Discuss the characteristics and dynasties of Oracle
Wang Shuguang/Wen
1. What is Oracle?
Oracle bone script is a kind of business font engraved on the bones of tortoiseshells and beasts in the Yin Shang period, which has a history of more than three to four thousand years. Because it is engraved on the ox blade, deer skull, and tortoise shell, it is called oracle bone script. Also known as "tortoiseshell text", "bu ci", "zhen humanities", "qiwen", "yin qi" and so on.
Oracle bone script is a script born with the development of primitive human consciousness. As we all know, in the primitive social stage, due to people's superficial understanding of some phenomena in nature, superstition prevailed. Whenever there are major events such as production and life, such as sacrifices, hunting, weddings, funerals, disasters, harvests, travels, etc., there is no divination to measure the luck of the murderer. After divination, the fruit of divination is engraved on the oracle bone for use and analysis. These engravers, then called "Zhenren" (that is, historical officials), after the oracle bones were carved, they generally left their names, and now it seems that these engravers are the "calligraphers" at that time, and in order to show respect and admiration for them, the oracle bones they carved were called the "Zhenren" script of the Yin Shang period.
Second, how Oracle was discovered
Oracle bone script has a long history, and then with the passage of history and the evolution of writing, Oracle bone script gradually came out of people's field of vision, and even due to the inheritance partition, the Qing Dynasty has never found oracle bone unearthing and academic achievements before. It was not until the Guangxu Emperor at the end of the Qing Dynasty that farmers in the area around Xiaotun Village (known as Yin Wu in ancient times) northwest of Anyang, Henan Province, first found oracle bone fragments when digging in their farmland. Later, oracle bones were found in the Zhouyuan area of Shaanxi Province and Hongzhaofangdui Village in Shanxi Province. According to historical records, in the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899 AD), after Wang Yirong, a goldsmith of the Guozijian in Beijing, saw the oracle bone fragments, he became interested in them, went deep into many excavation sites, collected the oracle bone fragments, and then sorted out, identified, and established archives. Just when Wang Yirong was obsessed with studying the ancient culture, the national disaster occurred. In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Beijing, and Wang Yirong was forced to commit suicide by throwing himself into the lake. The oracle bones hidden by Wang Yirong were folded several times and passed to Liu E, who continued to collect and sort out the research results of his predecessors, and then published "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle" in 1903 with the support of his friend Luo Zhenyu, an oracle bone enthusiast. As soon as this book came out, it caused a sensation in the academic community, and the oracle bone writing of the Chinese ancestors also shocked the world.
The identification and verification of the oracle bone script of the Yin Dynasty makes up for the broken ancient Chinese culture and verifies the depth of the ancient and primitive culture of the Chinese nation.
Subsequently, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei, Dong Zuobin, Guo Moruo, Sun Zhirang and other foreign scholars who loved ancient Chinese culture also joined the research team of Oracle and achieved gratifying results. Sun Zhirang published "Examples of Qiwen", Luo Zhenyu published "Yin Wushu Qiqi Interpretation", Wang Guowei published "Yin Bu Zhi Seen in the Examination of the First Duke and Wang Kao", Guo Moruo published "Bu Ci Tongji Kao Shi", Shang Chengzuo published "Yin Wu Character Category Compilation", the Chinese Academy of Sciences compiled "Oracle Bone Collection" and other works. The publication of these works unveiled the Chinese civilization and laid the foundation and paved the way for future generations to study the ancient culture of China.
3. The appearance and characteristics of the oracle
1. The structure of the oracle. From the structure of the oracle bone, the oracle bone only pays attention to the pictogram, the elephant, regardless of the number of strokes, and some words are very inconsistent.
2. Know-it-all word processing. Some of the oracle bone characters only focus on the side meeting, the meaning is clear, and does not seek fixation.
3. The shape of Oracle. The size is mainly determined according to the complexity of the pictograms, and sometimes a word can occupy the position of several words, which can be long, short, and square, depending on the engraving habits of the Zhenren.
4. Oracle's penmanship. Oracle bone script is engraved on a harder animal oracle bone, constrained by the area of the oracle bone, engraving tools, etc., so the strokes are thinner, the handwriting is small, and the square pen is mostly.
5. Oracle layout. The oracle bone article method depends on the oracle bone, mainly dense, supplemented by sparseness, sparse corresponding, ancient and interesting, intriguing.
Through years of excavation and research, it has been found that although the oracle bone script is a primitive script, it already contains the three basic elements of Chinese calligraphy art: sealing, pen use, and knots. The difference is that calligraphy is written with a brush, while oracle bone is written with a knife (copper knife, stone knife, etc.). Regarding the knot, it mainly refers to the six basic elements that constitute the word, that is, instructions, pictograms, intentions, shapes, sounds, pretexts, and transfers. These "six elements" are really contained in the oracle bones, and many examples can be found from the oracle bones excavated now. Therefore, oracle bone script is the predecessor of Chinese calligraphy, and without its appearance, Chinese calligraphy would not be today.
