The oracle bone script is a script of the Shang Dynasty (1400 BC). These words are called oracle bones because they are engraved on animal bones or tortoise shells. The text is carved with a knife, so it is also known as "deed" and "deed". Except for a very small number of records, most of the contents of the text belong to the records of the princes at that time, so they are also called "divination words" or "divination scripts". In addition, because the place where the oracle bone script was unearthed was in Anyang County, Henan Province (originally the former capital of the Yin Dynasty), it was also called "Yin Xu Script". Strictly speaking, only when it comes to oracle bones, it can be called calligraphy. Because the oracle bone already has the three basic elements of Chinese calligraphy: the use of the pen, the knot, and the chapter. The previous pictorial symbols did not all have these three elements.
The earliest discovery of the oracle bone should be twenty-five years before the guangxu of the late Qing Dynasty. In Xiaotun Village, Anyang County, Henan Province, on the south bank of the Huan River. When the villagers were cultivating, they excavated some fragments of tortoiseshell and animal bones in the soil layer, most of which were engraved with esoteric and indistinguishable sentences. At that time, the villagers resold it as a keel to the pharmacy as a medicine village. Until the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899), it was discovered by archaeologist Wang Yirong, affirming its valuable research value and sensationalizing the academic community. After the successive collection and study of the families of Liu Yan, Sun Yirang, Luo Zhenyu, Wang Guowei, and Ye Yusen, Luo Zhenyu did his best to advocate it, and initially laid the status of "oracle bone science".
The earliest works of oracle osteology can be found in Liu Yan's "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle", published in the twenty-ninth year of Qing Guangxu (1902), followed by Sun Yirang's "Qiwen Example", Luo Zhenyu's "Shangbu Text Examination", "Yin XuShu Qi examination", and "To be asked". Shang Chengzuo's "Yin Ruins Script Class Compilation", Wang Guowei's "Yin Bu Ci Seeing the First Gong Xian Wang Kao" and "Continuation Examination", Wang Xiang's "Room Yin Qi Class Compilation", Ye Yusen's "Yin Qi Hook Shen", "Shuo Qi", "Yan Qi Tan Zhi", Zhu Fangpu's "Oracle Bone Script Compilation", Sun Haibo's "Oracle Bone Compilation", Dong Zuobin's "Oracle Bone Fragmentation Research Example", "Oracle Bone Script Collection", Jin Hengxiang's "Continuation Of Oracle Bone Compilation", Yan Yiping's "Yin Shang Compilation", "New Case of Oracle Bone Discontinuation Research", "Oracle Bone Continuation", "Oracle Bone Continuation", Yin Xu Character A and B Edition. There are also European and American missionaries and Japanese scholars, who also searched for oracle bones in China in 1928 when the Academia Sinica continued to excavate, and many monographs were published.
The most contributed to oracle osteology was Mr. Dong Zuobin. Dong Shi personally participated in the excavation of oracle bones, and according to Yin Daibu, he divided the past stage of oracle osteology into two periods, from the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899) to the sixteenth year of the Republic of China (1927), a total of twenty-eight years, and the later period from the seventeenth year of the Republic of China (1928) to the thirty-eighth year of the Republic of China (1949), a total of twenty-two years.
The oracle bone script generally has two kinds of book styles, the deed type and the pen writing style, and the evolution of the writing style can be said to be developed from the deed type to the pen writing style. Dong Zuobin divided the divination crowd into five periods according to Yin Dai's speech. Taking the changes in oracle bone script and the change of book style, tracing back to the times, taking the twelve commonly used characters of the ten stems as an example, the glyphs are clarified. In the process of change from the first period to the fifth period, it was found that the writing style of the oracle bone in each period was different, and each had its own characteristics.
The calligraphy style of the first period (Wu Ding Shi), magnificent and majestic, is represented by the large font of the oracle bone. Such large characters are carved with vigorous force, with thick strokes and filled with vermilion ink (cinnabar, ink). There are also neat and beautiful small characters, which are very exciting. These are all inherited from the style of the Wuding era of ZTE Ying, whose boldness and skill are quite amazing. His calligraphers are Wei, Yong and Bin.
The second period (Zu Jia and Zu Geng's era) is more restrained in style. Zu Jia and Zu Geng were shoucheng xianjun who inherited the first period of Wuding, so the bushi at that time strictly followed the rules and did not change much. Its writers are travel, large, line, that is.
In the third period (when Liu Xin and Gengding) the style of books changed and fell into decadence, the old writers in the early period had already made ancient works, and the style of books was swept away, and the writers at that time were more childish and weak, and even had many mistakes. None of the books in this issue have been signed.
In the fourth period (Wu Yi and Wen Ding shi), bu ren, bu resigned the name of the person who did not sign the deed, the emerging writers of this period, did their best to write weak in the early stage, the works were vivid, vigorous, and uninhibited. The author of this period is only Di, and the rest have not yet been discovered.
The style of the fifth period (Emperor Yi and Di Xin era), except for a few large character inscriptions on the head of the beast, the rest are extremely serious and neat. The reason is: divination matters, the king must bow down, the paragraphs and lines of the divination, the words are very neat, such as the fly head small kai, the style of writing has changed suddenly, and the production is new. His calligraphers are Swimming and Huang.