![]() ![]() The inscriptions give us a highly selective record of some of the concerns and events that were relevant to the elite class of the Shang kingdom. Over 100,000 "oracle bones" have been found, mostly in storage pits in Xiaotun in Henan.Īccording to the National Palace Museum, Taipei: “Discovered and translated beginning only in 1899, these oracle bones are the earliest written records of Chinese civilization. ![]() The predictions, often made by the king rather than the diviner, and answers were engraved on the bones. The ensuing cracks were read by fortunetellers for "auspicious" and "inauspicious" signs and messages from natural spirits and ancestors. Shang priests practiced an unusual form of divination that involved placing heated rods in grooves carved into specially-prepared ox scapulae (shoulder bones) and turtle plastrons (the undesides of turtle shells). ![]()
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