More than 120 years ago, the discovery of the oracle bone inscription in Yinxu was like a ray of light, piercing the sky of history and illuminating this ancient capital that had been sleeping for more than 3,000 years. What kind of mystery is hidden in the oracle bone glyphs of the Shang Dynasty?
The oracle bone inscription of the Shang Dynasty is an encyclopedia of the society at that time. On December 25, Yu Chenglong, former vice president of the National Museum of China Research Institute and national major exhibition of the National Museum of China, said in an interview with reporters that the oracle bone inscription provides empirical evidence for the restoration of the history of the Shang Dynasty.
For example, the oracle bone inscription in the east of Yinxu Garden is a divination record of the divination of the diviner 'Zi', whose doubts include sacrifices, military affairs, field hunting, gongna, feasts, weather and schooling, music and dance, archery, royal horses, diseases and many other fields, which can be described as the living record of 'Zi', creating an image of a prince of the Shang Dynasty who can be literate and martial, flesh and blood. Yu Jackie Chan gave an example.
Over the past 100 years, in order to interpret the genes of Chinese culture, several generations of scholars have continued to write, either collecting records, or interpreting texts, or studying the mysteries of ancient society contained in oracle bone inscriptions, and the pace of exploring oracle bone inscriptions has never stopped.
Without the research and collation of oracle bone inscriptions, it would be impossible to complete the History of the Shang Dynasty. Song Zhenhao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the Academy, said, "To study oracle bone inscriptions, we must actually study the people and things behind oracle bones and the history behind them." ”
Before the discovery of the oracle bone inscriptions, the history of the Shang Dynasty was only recorded in the "Historical Records of Yin Benji". From 1999 to 2015, Song Zhenhao presided over the completion of the work of "History of the Shang Dynasty", which pushed the history of Chinese letters from 841 BC by more than 1,000 years, filling the gap in the history of the Shang Dynasty.
The oracle bone inscription is the earliest written classical documentary heritage in China, and it is the real Chinese gene, which is enough to build a solid foundation for the development process of traditional Chinese civilization, which can be used to trace the unknown of China's ancient history and peek into the social life of the Yin Shang dynasty around 3,300 years ago. Song Zhenhao believes that the oracle bone inscription period belongs to the late Shang Dynasty, and the merchants recorded the real Shang royal lineage, the succession to the throne, the marriage and kinship system, the ideological and emotional expression in social life and the concept of religious worship among ethnic groups, the geographical structure of the political territory of the "four soils" (eastern, southern, western, and northern) of the Shang kingdom, the internal and external service system of land management, the class structure of the powerful and commoners and slaves in the social organization, and the hierarchical relationship between the managers of the economy and industry and the handicraft laborers.
There are also many meteorological and flood and drought records in the oracle bone inscriptions, which are important materials for paleoclimate and paleoastronomical researchThere are many records of wild animals and plants and elephant hunting, which can be used to study the changes of natural ecology and historical geographical environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow RiverThere are records of the so-called "six grains" such as millet, sorghum, millet, wheat, rice, and soybeans;There are many famous building names, complementary palaces and ponds, which opened a precedent for the connection between the court and the royal garden in later generationsThere are institutions called "right learning" and "universities", which are the earliest prototypes of the Chinese tradition of "learning in the government";There are also accounts about the prevention and control of the plague, as well as isolation and epidemic prevention, prohibition of rumors, smoking and disinfection, drug medical prevention, food and health care, sprinkling and cleaning the house, cleaning the environment, and even necessary punishments.
The merchant has nothing to do, nothing to occupy. Through these various records, we can understand the daily life of Shang kings and nobles, how power and functions worked, ...... small things such as toothache and leg pain will heal, wives give birth to boys and daughters, and major events such as sacrifices and conquestsLiu Hao, a staff member of the Research Center of the Chinese Character Museum, said.
So, what can the general public learn from oracles?
Liu Hao believes that the first is to deepen the understanding and self-confidence of history through learning oracle bone inscriptions. "The lineage of the Shang Dynasty recorded in the oracle bone inscription can be basically matched with the documents of the Han Dynasty, indicating that there is a high probability that the Shang Dynasty had historians and historical books. It is inconceivable that a message can be accurately transmitted by word of mouth for nearly a thousand years. He said.
The second is to deepen the understanding of Chinese characters themselves and stimulate interest in exploring the origin of Chinese characters. He gave examples, such as the "nose" of the nose, and Xu Shen in the Han Dynasty wrote in "Shuowen Jie Zi" that "self, nose also". "Before seeing the oracle bone inscription, only looking at the small seal glyphs, everyone may have doubts about Xu Shen's statement. However, in the oracle bone inscriptions, 'self' is not only very similar to the nose in terms of glyphs, but also has the divination record of the Shang king's 'jizi', which means that the nose is sick. This confirms Xu Shen's statement. In the oracle bone inscription, there are 'self' and 'nose', and 'nose' is also composed of 'self' and '畀' to form the upper and lower structure, which is the same as today, which is the power of Chinese character inheritance. He said.
As the carrier and witness of the inheritance of Chinese civilization, Chinese characters are the cultural link that connects all Chinese, and has survived for 3,000 years. The oracle bone inscription bears witness to the wisdom and creativity of the Shang people, and also records the life and beliefs of the Shang people. We believe that with the advancement of technological means, more mysteries about the Yin Shang period will be revealed little by little with the deepening of oracle bone research. (Reporter Xie Jianxiao, Yang Zhitian) (*Henan**).