4. Oracle bone writing style and broken generation
In the late Shang Dynasty for more than 270 years, due to the development of human intelligence, the advancement of engraving tools, and the changes in Zhenren lettering skills, different styles of oracle bone script appeared. In his writings, his neighbor Dong Zuobin made a comprehensive analysis of the oracle bone dynasty based on the "world name", "title", "zhenren", "character shape", "writing style", etc. in bu zhi, and he took the zhen person as the main basis, "zhenren" was not only the engraver of the Bu zhi at that time, but also the historical official around the king, and was the "literati" and "calligrapher" at that time. Therefore, the periodization must be based on the lettering style of the Zhenren in different periods, and historians have had different views on oracle bone periodization, but most people think that Dong Zuobin's division of oracle bone dynasties into five periods is more scientific, and gradually formed a consensus, and later generations mostly use five-generation staging when studying oracle bones. The staging of Oracle is briefly described.
1. The first period of Oracle's development
Judging from Dong Zuobin's "Zhenren Dynasty", the main representative figures of the first period were Pan Geng and Wu Ding. (circa 1334 BC ~ 1275 BC). There are more than 120 Zhenren such as "Bin", "Zheng", "Qian", "Yong", "Wei", etc., they are all originally from the Wuding period, their engraving style is with a knife powerful, majestic and strong, more straight lines, fewer circular lines, the representative work of this period is the "ox blade bu zhi" unearthed in Anyang Yin Market, Henan, this large bone version is as fine as jade, and the words are painted with danzhu. The book is majestic and grand, vigorous, clear lines, meticulous and chaotic, from the perspective of chapters, from left to right through arrangement, the top is neat, the font size is staggered, some words occupy two character positions, not bloated, small characters are flat and wide, and they are not cramped, and today it seems that despite the passage of thousands of years, it is still a treasure.
2. The second period of Oracle's development
The second period of oracle bone development (the first half of the twelfth century BC) was the Zugeng and Zujia eras. The famous zhenren of this period mainly include "Da", "Brigade", "Xing", "Brother", "Xi", "He", "Chao", "Yin", "Out" and so on. The Zugeng and Zujia periods inherited and developed the characteristics of the inscription in the Wuding period, and the style changed slightly, basically adhering to the previous rules, neat handwriting, moderate size, and the style of writing was more elegant, delicate, smooth, ethereal and quite charming. At that time, it was not easy to engrave on the hard tortoise shell with a primitive knife, and the rules and regulations were neat, and the structure was exquisite, which shows that the Zhenren carried the knife like a pen at that time, and the fire was pure and blue, which was very rare.
3. The third period of Oracle's development
The third period of oracle bone development (the second half of the twelfth century BC) was the Qiusin and Kangding eras. At that time, Zhenren had "Peng", "Di", "Kou", "Ning", "Peng", "Xian", "Jiao" and so on. Among them, "Brigade", "Kou" and "Dutch" are the old historical officials of the second period. During the reign of the brothers Di Xin and Kangding, they initially appointed former sages and passed on the former rules, but later the old ones died one after another, and the new ones were not yet mature, so the later works were rough, naïve, and sloppy. The quality of the engraving has deteriorated significantly, and although some works are delicate and neat, they still expose the shortcomings of childishness and weakness.
4. The fourth period of Oracle's development
The fourth period of oracle bone development (about the second half of the 12th century BC to the first half of the 11th century BC) was the Wuyi and Wending eras. Zhenren's works are both signed and unsigned. The signatures include "halogen", "take", "I", "history", "car", "middle" and others. The characteristics of Buwen in the Wuyi period, there are more large characters, the style of writing is rough and ancient, the momentum is fierce, sweeping away the previous decadent wind, especially some strokes up and down the pen, no longer use the previous two-ended sharp style, at this time the landing pen has become square, indicating that at that time there was a double knife deliberate, the landing pen first cut a horizontal knife, like the heavy knife in the engraving of the Qin and Han seals, and the change of engraving made the line tend to be consistent before and after. Some of the works of Zhenren in the Wendin period are vigorous and steep, vivid in engraving, more use of square pens, and have a relaxed taste, and the text is small and beautiful, natural and vivid.
5. The fifth period of Oracle's development
The fifth period of oracle bone development was the Diyi and Dixin periods (around the middle of the eleventh century BC). At that time, Zhenren had "Huang", "Swimming", "Li" and other people, because there were few oracle bones unearthed in this period, and many of the words unearthed were Yuwang Zizhen, so there were fewer Zhenren in this period, coupled with the retro style, the paragraphs, lines, characters and styles engraved were similar to those of the predecessors, paying attention to uniformity and standardization. In this period, there are more large characters, less small characters, large characters with knife marks, arrogance and unrestrained, the upper inheritance of Wu Ding, the meaning of Qixi Zhou Jinwen, such as "swimming", "yellow" and other Zhenren's works are linked throughout, the words are correct, meticulous, each version of the oracle bone is orderly, Guo Moruo once said, words are the appearance of language. The written language of any nation, like the language, is gradually conceived, selected and developed by the working people in their working life, from scratch, from less to more, from many attempts to conventions, and it is by no means the product of a person's moment. Oracle is a splendid culture created by our ancestors in long-term production and life. It is the earliest mature script of the Chinese nation. Its formation and development have a long history, and its cultural connotation is broad and profound, which is the foundation of our Chinese civilization. Understanding oracle bones, studying oracle bones, and inheriting oracle bones is not only the responsibility of archaeologists, ancient culture researchers, but also the responsibility of calligraphy enthusiasts. Calligraphers should interpret oracle bones from the perspective of calligraphy, study and analyze oracle bones, and carry forward and pass on this ancient Chinese Shi ethnic culture.