Oracle Bone Inscriptions's background.

From state affairs to private life, such as sacrifice, climate, harvest, conquest, hunting, sick people, childbirth, going out, etc. The royal family and nobles all asked God for advice until they decided to stop. As a result, divination became a major event in the political life of the country, and the court set up special institutions and divination officials. Oracle Bone Inscriptions with inscriptions is preserved as a national archive and piled in caves. Therefore, Oracle Bone Inscriptions became the first-hand material to study the history of Shang Dynasty, reflecting all aspects of social life from BC 1300 to BC 1000.

"Book of Rites" says: "Yin people respect God, lead civil gods, ghosts first, then rituals." It is known that in the Yin and Shang Dynasties, before dealing with big and small affairs, kings used Oracle bones for divination, praying for ghosts and gods, and then carved questions on Oracle bones afterwards. After the demise of Shang Dynasty, divination gradually disappeared in Zhou Dynasty, and its characters were gradually unknown.

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. During divination, heat is applied to these pits, causing 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.