Editing Oracle bone (section)

{{Short description|Shells and bones used for divination in ancient China}}
{{Infobox Chinese
| pic=Orakelknochen.JPG
| piccap=A Shang dynasty oracle bone from the [[Shanghai Museum]]
| c = 甲骨
| p = Jiǎgǔ
| w = {{tonesup|Chia3-ku3}}
| mi = {{IPAc-cmn|j|ia|2|.|g|u|3}}
| l = Shell and bone
| j = Gaap3 gwat1
| y = Gaap-gwāt
| tl = {{zhwb|Kah-kut|Kap-kut}}
| wuu = Chiaʔ-kueʔ
| h = {{tonesup|Gap5-gut5}}
}}
'''Oracle bones''' are pieces of ox [[scapula]] and turtle [[plastron]] which were used in [[pyromancy]]{{snd}}a form of [[divination]]{{snd}}during the [[Late Shang]] period ({{circa|1250|1050&nbsp;BCE}}) in ancient China.  ''[[Scapulimancy]]'' is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, ''plastromancy'' if turtle plastrons were used. A recent count estimated that there were about 13,000 bones with a total of a little over 130,000 inscriptions in collections in China and some fourteen other countries.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2022|p=1277}}

Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and similar topics.{{sfn|Keightley|1978a|pp=33–35}} These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in [[oracle bone script]] using a sharp tool. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to [[thermal expansion]]. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well.{{sfn|Keightley|1978a|pp=40–42}} Pyromancy with bones continued in China into the [[Zhou dynasty]], but the questions and prognostications were increasingly written with brushes and [[cinnabar]] ink, which degraded over time.

Oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient [[Chinese writing]], using an early form of [[Chinese characters]].{{efn|A tiny number of isolated mid to late Shang pottery, bone and bronze inscriptions may predate the oracle bones. However, the oracle bones are considered the earliest significant body of writing due to the length of the inscriptions, the vast amount of vocabulary (roughly 4000 graphs), and the sheer quantity of pieces found – at least 160,000 pieces{{sfn|Qiu|2000|p=61}}{{sfn|Keightley|1978a|p=xiii}} bearing millions of characters.{{sfn|Qiu|2000|p=49}} There are also inscribed or brush-written [[Neolithic signs in China]], but they do not generally occur in strings of signs resembling writing, instead appearing singly. Whether or not these signs constitute writing or are ancestral to the Shang writing system is currently a matter of great academic controversy. They are also insignificant in number compared to the massive amounts of oracle bones found thus far.{{sfn|Qiu|2000}}{{sfn|Boltz|2003}}{{sfn|Woon|1987}}}} The inscriptions contain around 5,000 different characters, many of which are still being used today,{{sfn|Qiu|2000|p=49}} though the total number of discrete characters is uncertain as some may be different versions of the same character. Specialists have agreed on the form, meanings, and sound of a little more than a quarter of the characters, roughly 1,200 with certainty, but several hundred more remain under discussion; these known characters comprise much of the core vocabulary of modern Chinese.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2022|p=1278}} They provide important information on the late Shang period, and scholars have reconstructed the Shang royal genealogy from the cycle of ancestral sacrifices recorded on oracle bones.{{sfn|Keightley|1978a|pp=xiii, 185–187}}{{efn|{{harvnb|Chou|1976|p=12}} cites two such scapulae, citing his own "商殷帝王本紀" ''Shāng–Yīn dìwáng bĕnjì'', pp. 18–21.}} When they were discovered at the end of the nineteenth century and deciphered in the early twentieth century,{{sfn|Menzies|1917|p=2}} these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, whose historicity had been subject to scrutiny at the time by the [[Doubting Antiquity School]].

[[Oraculology]] is the discipline for the study of oracle bones and the oracle bone script.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Wang |first1=Yuxin |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/690131145 |title=Jia gu xue dao lun = History of China historiography |last2=王宇信 |date=2010 |publisher=[[Chinese Academy of Social Sciences]] |others=Jianzhen Wei  |isbn=978-7-5004-8878-1 |location=Beijing |oclc=690131145 }}</ref>