Oracle Bones
Oracle bones were first recognised for their true nature in 1898, and scholars have been labouring to decipher them ever since. They circulated among collectors and antique dealers, and to this day some 200,000 oracle bone fragments from the Xiaotun site in Anyang have been counted.
These inscriptions record the pyromantic divinations performed at the court of the Shang kings. The king or his diviners would address an oral "charge" to a specially prepared turtle plastron or cattle scapula while applying a hot poker or brand to produce a series of heat cracks in the shell or bone. They then interpreted these cracks as auspicious or inauspicious, after which engravers carved into the surface of the shell or bone the subject of the charge, sometimes the forecast, and less frequently the result.
Read more about this topic: Shang Archaeology
Famous quotes containing the words oracle and/or bones:
“Know thyself.”
—Inscription on the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Greece, 6th century B.C.....
“On their slag heap, these children
Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel
With mended glass, like bottle bits in slag.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)