The origin of Oracle Bone Inscriptions

Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the earliest and most complete ancient script discovered by China. Oracle Bone Inscriptions mainly refers to the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Yin Ruins, also known as "Yin Ruins Characters" and "Yin Qi", written on the bones of tortoise shells and beasts in Shang Dynasty. 65438+ was discovered in Yin Ruins in Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan at the end of 2009. It inherited Wen Tao's word-making method and was carved (or written) on tortoise shells and animal bones by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty (14 ~1century) in China. After the demise of Shang Dynasty and the rise of Zhou Dynasty, Oracle Bone Inscriptions continued to be used for some time.

During the Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, there was a man named Wang, who was the head 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". In a total of * * * 65,438+million Oracle bones, there are more than 4,000 different characters and figures, of which about 2,500 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. 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. In the process of 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. According to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters at that time had developed into a writing system that could completely record Chinese. 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, about 6.5438+0.5 million pieces of Oracle bones have been found.

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, imprisonment, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifice, disease, birth and disaster. It is extremely valuable first-hand information for studying the social history, culture and language of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty.