How did Oracle Bone Inscriptions find out?

The carving marks on the ancient Oracle bones are recognized as the characters of Shang Dynasty, which is one of the third major archaeological discoveries in China at the end of last century and the beginning of this century. However, its discovery process is very accidental and full of dramatic colors.

In the autumn of Guangxu's 25th year, Wang, who served as imperial academy's toast in the Qing court, got malaria and sent someone to Darentang Chinese medicine shop outside Xuanwumen food market to buy a dose of Chinese medicine. Some symbols that Wang happened to see were engraved on a medicinal material called keel. Keels are the bones of ancient vertebrates. How can there be carved symbols hundreds of thousands of years ago on this bone? This aroused his curiosity. Wang, who has been studying ancient Chinese characters, carefully studied it and found that it is not a general notch, but very similar to ancient Chinese characters, but the shape is not seal script, nor seal script. In order to find more keels for in-depth study, he sent someone to Darentang to buy all the keels engraved with symbols in the drugstore at a high price of two taels of silver each. Later, he searched through antique dealer Fan and others, and collected more than 500 pieces of * * */kloc-0.

After careful study and analysis of these keels, he thinks that they are not the bones of "dragons", but tortoise shells and animal bones thousands of years ago. He gradually recognized the words "rain", "sun", "moon", "mountain" and "water" from the scratches on Oracle bones, and then found out the names of several kings in Shang Dynasty. So it is certain that this is an ancient word carved on animal bones. Since then, these Oracle Bone Inscriptions engraved with ancient Chinese characters have caused a sensation in all walks of life, and literati and antique dealers rushed to buy them.

Some people questioned Wang's discovery that there are keels and Chinese characters in traditional Chinese medicine, saying that there is no record of this in Wang's related writings. The keels eaten by Wang have been processed into fine particles in pharmacies, and no lettering can be seen. Moreover, there was no Darentang drugstore in Caishikou area at that time. In this regard, Zhou Shaoliang, a metallurgical scholar who later studied Oracle Bone Inscriptions medium stainless steel square pipes, said that at that time, in Chinese medicine shops, keels were sold piece by piece, until he went to Chinese medicine shops to buy keels in the 1930s. As for Darentang pharmacy, it was not at Caishikou at that time, but there was a famous Xihe Niantang Chinese medicine shop at Caishikou. At that time, people were superstitious about Xihe Niantang, and they had to go to Xihe Niantang drugstore to buy Chinese medicine. This may also be the result of misinformation at that time.

Before Oracle Bone Inscriptions was confirmed, farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang City, Henan Province had been digging ancient Oracle Bone Inscriptions in their fields. It is said that the first person to sell Oracle bones to a Chinese medicine shop was a barber named Li Cheng. Once he got an abscess and had no money to go to the doctor to buy medicine, so he ground these Oracle Bone Inscriptions into powder and applied it to the abscess. Unexpectedly, the pus that flowed out was sucked dry by bone powder, and it was found that bone powder had hemostatic effect. From then on, he collected them, described them as keels and sold them to Chinese medicine shops.

According to many scholars and experts, the so-called keel is actually a tool for divination in Shang Dynasty. Before divination, people saw the tortoise shell and the shoulder blades of cattle neatly, and then drilled a round deep nest and shallow groove on the back of the Oracle bone. In divination, first make clear what you want to ask ghosts and gods, and then burn the pit or ditch edge with burning twigs to a certain extent, and cracks appear in the corresponding parts of Oracle bones. Therefore, fortune tellers judge the good or ill luck, success or failure of things according to the length, thickness, straightness and appearance of cracks. After divination, the contents and results of divination are engraved near the divination with a knife, which is divination. Oracle bones engraved with Oracle Bone Inscriptions were properly collected in the pit as archives, and then handed down to future generations. The story discovered by Oracle Bone Inscriptions was later called T ..