Download Oracle bones - Ancient China! (:

Oracle Bones
Also Known As: Jia Gu Wen (in Chinese Pinyin)
What an Oracle Bone with Answers
and Questions is.
• Oracle bones are pieces of bone or turtle
plastron having the answers to answers and
questions during the late Shang Dynasty.
• They were heated and cracked, then typically
inscribed using a bronze pin in what is known as
oracle bone script.
• The oracle bones are the earliest known
significant body of ancient Chinese writing, and
contain important historical information.
About the Oracle Bones
• Oracle bone inscriptions were the earliest
Chinese writing scripts, are the ancient
Chinese characters carved on tortoise
shells and animal scapulas.
• The oracle bone inscriptions were mainly
used for divination and keeping records of
events happened in the late Shang
Dynasty, and for talking to their ancestors
(in 1300 BC - 1046 BC).
How it worked.
• Here's how it worked:
• The king or emperor would ask a question.
• The priest would carve the king's question on an
oracle bone, which was just an animal bone or
turtle shell.
• Then, the priest would heat a bronze pin and
hold the hot pin to the bone.
• This created a pattern of cracks over the bone.
• The priest would study the cracks to find the
answer to the question.
Interesting Facts
• They are called oracle bones because the writing deals
with divination and is carved on bone -- ox scapula and
tortoiseshell.
• The oracle bones have taught scholars much about the
Shang Dynasty.
• About 150,000 of these were found in AnYang, in the
northern province of Henan, China, beginning in 1899.
• Archaeologists have found over 100,000 oracle bones.
• Since many questions were asked about daily life, we
know something about this civilization.
• Oracle bones say things like: "If we sacrifice 10 men or 5
oxen, will it rain tomorrow?"
Sources
http://china.mrdonn.org/oracleb
ones.html
http://chineseculture.about.com/
library/weekly/aa_oracle02a.ht
m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracl
e_bone