Once there was a dynasty in China that ruled for a long time. The achievements they made for Chinese culture were many. But then the unthinkable happened the Shang dynasty was forgotten, and to some nothing more than a myth. In 1899 the Oracle Bones were rediscovered when a man went to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for dragon bones. He bought an old bone. He realized that the scratches were not random markings and showed it to his brother in law a notable historian. The two quickly went back to the pharmacy to find out where the bones came from. They ended up buying all the bones that were in the store, the quest to understand the oracle bones had begun. When they were found the Shang dynasty came back to life. The oracle bones prove just how important one little artifact can be to history and the ancient city of Anyang was at the middle.
The Shang Oracle Bones were a tool the kings used to divine answers to questions. Most of them were made from the shoulder blade of an ox or the flat underside of a turtle. The bones had to undergo a process before they were used for divining. They were cleaned of meat first. Next they were sawed and shaped. Some even got polished on one side. Finally on the reverse side hollow pits were chiseled into the bone. These pits would be where the heat would be applied to the bone by a heated stick. There were no limits to what type of question was asked. After the question was asked the diviner heated up the bone until it cracked. The cracks were interpreted by the diviner and an answer given. In the later years of the dynasty the kings themselves would also be diviners. The Kings were thought to be able to foresee the future and were powerful enough to influence events even alter the outcome if they had too. The using of oracle bones didn’t start with the Shang but is a far older tradition in the Chinese culture. Bones have been found dating to the Erlitou a civilization that dates back to 2100 B.C.E. These early bones while still an important piece of history are not as complicated as the Shang dynasty’s Ocale Bones. The Shang were the first ones to write the information on the bones. The diviner inscriped the date, the question asked, who was diving, the ancestor’s answer, and even sometimes who asked the question. Later the result would be added to the bone. The way the bones have been found in large collections with others of the same type of bone, suggests that they were even stored together in an archive.
The oracle bones were seen as a way to ask the ancestors for advice and to see if they were unhappy with someone. Ancestor worship was a very important part of Chinese culture even in Shang dynasty some three thousand years ago. Keeping the ancestors happy was very important a diviner would be able to tell a family if offerings were needed to be made. Happy ancestors blessed their families with money good harvests, and happiness, unhappy ones could be bothersome and cause everything from poor harvest to illness. There is also evidence that the goddess His-wang-mu was worshipped at the time. She is thought to be depicted by a tiger symbol and represents rebirth. Seasonal pictographs have been found it is believed the turtle represents the fall seasons. “One finds epigraphic (and perhaps phonetic) relationship between the graphs for phoenix and dragon.” (Porter pg. 79) Today’s Chinese is a product of the language of the Shang that started in the second millennium B.C.
The discovery of the bones led to many counterfeits being made and this can cause some problem for those trying to learn all that the bones can tell us. A forgery leads to misleading and false findings. There are estimated to be more fakes than the genuine thing. At one time they were a highly sought after collector’s item. They can also be misleading in the sense that the people might not have done what the bones told them to do but they told the diviner they did. They wouldn’t want people to know they went against the ancestor’s advice and things didn’t turn out. The ancestors were so important that many probably didn’t go against them and in some cases they were bound to be wrong.
However the bones seem to suggest that the Shang dynasty was a rather prosperous time for the people and not just a myth. Everyone from the king on down sought out the advice of the diviners, since the king was also diviners it is strong evidence that the nobles knew how to read. They had a complex government and complex rituals they followed. The bones show all aspects of life but none more so than the king. It might be that some of the kings didn’t make a decision without asking the bones for advice. What were once thought of stories or myths were proven to have actually happened. “these ancient people were not really all that different from those living today.” (Emily Mark, 26 Feb 2016)
With the finding of the bones, a whole new part of the past was rediscovered. While there is still much to find, what they bones have told us so far has been amazing, and they still have many secrets to tell. Even the process of heating the bones and getting them to crack as they did so long ago is trial and error process. It will be fascinating to see what these ancient items tell us next.
Sources
E. M. (2016, February 26). Oracle Bones. Retrieved July 22, 2016, from http://www.ancient.eu/Oracle_Bones/
J. K. (2009). China A History. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Porter, D. L. (1996). From deluge to discourse: Myth, history, and the generation of Chinese fiction. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Oracle Bone. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2016, from http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/mulu/oracle.html
