Oracle Bone - Post-Shang Oracle Bones

Post-Shang Oracle Bones

After the founding of Zhou, the Shang practices of bronze casting, pyromancy and writing continued. Oracle bones found in the 1970s have been dated to the Zhou dynasty, with some dating to the Spring and Autumn period. However, very few of those were inscribed; these very early inscribed Zhou oracle bones are also known as the Zhōuyuán oracle bones. It is thought that other methods of divination supplanted pyromancy, such as numerological divination using milfoil (yarrow) in connection with the hexagrams of the I Ching, leading to the decline in inscribed oracle bones. However, evidence for the continued use of plastromancy exists for the Eastern Zhou, Han, Tang and Qing dynasty periods, and Keightley (1978, p. 9) mentions use in Taiwan as late as 1972.

A fairly recent connection between divination and turtle shells (carapaces, rather than plastrons) was attested by Soame Jenyns in Guangdong in 1930. According to his report, fortune tellers would place three cash into the carapace, shake them, and then throw, repeating the process three times; the heads/tails results would then be used as a basis for telling one's fortune.