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80-559: Sheng may refer to: Sheng (instrument) (笙), a Chinese wind instrument Sheng (surname) (盛), a Chinese surname Sheng (Chinese opera) , a major role in Chinese opera Sheng (volume) (升), ancient Chinese unit of volume , approximately 1 liter Sheng pu'er, a type of pu-erh tea Provinces of China (省), administrative divisions called shěng in Mandarin Sheng slang ,

160-497: A family of soprano, alto, tenor and bass. All are chromatic throughout their range, and equal tempered. They have markedly different fingering from their traditional counterparts, having been redesigned so that key changes can be achieved without cumbersome fingerings. These also differ from their traditional counterparts by the fact that they tend to be placed on the musician's lap or on a stand while playing. The soprano sheng (Chinese: 高 音 笙 ; pinyin: Gāoyīn Shēng )

240-405: A fixed frequency unlike single reeds, double reeds, and pointed free reeds which vibrate at the pitch according to the length of the attached air column. Covering the hole(s) on a traditional sheng 's pipe(s) would cause the entire length of the pipe(s) to resonate with the reeds' frequency. If the hole is open, the resonant frequency would not match, and hence no sound is produced. The sheng

320-428: A greater breath volume to play. The Contrabass Sheng is also used for bass sheng but two octaves lower than the alto sheng and tenor sheng In the 21st century, keyboard sheng (Chinese: 键盘笙 ; pinyin: Jiànpán Shēng ), or pai sheng that have a keyboard layout instead of the typical buttons, have emerged. These can vary from 37-reed sheng all the way to 53-reed ones (if not more like 61), covering

400-526: A human skeleton). The targets and purposes of divination changed over time. During the reign of Wu Ding , diviners were likely to ask the powers or ancestors about things like the weather, success in battle, or building settlements. Offerings were promised if they would help with earthly affairs. Crack-making on jiazi (day 1) Zheng divined "In praying for harvest to the sun, (we) will cleave ten dappled cows, and pledge one hundred dappled cows." ( Heji 10116; Y530.2) Keightley explains that this divination

480-452: A keyed sheng , the holes are opened and closed by means of keys or levers. The greater number of pipes combined with the size of the larger instruments makes it impractical to operate newer instruments without keys. The traditional sheng ( 传统 笙 ; chuántǒng shēng ) used in, for example, northern Chinese ritual music, kunqu and Jiangnan sizhu ensembles generally have 17 pipes but with only 13 or 14 sounding pipes. Its scale

560-471: A particular ancestor was causing a king's toothache. The divination charges were often directed at ancestors, whom the ancient Chinese revered and worshiped, as well as natural powers and Dì ( 帝 ), the highest god in the Shang society. Anything of concern to the royal house of Shang served as possible topics for charges, from illness, birth and death, to weather, warfare, agriculture, tribute and so on. One of

640-437: A range of C3 to B5, some regional variants tend to have a range of G2 to F#5 (i.e. the tenor sheng 's range). The alto sheng plays an important role in modern Chinese orchestras , serving to provide chordal accompaniment as well as supplementing lower-pitched instruments like the cello . There are two main form factors of alto sheng in modern Chinese music : the bao sheng ( 抱笙 , lit: "hug sheng ") and

720-642: A slang dialect of the Swahili language See also [ edit ] Cheng (disambiguation) Zheng (disambiguation) Shen (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Sheng . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sheng&oldid=1254488995 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

800-435: A statelet within the Shang sphere of influence. These notations were generally made on the back of the shell's bridge (called bridge notations), the lower carapace, or the xiphiplastron (tail edge). Some shells may have been from locally raised tortoises, however. Scapula notations were near the socket or a lower edge. Some of these notations were not carved after being written with a brush, proving (along with other evidence)

880-575: A temple dedicated to the Duke of Zhou during the Tang dynasty , about 18 km (11 mi) west of Qijia. They mention the Duke of Zhou and other figures of the early Western Zhou. A handful of oracle bones have been found at other Western Zhou sites, including some from Beijing. After the founding of Zhou, the Shang practices of bronze casting, pyromancy, and writing continued. Oracle bones that were found in

