Notes on Oracle Bone Inscriptions's Story

? In college, the school organized a visit to the Yin Ruins Museum and attended the opening ceremony of China Natural History. I became interested in Oracle Bone Inscriptions when I first came into contact with it. When I was in my junior year, I came into contact with Li's "500 Cases of Chinese Characters Evolution" and was attracted by its interesting and detailed explanation, so I copied the whole book by hand. 202 1 I accidentally read the story of Oracle Bone Inscriptions by Dong Zuobin and Dong Min in the reading guide catalogue recommended by the Ministry of Education (2020 edition), so I decided to buy it and read it. July 202 1 to July 16-20221October 5. It took nearly half a year.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions's story explained in detail the discovery, excavation, rubbing, research and rise of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and also popularized the knowledge about Oracle Bone Inscriptions for me.

? I thought that Oracle Bone Inscriptions was portrayed with a knife, but only after reading it did I know that Oracle Bone Inscriptions wrote it first and then carved it. At that time, there was a difference between bamboo calligraphy and ink calligraphy, and the writing tool was a brush. The writing method is first left and then right, first straight and then down, which is exactly the same as the current regular script. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's engraving method is to put the whole page of straight paintings up for a moment, whether it is straight before falling or straight after falling. Oblique painting is equivalent to straight painting. After carving, it will be painted horizontally for a while, and it needs to be rotated in all directions. Whether drawing straight or horizontally, you should carve the knife left and right, and the deep line is where the two edges intersect.

Oracle Bone Inscriptions and businessmen who value divination.

In the court of Shang dynasty, there was a divination institution specially set up for Shang king, and a special person was in charge of all divination work.

Real people: when the Shang king or the royal family needs divination, real people as spokespersons ask for divination.

Fortune teller: in charge of divination.

Occupation: full-time explanation of the meaning of cracks

Historian: Record the whole divination process.

These are the roles that businessmen must play in divination. Some of them have more than one role, and some of them have multiple roles at the same time.

The contents of divination: astronomical climate, war, sacrifice, harvest, disease, childbirth, etc.

A complete Oracle can be divided into four parts:

Record the date of divination and the name of the diviner.

Second, the words of life: record the things you are asked.

Third, the text: the person who records the sign judges the good or bad text.

Fourth, look up words: record the performance.

? Generally speaking, the order and destiny are usually engraved on the front of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and divination is carried out in a positive and negative symmetrical way. For example, the destiny on the left is: It will rain tomorrow, and the destiny on the right is "It won't rain tomorrow". On the reverse side of Oracle bones, the words occupation and inspection will be engraved. But not all oracles are complete.

? Oracle Bone Inscriptions is not all Oracle Bone Inscriptions, but there are also annotations and epigrams.

? Studying Oracle Bone Inscriptions will help us understand the origin of Chinese characters and explore the meaning behind them.