Chinese Oracle Osteology (Revised Edition) (Part 2 and 2)
Wang Yuxin
Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House
Wang Yuxin, born in May 1940 in Heping Street, Pinggu District, Beijing, graduated from Beijing Pinggu Middle School junior high school in 1956, graduated from Beijing Liangxiang Middle School high school in 1959, and graduated from the Department of History of Peking University in 1964 majoring in archaeology. He is currently a member of the Honorary Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a researcher of the Institute of Ancient History of the Chinese Academy of History, a doctoral supervisor of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an honorary president of the Chinese Yinshang Cultural Society, an advisor to the Chinese Character Museum, a consultant of the Chinese Character Museum, the Central Propaganda Department, the Department of Language and Information of the Ministry of Education, and a consultant of the Expert Committee of the "Ancient Script and the Inheritance and Development project of Chinese Civilization", and a professor of the Oracle Bone Research Institute of Anyang Normal University. Specializing in oracle osteology and pre-Qin history, he participated in the compilation of the "Oracle Bone Collection" edited by Guo Moruo, and later served as the leader of the "Oracle Bone Collection Interpretation", assisted the editor-in-chief Professor Hu Houxuan in his work, and served as the chief reviewer of the "Collection interpretation". He is the co-author of "Oracle Bone Script", "General History of China's Political System" (Pre-Qin Volume), "Research on Ancient Chinese Civilization and State Formation", "Shang Zhou Oracle Bone", and eleven volumes of "History of the Shang Dynasty". He is the chief editor and co-author of "Interpretation of the Essence of Oracle Bone", "One Hundred Years of Oracle Bone Science", "120 Years of Development of Oracle Bone Science", "Yin Ruins Cultural Dictionary" (three volumes and six volumes), etc., and edited a number of collections of papers. His main works include "Oracle Bone Research Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", "Exploration of Oracle Bone in Western Zhou", "General Theory of Oracle Bone Science", "Introduction to Oracle Bone Science", "Western Zhou", "Seventy Years of New Chinese Oracle Bone Science", etc., and there are dozens of papers.
Linguistics and philologists study oracle osteology with a different focus.
The focus of the study of oracle bone by linguists is on the interpretation of oracle bone scripts, the history of script generation and grammatical structure, sentence structure and other philological problems. "Its contents include both inscriptional materials and relevant materials from books such as Xu Shen's Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts that are not inscribed and copied from scratch" [1]. Therefore, today's linguists must be proficient in the knowledge and methods of traditional paleography in terms of form, phonology, and exhortation, but also study various paleographic materials on inscriptions.
Historical archaeologists, on the other hand, use and absorb the results of the linguistic and philologists to interpret the oracle bone script, and from the perspective of historical archaeology, study the divination methods and inscription laws of the oracle bone, the early and late changes of the script, and the social, political, economic, and cultural development and changes of different periods reflected in the text content. In terms of the content and scope of the study, it is much richer and broader than the study of linguistics.
From the perspective of historical archaeology, this book introduces some necessary basic knowledge and basic research methods of oracle osteology from the perspective of historical archaeology to some problems in the process of studying oracle osteology to research. It is hoped that readers who are interested in the study of oracle osteology will, on the basis of reading this book, then read the basic oracle bone books listed in the book, become familiar with and learn to collect materials, and be able to independently study some problems of oracle osteology itself, as well as the history of Yin Shang, archaeology and other issues.
We strive to fully reflect the results of more than a hundred years of oracle osteology research in this book, try to clearly describe the context of some major academic problems that have been solved and are being solved, and introduce some of the issues under discussion, in order to arouse readers' thinking and engage in discussion. When this book is updated and republished, we will also include some discussion articles on some issues, or enlighten the reader's research. The appendix to the book contains the bibliography of oracle osteology and the memorabilia of oracle osteology, and also hopes to provide some convenience for researchers who have a certain foundation in oracle osteology to understand the history of oracle osteology and research work over the past hundred years.
Due to the early excavation of the Oracle bones of Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan, the accumulated materials are very rich and the research is relatively mature; the excavation and research of the Oracle bones of the Western Zhou Dynasty are after the founding of New China, and the number of excavations is relatively small, and the research needs to be further deepened [2]. Therefore, the traditional so-called "oracle bone science" generally refers to the study of the Yin Ruins Oracle. Our "Chinese Oracle Bone Science", which is still mainly based on the study of the Yin Xu Oracle, is the content of this book; the study of the Western Zhou Oracle bone and some of our views are described in the middle of this book. Although the research of Western Zhou oracle bones is limited to not many materials and the research is not sufficient, the content is not as rich as the Yin Ruins oracle bones, but the discovery and research of Western Zhou oracle bones after the founding of New China, after all, has formed a new sub-discipline in the field of oracle bone research. The task ahead is to further improve and enrich it; and the study and exploration of The wider Yin Shang culture than the narrow oracle osteology may be included in the next part of this book, which may be helpful and enlightening to the reader's understanding of the special topic of Yin Shang culture.
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