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960-455: A variety of ranges from alto to bass. The keyboard sheng has a range of up to 5 octaves from C2 to C7 just like many modern day pipe organs. Keyboard sheng are considered niche, as very few repertoires make use of the keyboard layout. In fact, many of the chordal parts written for sheng are currently heavily clustered, and as such, a keyboard layout tends to result in slightly cumbersome fingering. However, repertoire written for piano

1040-462: A warmer and richer timbre, despite being less common than its alto counterpart. They are sometimes made with more reeds to cover the alto sheng 's range as well, and also come in 2 form factors ( pai sheng and bao sheng ). The bass sheng (Chinese: 低 音 笙 ; pinyin: Dīyīn Shēng ) is usually a 32-reed sheng with a bass range of C2 to G4, and primarily uses the bass clef. These similarly come in two form factors as well:

1120-433: Is a 36-reed sheng with a soprano range of G3 to F#6. It primarily uses the treble clef in sounding pitch. However, to suit the needs of modern repertoire, 38- or even 42-reed sheng have become increasingly prevalent in the late 2010s (those go all the way up to C7). Some models even include levers that allow for sounding of chords (i.e. more than one note is sounded when one lever is depressed). The Piccolo Sheng

1200-470: Is also thought to be related to their ease of use as large, flat surfaces that needed minimal preparation. There is also speculation that only female tortoise shells were used, as these are significantly less concave. Pits or hollows were then drilled or chiseled partway through the bone or shell in an orderly series. At least one such drill has been unearthed at Erligang, exactly matching the pits in size and shape. The shape of these pits evolved over time, and

1280-432: Is an important indicator for dating the oracle bones within various sub-periods in the Shang dynasty. The shape and depth also helped determine the nature of the crack that would appear. The number of pits per bone or shell varied widely. Divinations were typically carried out for the Shang kings in the presence of a diviner. Very few oracle bones were used in divination by other members of the royal family or nobles close to

1360-574: Is applied to them as well. The bones or shells were first sourced and then prepared for use. Their sourcing is significant because some of them (especially many of the shells) are believed to have been presented as tribute to the Shang, which provides valuable information about diplomatic relations of the time. We know this because notations were often made on them recording their provenance (e.g., tribute of how many shells from where and on what date). For example, one notation records that " Què ( 雀 ) sent 250 (tortoise shells)", identifying this as, perhaps,

1440-407: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Sheng (instrument) The sheng ( Chinese : 笙 ) is a Chinese mouth-blown polyphonic free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes. It is one of the oldest Chinese instruments, with images depicting its kind dating back to 1100 BCE, and there are original instruments from

1520-681: Is evidence that free reed musical instruments similar to the sheng were known in Europe a century earlier. Chinese free-reed wind instruments named sheng and yu were first mentioned in bone oracle writings dating from the 14th to the 12th centuries BCE, and were identified in later texts as types of sheng . The first appearance of the word sheng is in some of the poems of Shijing ( Book of Odes ), dating back c.  7th century BCE . Ancient instruments with gourd wind chambers, varying numbers of pipes, with bamboo or metal reeds have been discovered in archaeological finds at

1600-715: Is known as a "verification". A complete record of all the above elements is rare; most bones contain just the date, diviner and topic of divination, and many remained uninscribed after the divination. The uninscribed divination is thought to have been brush-written with ink or cinnabar on the oracle bones or accompanying documents, as a few of the oracle bones found still bear their brush-written divinations without carving, while some have been found partially carved. After use, shells and bones used ritually were buried in separate pits (some for shells only; others for scapulae only), in groups of up to hundreds or even thousands (one pit unearthed in 1936 contained over 17,000 pieces along with

