Thousands of years ago, they were the tools of rulers to divinate and drive away the people; After a few years, they became a magic elixir for the treatment of intractable diseases. What is their true historical mission? Who discovered them and told the story of the antiquity to the world?
Oracle
More than 100 years ago, in Xiaotun Village, Anyang County, Henan Province, villagers dug out many bone pieces when digging up the land in spring ploughing, and found that there were many strange symbols engraved on them. People don't know what these symbols are, but they find that grinding these bone pieces into powder has a special effect on treating scabies and trauma. So some villagers began to collect such bone tablets and sell them to pharmacies in the city. Mr. Pharmacy found a record of "keel" from the "Compendium of Materia Medica": the keel is a fossil bone of ancient mammals that can treat amnesia, malaria and other diseases, so he accepted these bone pieces. The farmers also ground the bone slices into powder and took them to the market to sell. In this way, the keel "was quickly resold to various places, and even entered the major pharmacies in the capital, or into pieces of medicine, or milled into powder, becoming a miracle medicine for the treatment of incurable diseases."
Since its discovery, Oracle has been the subject of pursuit by scholars and antique dealers. Today, 150,000 pieces of oracle bones have been unearthed, and they are widely collected in more than 10 countries and regions in the world. As more and more oracle bones were discovered, the study of oracle bones gradually began.
Earliest, Liu Hu wrote a book called "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle" based on the oracle bones obtained from Wang Yirong. Luo Zhenyu is the author of the "Stock Fiction Book Deed" and the "Stock Virtual Book Deed Later Compilation", and Dong Zuobin wrote "Stock Fiction Script A Compilation" and "Stock Fiction Book Series B" based on the oracle bones later excavated from the Stock Ruins. The Oracle Collection, with Guo Moruo and Hu Houyi as editors-in-chief and editor-in-chief respectively, scientifically and systematically sorted out more than 100,000 oracle bones found over the past 80 years, and staged and classified them. The book contains about 40,000 pieces of oracle bones and compiles them into 13 volumes, providing valuable information for the study of oracle bones and the history of the Shang Dynasty. In addition, the oracle bones collected by Japan, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, Germany and other countries have also been recorded and published.
After several generations of unremitting efforts, in-depth study and interpretation of the oracle bone, people gradually learned about the living conditions of the ancestors of the Shang Dynasty
The oracle bone is a relic of the Shang king Pan Geng's migration to the fall of the King of Sui (mid-14th century BC to mid-11th century BC), more than 3,000 years ago. There are more than 90 longest words on the oracle bones, and only one or two words shorter. Of the more than 5,000 scripts that have been found, the vast majority are hieroglyphs.
Cracks in the oracle bones, one text after another, depicted to people a historical picture full of strong religious overtones: "Yin people respect gods, lead the people to serve gods, first ghosts and then rituals" ("Ritual Table"), the religion of the Shang Dynasty is divided into god worship and ancestor worship. In order to manage the country well and control the people well, the Shang king must establish the majesty of the divine right of the king. The official position of "witch" was established as a medium for communication between man and the gods. Whenever there is war, time of day, harvest, field hunting, and even personal illness and fertility, the witch will drill the back of the oracle bone and burn it, according to the cracks that are cracked on the front. Finally, the process of divination and the content of the oracle bone were engraved on the oracle bone as a bucio, which is the text called the oracle bone today. The King of Shang decided what to do and what not to do according to the auspiciousness reflected in the bu ci.
It can be seen that the earliest "keel" has an aristocratic color, not close to the life of the people, and may be a tool for the king to control the people, or a means for the princes and ministers to pander to and oppose the king. In any case, thousands of years later, these "keels" have truly taken on the mission of writing, telling some historical truths to future generations.