How did Oracle Bone Inscriptions find out?

The discoverer of Oracle bone inscriptions was the king in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.

In the 25th year of Guangxu (1899), Wang, who was over 500 years old, suffered from malaria. A famous old Chinese doctor prescribed the medicine "keel", but he found that there were many very regular symbols on these "keels" of different sizes, much like ancient Chinese characters.

In order to find out, he bought many "keels". Wang has repeatedly scrutinized, compared and pieced together these "keels". With profound knowledge of epigraphy, he soon learned that these "keels" were tortoise shells and animal bones, and the symbols on them were carved with a knife, and the cracks were caused by high temperature burning. Finally, Wang determined that these symbols engraved on Oracle bones were a kind of writing, which predated the inscriptions on bronze and seal script.

Wang further traced back to the source and finally found that most of these Oracle bones were produced in Xiaoshangtun, Anyang County, Henan Province, and then discovered the "Yin Ruins".

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The background of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's birth

During the Shang Dynasty, 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 divination to know good or bad luck and 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.