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What were the Shang oracle bones?
Shang oracle bones are ox scapulae and turtle plastrons inscribed after divination in late Shang China, c. 1300–1046 BCE. Diviners heated them until they cracked, read the cracks as answers, and recorded the questions and results on the bone. Most of these bones come from Yinxu near Anyang, the last Shang capital.
Facts checked on against 17 sources, 13 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| Neolithic | Pyro-scapulimancy is first practiced by Neolithic inhabitants of North China on the bones of deer, sheep, pigs and cattle.12 |
|---|---|
| Late Shang | Most oracle bones come from Yinxu near Anyang, the last Shang capital, and the bones are mostly ox scapulae and turtle plastrons.34 |
| c. 1300–1046 BCE | Oracle bone inscriptions date primarily to the late Shang dynasty, the earliest known system of ancient Chinese writing.5 |
| 1899 | Wang Yirong recognises inscribed bone fragments sold as 'dragon bones' and notes their resemblance to ancient Chinese characters.364 |
| Autumn 1928 | Fu Sinian sends an excavation team to Anyang, the start of systematic excavation at the Yin Ruins.67 |
| 1933 | Dong Zuobin publishes a periodization of the Anyang oracle bones according to Shang chronology.36 |
| 1991 | Pit H3 at Huayuanzhuang East is found ahead of road construction in Anyang, and its divination archive is later published in full in 2003.8 |
What the bones were and how they were prepared
Turtle plastrons were trimmed at the outer edge, stripped of their outer horny scutes and planed smooth so that cracks would show on the front and the surface could take writing. Keightley credits the Shang with plastromancy, cutting orderly hollows so cracks took structured shapes, and incising records into bone and shell.12
Hollows were bored or chiselled into the verso of the bone before heating. Their number and layout varied with the size and shape of the bone, and they set the approximate position and direction of the crack that formed on the front. Schwartz notes that diviners often worked in sets and made divinations on one topic in threes, a practice called san bu zhi.81
Reading the cracks and recording the answer
Diviners heated the prepared bone with a hot poker or rod until it cracked, then interpreted the shape of the crack as the spirits' answer to the question. The king himself was the chief diviner, and a scribe engraved the date of each divination, often with its result.910
Each recorded question followed a four-part pattern of preface, charge, prognostication and verification. Marginal notes on bone and shell also recorded the source and number of the material, the persons who handled it, and the day-date. Keightley notes that the question, the diviner's name, the omen and whether it came true were often engraved beside the cracks.11112
Later excavation and reading the script
Oracle bone inscriptions are among the earliest surviving examples of written Chinese, and they include more than 4,600 distinct characters of which only about a thousand have been deciphered. Many bones were damaged by weathering and by excavation methods that were not always ideal, which left texts partial or illegible.121314
Large-scale scientific excavation at Anyang began after the Institute of History and Philology was established in 1928, and excavations at Hsiao-t'un yielded more than 25,000 pieces. Schwartz reports that more than 73,000 pieces of inscribed shell and bone had been found at Anyang since 1899, nearly all made on behalf of or by Shang kings.15168
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Chinese pharmacists and apothecaries once ground the inscribed bones into powder sold as 'dragon bones' for use in potions and poultices, a use described by Mair and by Chinese herbalists.61712
Shang tradition held that royal ancestors had foreknowledge of events and could influence them, so divination by cracks identified the right target for appeasement. Chinese myth credits the culture hero Fu Hsi with inventing plastromancy, though Keightley notes that this attribution first appears in Ming-times writing.42
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Keightley reports that Shang diviners used turtle plastrons and bovid scapulas in roughly equal numbers over the historical period, although their popularity may have varied with time. Berry identified four chelonian species among the inscribed plastrons.2
Liu and colleagues' radiocarbon study dated only ox scapulae, because the turtle plastron is considered unsuitable for radiocarbon dating due to the water reservoir effect. Their results place King Wu Ding's reign at 1254–1197 cal BC and the end of the Shang around 1041 cal BC.3
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- Oracle bones are best understood as the archive of a heat-cracking method in which the bone's form, the prepared hollows and the diviner's reading all shaped the answer that was written down.12109
- Accounts of the bones' chronology differ, with Dong Zuobin, Chen Mengjia, Li Xueqin and Zhang Peiyu each using different criteria to date or group them.3
Not yet confirmed
- How did the choice between turtle plastrons and ox scapulae change across the Shang period and from one site to another?
- Which criteria should be used to group the bones into periods, given that Dong Zuobin, Chen Mengjia and Li Xueqin used different systems?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- archive.org: Full text of "Keightley - Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (1978)". Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: Keightley - Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (1978). Read on · Primary text
- cambridge.org: RADIOCARBON DATING OF ORACLE BONES OF LATE SHANG PERIOD IN ANCIENT CHINA | Radiocarbon | Cambridge Core. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk: Chinese Oracle Bones - Cambridge Digital Library. Read on · University
- nature.com: Oracle bone inscriptions information processing: a comprehensive survey | npj Heritage Science. Read on · Reference
- tandfonline.com: Full article: The scholarship on oracle bones and oracle bone inscriptions: Retrospect and prospect—Introduction. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- tandfonline.com: The scholarship on oracle bones and oracle bone inscriptions: Retrospect and prospect—Introduction: Chinese Studies in History: Vol 53, No 4. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- Internet Archive: The Oracle Bone Inscriptions from Huayuanzhuang East. Read on · Primary text
- sciencedirect.com: New insights into the origins of oracle bone divination: Ancient DNA from Late Neolithic Chinese bovines - ScienceDirect. Read on · Reference
- daily.jstor.org: How to Read the Bones Like a Scapulimancer - JSTOR Daily. Read on · University
- worldhistory.org: Oracle Bones - World History Encyclopedia. Read on · Reference
- factsanddetails.com: ORACLE BONES AND EARLY CHINESE WRITING | Facts and Details. Read on · Reference
- pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: An open dataset for oracle bone character recognition and decipherment - PMC. Read on · University
- Internet Archive: The Arts of China. Read on · Primary text
- museum.sinica.edu.tw: Our Superstars-- Special Exhibition of Oracle Bones | Museum of the Institute of History & Philology, Academia Sinica. Read on · Museum
- museum.sinica.edu.tw: Oracle Bones | Museum of the Institute of History & Philology, Academia Sinica. Read on · Museum
- penn.museum: Expedition Magazine | The Case of the Wayward Oracle Bone. Read on · Museum