Oracle-bone Divination

Late Shang use at Anyang

A World History Encyclopedia entry describes oracle bones as ox shoulder blades or turtle shell undersides used for divination in Shang dynasty China, dated there to about 1600 to 1046 BCE. UNESCO describes the archaeological site of Yin Xu, near Anyang about 500 km south of Beijing, as an ancient capital of the late Shang dynasty, dated 1300 to 1046 BC, and says that inscriptions on oracle bones found there testify to the development of one of the world's oldest writing systems, ancient beliefs and social systems.

A research page at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg states that the practice of cracking pre-treated animal bones peaked in the Late Shang, ca. 1300 to 1046 BCE, when trained specialists performed ceremonies for the king. The same page says the practice continued at the Zhou court but declined as yarrow-stalk divination gained prominence.

Earlier roots and wider spread

Rowan Flad, in a reply to commentators published with a 2008 Current Anthropology article, cites reports of Longshan-period cattle scapulae that were drilled before burning, and of Middle Shang bones with double hollows at Xiaqiyuan and Huanbei. He writes that elaborate preparation reached a peak at the Late Shang capital, and that after the Shang the practice spread to regions such as Sichuan, the Three Gorges and the middle Yangzi, while it waned in the Central Plains. The Oracle Bones in East Asia project describes oracle bones as among the most important bone artifacts at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in China.

Names for the bones and the method

World History Encyclopedia names three related terms: scapulimancy for divination using a shoulder blade, plastromancy for divination using a turtle plastron, and pyromancy for divination using fire. The Erlangen research page uses the term osteo-pyromancy for heating pre-treated animal bones to produce cracks that a diviner read as an oracle. The Oracle Bones in East Asia project uses the related phrase pyro-osteomantic divination.

The carved texts are commonly called oracle-bone inscriptions, or jiaguwen in Chinese scholarship. The sources reviewed here use the English phrase, and the Chinese term appears in this page as an alias because it is the standard scholarly label rather than because the sources define it.

Inscribed and uninscribed bones

The Oracle Bones in East Asia project states that its focus is on uninscribed examples, which have received less scholarly attention than inscribed ones. Flad's reply likewise distinguishes elaborately prepared bones with no inscription, for example a cattle scapula from Guandimiao, from the inscribed bones of the Late Shang royal court. The term oracle bone therefore covers both, and only some bones carry writing.

How scholars describe the procedure

World History Encyclopedia describes a diviner who carved and later painted symbols on a bone or shell, applied heat from a hot poker or fire until it cracked, and read the direction of the crack to answer the question. The same entry says diviners either prepared the bones themselves or bought them from merchants who cleaned them. This is a general encyclopedia account and it does not set out a step-by-step method.

Flad reports that the direction of cracking was controlled by the introduction of the double-hollow form, so cracking was made more predictable. He also writes that it is not known exactly what the divination specialists were interpreting, and that it cannot be assumed that outcomes were manipulated in a recognizable way.

What the inscriptions record

According to World History Encyclopedia, each inscribed record could include a preface with the date and diviner, a charge stating the question, a prognostication read from the cracks, and a verification noting whether the prediction came true. The entry lists subjects such as taxes, marriages, cities, harvests, trade, travel, astronomy, war, and royal hunts and appointments, and says the records mostly reflect the concerns of the wealthy and the king.

Flad notes that some inscriptions relate to conflict, and that the relationship between divination and political power at Yinxu is supported by the inscriptions. He describes the diviners of the most elaborate Late Shang practice as attached to the Shang elite, and states that they were not necessarily the only diviners in the society.

Purposes attributed to the practice

World History Encyclopedia says common questions included whether to take cattle to market or when to travel, and that diviners were consulted by people of all social ranks. The Erlangen research page and Flad's reply place the most elaborate practice at the royal court, so the breadth of who consulted diviners is described differently across the sources.

Flad writes that Late Shang specialists addressed social uncertainty through the authority vested in them as mediators with ancestors and other supernatural forces, and calls ancestors a critical source of power for the Shang elite. The Erlangen page argues that divination was part of bronze-making, a technically risky process, and that bones were found in foundry contexts at Anyang and other sites.

Other cultures that read burned bones

A paper by Jeffrey Shallit, quoting Frank Speck's 1935 study, describes the Naskapi of Labrador and northern Quebec as heating animal shoulder blades and interpreting the blackened spots and cracks, most often to help find game. It quotes Omar Khayyam Moore's 1957 suggestion that the practice may add irregularity to hunting patterns. That paper is secondary and written for computer scientists, and it names central Asian tribes only in passing, so this page does not describe Mongolian, Siberian or European practice.

Recognition and excavation of the bones

World History Encyclopedia reports that in 1899 Wang Yirong, Chancellor of the Imperial Academy, fell ill with malaria and was given powdered medicine called dragon's bones, and that he and a visiting friend, Liu E, noticed what looked like ancient script on unground pieces. Wang died in 1900; Liu E published the first book on oracle bone inscriptions in 1903; and Luo Zhenyu traced the bones in 1908 to the area outside Anyang. Popular Archaeology also dates Wang's acquisition to 1899 but does not mention Liu E.

Popular Archaeology states that Li Ji of Academia Sinica led excavations near Xiaotun from 1928, with initial backing from the Freer Gallery of Art, and that work over a nine-year period revealed the remains of the Shang capital. It adds that the decipherment showed the inscriptions recorded divinations of a royal household, and that the discovery confirmed the Shang was not only known from historical documents.

Relation to later divination and writing

World History Encyclopedia states that during the Zhou dynasty the I-Ching, a manual using hexagrams and yarrow sticks, grew more popular, and that bone divination declined but continued in later dynasties. It also says the carved symbols gradually became words and a recognizable script developed. This page treats the I Ching (Yijing) as a separate Machipedia topic.

The Erlangen page reports that yarrow-stalk divination is first attested at the Xiaomintun foundry in Anyang, where six-numeral combinations on casting molds are read as early hexagram forms. The author suggests they may have been incised to secure good casting results, which is her interpretation. Machipedia's Divination family page covers the wider category to which this practice belongs.

What the research does and does not address

The sources reviewed concern archaeology, epigraphy, and the social role of divination. None tests whether the cracks predicted events, and this page makes no claim on that question. Flad's reply cautions against implying that ritual activities, past or present, are irrational, and says he is hesitant to invoke shamanism across time, although he considers it likely that the practice was in some ways shamanistic.

A historical practice

Oracle-bone divination is described in the sources reviewed as a practice of the Shang and Zhou periods, with later continuation in reduced form. The sources describe no modern protocol, training standard or professional body, and no studies of harms or benefits to participants were found. Readers who want guidance on health, legal or financial matters should use qualified professionals, since a historical divination record is not a basis for decisions or a substitute for necessary care.

Looting and the trade in bones

World History Encyclopedia reports that farmers dug up bones and scraped off the inscriptions to sell them as dragon's bones, that apothecaries ground many into medicine, and that after Luo Zhenyu's findings became known farmers sold bones to collectors, scholars, museums and universities. Popular Archaeology says the bones entered the antiquities trade before scientific excavation began. A University of Chicago course on Anyang lists looting and the illegal trade of antiquities among the modern contexts it addresses. These sources do not give figures for the extent of looting.