The Oracle Bone Script 甲骨文 | Chinese History - The Shang Dynasty E25

Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Api Ngo. I'm that Chinese history guy. Here we share the myths, legends and histories of the Chinese people from the first creator to the last imperial dynasty. Now if you like stuff like this, don't forget to like, sub, comment and share. Now if you've been following this series, you would most probably agree that the Shang society was an extremely superstitious one with fortune telling and divinations and the telling of omens and signs forming the core of Shang dynasty culture. Now the results or the answers of these divinations and this fortune telling or you know omens and sign reading were often or rather all of these answers were carved into animal bones or shells which were now known as oracle bones and the inscriptions, the writings on these bones and shells are known as the which today we know or we identify them as the earliest recognisable form of writing systems in Chinese history or basically just the earliest form of Chinese language and Chinese writing. And the content of these early writings provided scholars, historians and archaeologists with a treasure trove of first-hand accounts and first-hand information for the study of Shang dynasty society, of Shang dynasty history, culture and the development of language as a whole. Now however, the discovery of these oracle bones, of these precious valuable artefacts was not as straightforward as one might expect. In fact, it was one of these situations that I guess we could say the fact is sometimes stranger than fiction. So what is the oracle bone script? Now the oracle bone script is an ancient or early Chinese writing system that appeared in the Shang dynasty roughly around the 17th to 11th century Now due to the fact that it was a form of writing that was inscribed onto animal shells or bones that were used for divination, it was named the oracle bone script and of course the shells and the bones were called oracle bones. Now it is the earliest recognisable Chinese writing system and characters discovered so far. Now Shang society and its rulers, as we've mentioned many many times before, were a very superstitious lot and therefore divinations and the readings of signs and omens formed the very core of Shang culture. People from all walks of life, you know, straddling all levels of society, would often seek guidance from oracles and from fortune tellers for everything, you know, from the outcome of wars, the possibility of being cured from illnesses, the quality and the quantity of harvest, right down to genders of unborn children, unborn babies. What would happen was that the names of these answer seekers and the questions they posed and the answers they got in return from the oracles or from the fortune tellers would be meticulously inscribed into animal shells or bones after these divination or fortune telling sessions. And sometimes, not all the time, sometimes the accuracy of the answers that they got in return would be recorded on the same shells and bones at a much later date after the events that they were asking about had happened. Now the contents of these inscriptions covered all facades of Shang dynasty or Shang society, which in turn provided archaeologists and scholars and historians a great source of first-hand information and insight into how Shang society worked. Now, how the social structure was constructed, the way the military was set up, and how rewards and punishments worked, and even details regarding major events like the ascension of a new ruler, the results and the progression of wars and conflicts, and the very detailed documentation of worship rituals. Now, detailed documentation of the crops that were farmed at the time, and how they were grown, and what were the points to take note of while taking care of these farm crops, and the effects of weather changes on these harvests were recorded. Now, the types of livestock being kept and how many were slaughtered by nobles during worship ceremonies were noted down in great detail, and the various types of game that hunters brought back, and the methods of hunting these animals were also passed down through these inscriptions as well. Now, astronomical phenomena like solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, the positions of constellations and prominent stars in the skies were recorded in detail, and together with these meteorological predictions like when the weather would change, when the wind directions would change, predictions of storms, rain, and hail, and right down to cloud movements. All kinds of observations of nature were recorded down in these oracle bones as well, and even medical records were found that documented ailments like headaches, toothaches, symptoms of infections, nasal infections, eye infections, and various impairments of limbs, and various ailments and pains and aches were also meticulously recorded and kept and detailed in these inscriptions on the oracle bones. Now, not only did these oracle bones and the oracle bone scripts that were inscribed on them, not only did they open a window for modern day scholars and historians, a window for them to look into Shang society, it also provided etymologists with a valuable resource into discovering the rules and the direction that guided the development of the Chinese language as a whole. In fact, the simplification of complex pictograms into Chinese characters, the development of phonetic characters, and the appearance of loan characters all started