The Yin Xu Oracle Database was officially launched
The oracle bone is the earliest systematic script seen on the mainland so far, and it is the hand ze left by the Yin people. It opened the door to the Yin Shang culture more than 3,000 years ago, so that the various problems and encounters in the lives of the Yin people were vividly presented to us, and it was a credible historical material for studying the society of the Shang Dynasty and a first-hand source for the study of ancient scripts on the mainland. Its discovery is a major achievement in the mainland's modern academic history, and has unveiled a glorious page in the mainland's splendid culture and long history.
The Yin Xu Oracle Database is a digital product based on Professor Chen Nianfu's Oracle text collation results, further supplemented and revised. The number of oracle bones collected has reached 140,000, referring to dozens of oracle bone bibliographies at home and abroad and the results of oracle bone conjugation in the past ten years, making the words included in this library more complete and comprehensive. All the words provide clear imitations, corresponding interpretations, groupings to which they belong, and classification of the content of the subject matter, which systematically reflect the intellectual attributes of the words.
1. For the first time, oracle bone imitation digitalization is available
The glyphs in this database are carefully compiled by Professor Chen Nianfu on the basis of the achievements of his predecessors. The database specially develops the Oracle glyph retrieval function, with the help of the Oracle auxiliary input method in the database, the input of the glyph can be realized, which makes up for the gap in this search field in the previous market. The Oracle Auxiliary Input Method contains a total of 13586 Oracle imitations, corresponding to 3909 letters and 239 combinations. Users can retrieve the contents of the imitation through the Oracle Assisted Input Tool, the oracle bone image through the oracle number, and the interpretation content through italics.
2. Bring together the latest research results of the academic community
The interpretations in this database are compiled by Professor Chen Nianfu on the basis of comprehensively sorting out various oracle bone bibliographies by combining his years of Oracle bone research with the latest interpretation results of the academic community. The library contains a total of 59591 pieces of oracle bones, 143856 bu ci, each of which contains two parts: imitation and interpretation, and marks the classification of the theme of the bu ci, the specific source source and the font group category. All interpretation results support reproduction and retrieval. In particular, the interpretation retrieval function can accurately locate the oracle bone image where the interpretation is located.
3. Perfect oracle bone conjugation relationship labeling
Professor Chen Nianfu referred to the conjugation opinions of many scholars and carefully compiled a set of conjugated relationship tables that reflected the latest research achievements of the academic community. This database associates all excavated oracle bones according to this table, and when the user retrieves an oracle bone, the conjugated related oracle bones can be displayed together. If there are heavy pieces of oracle bone retrieved, jump browsing is supported. At the same time, this database opens the image comparison function, and users can compare the selected oracle bone images one by one according to their research needs.
4. Oracle online dictionary for reading assistance
This database is also accompanied by professor Chen Nianfu's important research results, the oracle bone online dictionary. The dictionary provides a comprehensive picture of oracle bones' prefixes, pronunciations, glyphs, decontents, and paraphrasings. It can be used to consult a single word, and it can also read the explanatory content of the Oracle vocabulary containing the word. After each word of the oracle bone, a representative oracle glyph is listed, and the provenance of the glyph is preserved. On the one hand, the online dictionary provides reference materials for the interpretation of Oracle bones, and on the other hand, it also provides convenient service tools for relevant practitioners in the field of literature and history to use Oracle resources.
About the Author
Chen Nianfu is currently a professor of ancient Chinese in the School of Humanities of Zhejiang Normal University, and a doctoral supervisor, whose main research direction is Chinese history and paleography. He has published monographs such as "Research on Oracle Verb Vocabulary" and "Oracle Bone Word Meaning Manuscript", compiled the national key book "Yin Xu Oracle Bone Interpretation Complete Compilation" during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, presided over a number of national social science fund projects such as "Database-based Compilation of Yin Xu Oracle Bone Dictionary", and won the second and third prizes of Zhejiang Province Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievements.