Fortune teller _ How about a fortune teller?

How did the ancients use the keel for divination?

Cauterization is limited to a certain point inside the bone, and the cauterization temperature should be controlled outside the bone opposite to the cauterization point.

There are radial cracks on it. This divination method is simple and feasible, and can be carried out in large quantities as needed. The existing Oracle Bone Inscriptions shows that the Yin king should perform divination before the following events, so as to predict good or bad: major actions and decisions related to his tribe, events that may affect the Yin king himself, his relatives and his tribe, and the arrival of various periods and stages in a year. In addition, simplifying the bone divination also makes the divination technique more precise, and the divination obtained is clearer and more regular, so that it can be analyzed more accurately and systematically.

First of all, Oracle Bone Inscriptions needs to be finely processed by scraping, grinding and other processes in advance, so that the burned cracks can be clearly identified. Secondly, in order to prevent the burning of Oracle bones, the burning method is very elegant. Oracle Bone Inscriptions didn't casually throw it into the fire to burn, but cleverly let it only touch a blazing fire. Providing this ignition tool is called a contract in Zhou Li. A "jar" is a stick cut from a shrub and usually used as fuel. One end of it is lit in a brazier called "jar". However, the Oracle bone has a certain thickness, and there is only one fire point in Hu Qi, which is not enough to crack the outside of the Oracle bone. Therefore, it is necessary to drill an airtight burning hole on the inside of the Oracle bone. The size of the hole should be equivalent to that of Hu Qi, about one or two centimeters. The bottom of the hole needs to be thinned and the remaining thickness should be moderate, so that it is easy to crack and not burst. The oldest known Oracle Bone Inscriptions, such as Longshan Cultural Site, has adopted this firing technology. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions are finely processed after being fired in a mortar.

The hole burning is regular and the position is suitable. Bone divination technology was significantly improved again, about before and after Shang Wang settled in Xiaotun, that is, around the beginning of Yin Dynasty.

On the 175 Oracle bones unearthed in Erligang 1952 (Erligang is not far from Zhengzhou, and it was the last capital of Shang Dynasty before Yin Dynasty), almost all the burnt holes on the Oracle bones unearthed in Xiaotun were scraped, and they were all compound holes. The specific shape was as follows: an oval groove was drilled along the Oracle bones, and a Neolithic stone was drilled in the middle of the groove. The hole protrudes from one side of the groove (usually on one side of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions seam). The main purpose of choosing this hole shape is obviously to make the cracks after burning as regular as possible. After using the compound burning hole, the cracks are no longer distributed radially as when there is only a semi-circular hole, but extend along the two lines with the weakest resistance on the Oracle bone. There are a pair of symmetrical planes on the top, bottom, left and right of the oval groove, namely, the upper and lower ends along the long axis of the groove and the left and right sides along the short axis of the groove; Cracks extend along these two axes. However, because the semi-circular hole deviates to one side of the groove, the crack only extends to this side. As a result, the cracks on the outside of Oracle Bone Inscriptions began.

Finally, it presents a t-shape. One crack extends along both ends of the long axis of the groove, and the other crack intersects it vertically and extends in the direction of the deviation of the semi-circular hole.