around the late Shang dynasty period, and the discovery of this oracle bone script and the oracle bones themselves, these valuable artifacts, marked the Shang dynasty as the beginning of the period, or the beginning of the era of written or recorded history of the Chinese people, and the beginning of the Chinese language as we know it today, and their culture, historical, and archaeological value of these artifacts can really never be overstated in any way, shape, or form. Now that we have a general idea of what oracle bones and what oracle bone script is, let's get on to its discovery. How did we discover these artifacts, and why did I say that, you know, this is one of those cases where maybe fact is stranger than fiction, and why we would have even more of these artifacts if they were not really minusly destroyed in the early days of his discovery. So as the story goes, in the mid to the late 1800s, in this village called Xiaotun in the Anyang region of Henan, there was this head shaver by the name of Li Cheng, and Li Cheng was struck now by a disease basically that caused this pus filled boils to spread all over his body, and it was pretty uncomfortable to say the least, and being a poor and derelict, I would say, head shaver, Li Cheng did not really have the money to go and see a doctor, or in his case, a physician, so he had no way to really officially or scientifically or medically treat his sickness. So however, desperate for some relief from his pain and his Yep, Foxy is in some discomfort. You all right there, buddy? Okay. Now, where were we? Okay, Li Cheng, desperate for some relief from his pain and his discomfort, he remembered there were these bones, ancient bones and shells that local farmers will often dig up from their farmlands and seeing them as useless, they would just toss them along the roads and the ditches of the villages. So in desperation, Li Cheng picked these bones and these shells up, he crushed them into powder and applied this powder to the many open wounds and boils on his body in a bid to at least try to dry them up, to make them stop licking, I guess. And to his great surprise, this bone powder was extremely effective at soaking up all the pus and the blood that was licking freely from his open wounds. And this discovery basically not only cured him of his condition, it also gave rise or gave him a new business idea. Now, once he recovered, he started going around the entire region, collecting all the bones and shells that he could find that was tossed out by these local farmers. And many of these bones and shells had these weird inscriptions or markings on them, but he did not think much of them. And he just needed money, so he started collecting them and he started attempting to sell them to medical halls and apothecaries as a miracle cure, basically for open wounds and other blood and pus related ailments. Now, as the owners of these medical halls and these Chinese physicians were unsure of what Li Cheng was trying to sell them, basically, Li Cheng would often conduct live demonstrations of the effects of these miracle bones. So what he would do, he would make small cuts on his fingers and he would put some of this bone powder on his wounds and it would effectively dry up and stop the bleeding in a relatively quick time. And so his effects were very quickly understood by these medical hall owners and Chinese physicians. And in a way to, I guess, to market this new product more effectively, Li Cheng started calling these bones dragon bones. And some of those with these inscriptions on them, Li Cheng would even go as far as saying that, oh they hold magical powers that could, you know, that was the cause of this miraculous effect of these bones. And so, you know, over time it became popular and the medical practitioners would be willing to buy them and they were not expensive. It was selling for about six copper coins per catty, which in today's terms would be roughly about one US dollar per 600 grams or one US dollar per slightly more than a pound for you American friends out there. So yeah, it wasn't expensive, a dollar a pound roughly for these dragon bones. And that, my dear friends, was how the first oracle bones was spread into the wider world. Although by this time nobody knew the true value of these dragon bones, at least not for many more years to come. In fact, the value of these bones at that time was a dollar a pound. Yeah, for what we would now know as priceless artifacts. Now, it was not until the year 1899 during the Qing dynasty, which was the last imperial dynasty of China. In 1899, a man named Wang Yirong, who held a very high position in the Qing dynasty court. In fact, his position would be what is equivalent to what we call a minister of education in today's governmental institutions. So, very high position and a very knowledgeable and well-learned man. Mr. Wang, in this story, was struck down by a case of malaria. Among the herbs and minerals included in his prescription was this ingredient called, you guessed it, dragon bones. It was during his convalescence or during his recovery that he was bored most probably. So, he was going through his medicine, his prescription, and this was when he saw these strange markings, these strange symbols and inscriptions on the dragon bones among his prescription. It triggered his curiosity. Now, as a renowned scholar and connoisseur of curios and antiques, Wang Yirong was certain that these symbols, these inscriptions on the bones and the shells were definitely not caused by nature. They were