How many words were there in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Xia and Shang Dynasties?

Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly refers to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, also known as Yin Ruins Characters, Wang Badan and Yin Qi, written on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty. 65438+ was discovered in Yin Ruins in Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan Province at the end of 2009, and inherited Wen Tao's word-making method. It was carved (or written) by the royal family on tortoise shells and animal bones in China in the late Shang Dynasty (14 ~1century) for divination. After the demise of Shang Dynasty and the rise of Zhou Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions continued to be used for some time. It is a relatively complete ancient writing system discovered by China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions was identified by antique dealers and epigraphers in 1898. After that, a large-scale excavation was carried out in Yin Ruins (Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province), and a large number of tortoise shells and animal bones were unearthed. Coupled with sporadic collection in other places, more than 100,000 articles have been collected so far, of which a single article is the longest100 words, which shows the embryonic form of practical writing. (Excerpted from Applied Writing No.3 1992, Prototype of Applied Writing-Oracle Bone Inscriptions).

There is another story about Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery: During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a man named Wang, who was an official of imperial academy, the highest institution of learning at that time. Once, he saw a Chinese medicine called keel, which was very strange, so he looked through the dregs. I didn't expect there to be a seemingly literal pattern on it. So he bought all the keels and found that each keel had a similar pattern. He is convinced that this is a kind of writing, and it is relatively perfect, which should be from the Yin and Shang Dynasties. Later, people discovered the place where the keel was unearthed-Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, where a large number of keels were unearthed. Because these keels are mainly Oracle Bone Inscriptions of turtles and mammals, people named them "Oracle Bone Inscriptions", and the subject of studying them is called "Oracle bones".

There are more than 5,000 different characters and figures in a total of * * * 65,438+million Oracle bones, of which about 65,438+0,000 characters have been recognized.

There are about 27% pictophonetic characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which shows that Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a fairly mature writing system. Some moments of animal bones with pattern symbols

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is an ancient script in China, regarded as an early form of modern Chinese characters, sometimes regarded as a script of Chinese characters, and also the oldest mature script in China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is also called Wen Qi, tortoise shell or tortoise shell animal bone. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a very important ancient writing material. Most Oracle Bone Inscriptions were found in Yin Ruins. Yin Ruins are famous sites of Yin Shang Dynasty, including Xiaotun Village, Huayuanzhuang and Houjiazhuang in the northwest of Anyang City, Henan Province. It was once the capital of the central dynasty in the late Yin Shang Dynasty, so it was called Yin Ruins. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions are basically the divination records of Shang rulers. Shang rulers are superstitious about whether there will be disasters, whether it will rain, whether there will be a good harvest of crops, whether there will be a victory in the war, what to sacrifice to ghosts and gods, and divination based on fertility, disease, dreaming and other things to understand the will of ghosts and gods and the quality of things. The materials used for divination are mainly tortoise's bellybutton, carapace and cattle's scapula. Small pits are usually dug or drilled on the back of Oracle bones for divination. This kind of pit is called "drilling" by experts in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Heating these pits during divination leads to cracks on the surface of Oracle bones. This kind of crack is called "omen" The word "Bu" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is like a symbol. People engaged in divination judge good or bad according to the various shapes of divination. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters at that time had developed into a complete Chinese writing system. In the discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins, the number of words has reached about 4000. There are a lot of signifiers, pictographs, knowing characters, and many pictographs. These words are very different in appearance from the words we use now. But from the point of word formation, they are basically the same.

At present, there are about 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones with more than 4,500 words. These Oracle Bone Inscriptions records are extremely rich in content, involving many aspects of social life in Shang Dynasty, including not only politics, military affairs, culture and social customs, but also astronomy, calendars, medicine and other science and technology. Judging from about 1500 characters identified in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the methods of "pictographic, comprehending, pictophonetic, referring to things, transferring notes and borrowing words" have been developed, which shows the unique charm of China characters. Documents based on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty in China (about 16 BC-0/0 BC). This is the earliest known form of Chinese literature. The characters carved on Oracle bones were previously called Wen Qi, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Turtle Edition, Yin Ruins, etc. Now they are usually called Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Due to superstition, Shang and Zhou emperors used tortoise shells (common in tortoise shells) or animal bones (common in cattle scapula) for divination, and then carved divination related matters (such as divination time, diviner, divination content, divination result, verification, etc. ) in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and preserved by the royal historian as archival materials (see Oracle Bone Inscriptions archives). In addition to Oracle inscriptions, there are some unforgettable inscriptions in Oracle Bone Inscriptions's offerings. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's contribution covers astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, country, lineage, family, figures, officials, conquest, prison, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifice, disease, birth and disaster. It is extremely precious first-hand information to study the social history, culture and language of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty.

Judging from the number and structure of fonts, Oracle Bone Inscriptions has developed into a more rigorous and systematic writing. The "six-character" principle of Chinese characters is reflected in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. But the traces of the original picture and the original words are still obvious. Its main features are:

(1) As far as the structure of characters is concerned, some hieroglyphs only emphasize the characteristics of physical objects, and the number of strokes and the front and back are not uniform.

(2) Some Oracle Bone Inscriptions's cognitive characters only require the radical to conform to a clear meaning, but not to be fixed. Therefore, there are many variants in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and some words can be written in dozens or even dozens.

(3) The size of Oracle Bone Inscriptions graphics is often determined by the complexity of physical objects, and some words can occupy the position of several words, either long or short.

