examples of Chinese writing are oracle bone inscriptions made c. 1200 BC at Yin (near modern Anyang), the site of the final capital of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1046 BC).
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 .
An example is that Kamsa (or Kansa), the evil uncle of Krishna, was informed by an oracle that the eighth son of his sister Devaki would kill him. The opening verse of the Tiruvalluva Maalai , a medieval Tamil anthology usually dated by modern scholars to between c. 7th and 10th centuries CE, is attributed to an asariri or oracle.