definitely man-made, and it was even possible that they were some form of writing. Although, they did not conform to any of the ancient scripts that he knew, and let me tell you, he knew quite a lot of them. Realizing the value of these bones, he instructed his house steward, his servants, to go to a pottery and buy out all the bones that they could find. He followed that up by going on to buy out all of the dragon bones that he could source from around the area through all kinds of means, through his connections, through his relatives to buy up all the dragon bones they could find. His collection slowly grew over time to consist of more than 1,500 pieces of the bones that were inscribed and had these markings on them. Now, over time and upon closer inspection and research, Wang Yirong found that these were the shells or the bones of ancient tortoises and ancient animals that had been buried under the ground for thousands of years, rather than the mythical dragon bones that they were marketed as. He slowly could recognize some of these inscriptions, some of these symbols. He slowly recognized them as characters for the words like rain, sun, moon, mountain, and water, among the many others that he could slowly recognize and piece together. There were also inscriptions on these bones that looked like the names of a few Shang dynasty rulers. It was at this time that he concluded that these inscriptions were actually an ancient form of Chinese writing that predated everything that had been discovered up to that point. Now, this discovery caused a major stir amongst the scholars and the antique collectors of the time. It actually sparked a buying frenzy for these ancient artifacts in society once he announced his discovery. One would think that given time, Mr. Wang would have discovered even more. But unfortunately, before Wang Yirong could conduct any deeper studies into the artifacts, the Allied Forces invasion of China or the invasion of the Qing dynasty happened and Mr. Wang unfortunately died in the war. Yeah, life happens. Now, in contrast to his unfortunate fate, Wang Yirong's collection of these dragon bones was actually bequeathed to his good friend, a man named Liu'e, who is a famous author in his own right. For any of you out there who actually knows a bit of Chinese literature, he was the author of Lao Chan You Ji. So yeah, that Liu'e. Liu'e continued to seek out more of these inscribed dragon bones and over time, he grew the collection to more than 5,000 pieces of these bones. In 1903, Liu'e collated or curated all these inscriptions and he published them in a book named the Tie Yun Chang Kui. So after the publication of Tie Yun Chang Kui in 1903, the scholar Sun Yirang used the characters published in this collection as the basis to conduct his own research into the oracle bones and the oracle bone scripts. He published the first specialized book on the topic named Qi Wen Ju Li. Although the discovery of these artifacts caused a great impact in the academic world, these antique sellers and curio sellers, curio merchants who obviously were looking out for their own benefits, refused for the longest time to reveal the location of where all these artifacts are coming from. It was not until the year 1908 that another scholar named Luo Zhen Yu found that the bones originated from a Xiaotun village in Henan. Now not only did Luo Zhen Yu use his connections and ask his relatives to buy up as many of these bones dug up as possible, he personally conducted archaeological studies on site and in total, he amassed a collection of more than 20,000 pieces of the inscribed oracle bones. In 1913, he picked out about 2,000 pieces of the more well-preserved, I guess, pieces of these artifacts and published their contents into two volumes to form the foundation for future research into oracle bone scripts as a specialized topic. Now in today's context, we would all recognize Mr Wang Yirong as the father of oracle bone scripts because let's face it, without his curiosity and without his discovery, we might not even know that we had this ancient writing system and we might not have discovered these valuable or rather priceless artifacts that gave current day scholars, historians and archaeologists their insights into the firsthand accounts of what is arguably one of the first and earliest dynasties in Chinese history and by extension, this whole series on the Shang dynasty will most probably have not existed in the first place. So it would be impossible to overrate or overstate the importance of the efforts that Wang Yirong, Liu E, Sun Yirang and Luo Zhenyu, it would be impossible to overstate their importance and the role that they played in the discovery of one of the most important artifacts in Chinese history. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video and the content as much or more than I enjoyed making it and if you did, don't forget to help us out with a like, a sub, comment and a share and if you would like to support the channel and this project out even more in more tangible ways, you can do so through Patreon. It would definitely definitely help to keep the lights on around here and it would definitely help to pay the bills. The details are available in the description box below and here's a shout out to the Patreon supporters. Thank you so much, you really help me out here and you guys are lifesavers. So yeah, without much further ado, I guess that's all for today. I will see you, you, yeah you, right there, right there, correct, that's you. I will see you in the next episode.