Video | Amazing Treasures - Exploring Treasures Season 2: ⑥ Shang Dynasty Oracle Bone Inscription Oracle Bone | Text | Exploring Treasures
A fish that swam from the depths of history surfaced. The childish lines, like ancient simple strokes, outline the image of a fish. The fish on the turtle belly armor comes from the Shang Dynasty and is in the same lineage as today's fish.
Among the four major ancient Chinese font systems in the world, Chinese characters are the only text that has been passed down to this day without interruption. The Shang Dynasty script is the earliest known Chinese character. The existence of oracle bone inscriptions may be a survivorship bias.
The Shang Dynasty characters were mainly written on bamboo slips with a brush, but unfortunately, bamboo slips are difficult to preserve. Ge Liang, Deputy Researcher of the Shanghai Museum, introduced that the Shang Dynasty characters that people can see today are mainly left behind from hard materials such as oracle bones, bronze ware, jade, and pottery. Among them, those that appear on oracle bones are called oracle bone inscriptions.
The hard turtle shell and animal bones, after being sawn, trimmed, and polished, became tools used by the Shang Dynasty for divination. The ancestors prayed to heaven, seeking answers to whether they could or could not, whether they could or could not, and whether they were lucky or unlucky.
"The content of divination in the Shang Dynasty is very rich, and all unknown things can be asked to the gods. For example, whether it will rain tomorrow, whether going out will be smooth, whether fighting will be won, use a random way to find an answer." Ge Liang introduced that the vertical and horizontal cracks on the oracle bone are called divination signs, and the pronunciation of the divination character in the Wu dialect is pronounced as bo, which is the sound of divination signs cracking open. "After reading this divination omen, the people of the Shang Dynasty judged this matter and asked whether it was auspicious or inauspicious."
The back of this scapula is covered with traces of drilling and burning. Holes of various sizes, whether long or round, are cracked by high-temperature burning, revealing different types of cracks. In the eyes of the Shang Dynasty, the answer to prayer was hidden here. The content of divination is engraved next to divination signs, which is called oracle bone divination.
On the back of this scapula, there are still six characters written with a brush dipped in ink. The ink from three thousand years ago happened to be written on hard oracle bones, thus surviving. These texts are the few survivors left behind by adhering to the non perishable carrier of oracle bones.
Ge Liang introduced that on the side of the scapula, you can see traces of brush writing, and the importance and urgency of the strokes are clear at a glance, making them extremely precious. "It's hard to imagine that over 3000 years ago, our writing was not based on oracle bone inscriptions, but rather on writing with a brush."
The inscriptions on this oracle bone are similar to those on brush and ink calligraphy. Make the turning and lifting press smooth and graceful. The use of pen, structure, and structure is quite skillful. The various elements of calligraphy in later generations can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty characters represented by oracle bone inscriptions.
Pictography, understanding, borrowing, and phonetics... The past events of the Yin and Shang dynasties were transformed into characters, which gave rise to the Chinese way of creating characters. Ge Liang said, "Today's Chinese people can understand ancient books from 2000 years ago and oracle bone inscriptions from over 3000 years ago, which is unique in the world."
At present, it is known that there are about 160000 oracle bones and about 4500 single characters in oracle bone inscriptions. About one-third of them can be distinguished by later generations. These long, short, deep and shallow traces have pushed China's history of trust forward for over a thousand years.
Three thousand years ago, the fireworks and emotions of the human world were preserved in oracle bones. The expression of Chinese people is expressive, and from then on, there is a sense of belonging.