(4) Because the characters are carved on hard animal bones with knives, the strokes are thin, mostly in Fang Bi.

Because Oracle Bone Inscriptions was carved with a knife, and the knife was sharp and blunt, and the bones were thin and thick, hard and soft, the strokes carved out were different in thickness, even as thin as hair, and the joints of the strokes were peeling off, thick and heavy. Structurally, the length and size are not necessarily the same, or the dispersion is uneven; Or the dense layers are stacked, which is very neat and solemn, so it can show the infinite interest of simplicity and variety.

Although the structure of Oracle Bone Inscriptions is complex and varied, it has a symmetrical and stable pattern. Therefore, some people think that China's calligraphy, strictly speaking, began in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, because Oracle Bone Inscriptions has prepared three elements of calligraphy, namely, using a pen, binding words and composing a composition.

The nicks on the ancient Oracle bones were identified as Shang Dynasty characters, which was one of the third archaeological discoveries in China at the end of last century and the beginning of this century (the remains of the Dunhuang Grottoes and Zhoukoudian Apes). However, its discovery process is very accidental and full of drama.

In the autumn of the 25th year of Guangxu reign in the late Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1899), he served as the king of imperial academy's wine supply in the Qing court in Beijing (1845- 1900) and got malaria. He sent someone to buy a dose of Chinese medicine at Darentang Chinese Medicine Shop at the food market outside Xuanwu Gate. A medicine that Wang happened to see was 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 is famous for studying ancient stone carvings, carefully studied it and found that it is not an ordinary notch, but resembles ancient Chinese characters, but its shape is neither a brush (big seal) nor a seal (small seal). In order to find more keels for in-depth study, he sent someone to Darentang to buy all the carved keels in the drugstore at a high price of two taels of silver each. Later, it was searched by antique dealer Fan and others, and accumulated more than 500 pieces of/kloc-0. Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed in Anyang

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. This proves that this is an ancient writing 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 scholars and antique dealers are vying for it.

Some people once questioned Wang's theory of finding the keel with characters in Chinese medicine, and thought that Wang had no record of this in relevant writings. The keel eaten by Wang had been processed into fine particles in the pharmacy, and there was no trace of words engraved. Moreover, there was no Darentang drugstore around Caishikou at that time. In this regard, Zhou Shaoliang, a scholar who later studied Oracle bone inscriptions, said that the keel was sold piece by piece in Chinese medicine shops at that time until he went to Chinese medicine shops to buy it in the 1930s. As for Darentang pharmacy, it was not in the food market at that time, but there was a famous Xihe Niantang Chinese medicine shop in the food market. At that time, people were superstitious about Xihe Niantang and wanted to go to Xihe Niantang drugstore to buy Chinese medicine, which may also be the result of misinformation at that time.

Before Oracle bone inscriptions were confirmed, farmers in Xiaotun Village, Anyang City, Henan Province kept digging and dug up ancient Oracle bones in their fields. It is said that the first person who sold Oracle bones in Chinese medicine shops was a barber named Li Cheng. Once he got an abscess and had no money to seek medical treatment and buy medicine, so he ground these Oracle Bone Inscriptions into powder and applied it to the abscess. Unexpectedly, the pus was sucked dry by bone powder, and it was found that bone powder also had the effect of hemostasis. From then on, he collected them, described them as dragon bones and sold them to Chinese medicine shops.

After many scholars and experts' research, 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 round deep nests and shallow grooves on the back of the Oracle bone. When divining, they first pray to ghosts and gods, and then burn the sides of deep nests or grooves to a certain extent with burning branches, and cracks appear in the corresponding parts of Oracle bones. Therefore, fortune tellers judge the success or failure of things according to the length, thickness, straightness and concealment of cracks. After divination, the contents and results of divination are engraved near the divination with a knife, which is Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Oracle bones engraved with Oracle Bone Inscriptions were properly collected in the cellar as files and handed down to future generations. The story discovered by Oracle Bone Inscriptions, later called "a Oracle Bone Inscriptions that shocked the world", has written a legendary chapter in the archaeological history of China and the world.

The first time was1June, 936 12. A Oracle Bone Inscriptions pit was excavated in Bei Gong area of Xiaotun Village, and 17096 Oracle Bone Inscriptions with words was preserved, which recorded many activities in Wuding period of Shang Dynasty. It seems that this is the Oracle Bone Inscriptions file of Wuding royal family. The excavation of these Oracle bones is of great value to the study of social politics, culture and life in Wuding period. During the excavation, a body curled up on its side was found in the pit, and most of the body was pressed on the Oracle bone. Experts think it may be the custodian of the file.

The second time, in the south of Xiaotun Village 1973, 7 150 pieces of Oracle bones were excavated, of which 504 1 piece was carved. At the same time, the unearthed pottery products also have these Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which provides valuable information for the staging of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Yin Ruins.

The third time, in the autumn of 199 1, a Oracle Bone Inscriptions pit with an area of only 2 square meters was excavated in the east of Huayuanzhuang, but its overlapping thickness reached 0.8 meters, and 579 pieces of Oracle bones 1583 were unearthed, including Oracle Bone Inscriptions, which was rich in records. The fortune tellers were all members of the royal family and senior nobles in Wuding period. It shows that the divination activities in this period were not limited to the king, the supreme ruler, but all the royal nobles could use divination to predict good or bad luck.

The discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the excavation of Yin Ruins caused by it are of epoch-making significance to China archaeology.