1680-462: Is mainly diatonic, for example the 17-pipe (4 of which are silent decorative pipes) sheng used in Jiangnan sizhu is tuned: With the development of guoyue music in mid-20th century China, the sheng underwent changes to increase its range and volume. The guoyue sheng had all its 17 pipes fitted with reeds, then the number of pipes increased to 21, and metal tubes were attached to

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1760-477: Is not known how Wang and Liu actually came across these specimens, but Wang is credited with being the first to recognize their significance. During the Boxer Rebellion , Wang reluctantly accepted a defense command, and killed himself in 1900 when allied troops entered Beijing. His son later sold the bones to Liu, who published the first book of rubbings of the oracle bone inscriptions in 1903. As news of

1840-430: Is placed on a stand), and is less difficult/expensive to repair (due to its simpler layout). The tenor sheng (Chinese: 次 中 音 笙 ; pinyin: Cìzhōngyīn Shēng ) is a 36-reed sheng with a tenor range of G2 to F ♯ 5 or F2 to E5 that sound one octave lower than soprano sheng , and primarily uses the tenor clef or treble clef (octave down), and at times the bass clef. This variant tends to have

1920-441: Is playable on them. Bone oracle Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and similar topics. These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion . The diviner would then interpret

2000-411: Is sounded by either exhaling or inhaling into the mouthpiece, and players can produce a relatively continuous sound without pause by quickly switching between the two, similarly to playing a harmonica . The traditional performance style is to sound two or three notes at the same time by adding a fifth and/or octave above the main melody note. When a higher note is not available, a lower note a fourth below

2080-546: Is the discipline for the study of oracle bones and the oracle bone script. Shang-era oracle bones are thought to have been unearthed occasionally by local farmers since as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, and perhaps starting as early as the Han dynasty . In Sui and Tang era Anyang , which was at one time the capital of the Shang dynasty, oracle bones were exhumed during burial ceremonies, though grave diggers did not realize what

2160-479: Is thus also known as the Ruins of Yin, or Yinxu . Oracle bone inscriptions were published as they were discovered, in fascicles . Subsequently, many collections of inscriptions were also published. The following are the main collections. Observing that the citation of these different works was becoming unwieldy, historians Hu Houxuan and Guo Moruo began an effort to comprehensively publish all bones discovered by

2240-419: Is twice as size as soprano sheng but has one octave higher than the soprano sheng The alto sheng (Chinese: 中 音 笙 ; pinyin: Zhōngyīn Shēng ) is a 36-reed sheng with an alto range of C3 to B5. They sound a perfect 5th lower than soprano sheng . They often sport an additional row of 12 black keys, that plays all 3 pipes corresponding to the same note in different octaves (e.g., pressing

2320-434: Is unique in being addressed to the sun, but typical in that 10 cattle are being offered, with 100 more to follow if the harvest is good. Later divinations were more likely to be perfunctory, optimistic, made by the king himself, addressed to his ancestors, on a regular cycle, and unlikely to ask the ancestors to do anything. Keightley suggests that this reflects a change in ideas about what the powers and ancestors could do, and

2400-422: The da paisheng ( 大排笙 , lit. "large row sheng "); a large standing organ-like instrument that comes with or without pedals (the pedals are used to pump air into the instrument like a reed organ), and the bao sheng (lit. "held sheng ", although it is placed on a stand due to its weight). With the bass sheng , the differences between the 2 variants are more pronounced; bass paisheng tend to require

2480-422: The pai sheng ( 排笙 , lit: " sheng in rows"). The bao sheng is usually placed on the musician's lap; one would reach around to the buttons on its posterior (in effect hugging the instrument, and hence the name). It is cylindrical in nature, and tends to be smaller (i.e. less heavy and bulky) due to the pipes having been engineered to bend inside the body to make effective use of all available space inside

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2560-449: The sheng . This, however, presents the drawback of it being difficult to disassemble and reassemble for maintenance or repairs. The pai sheng on the other hand, is typically placed on a sheng stand. This form is so named as the pipes and resonators are arranged into 3 rows (in a linear manner) instead of a circular fashion. These are commonly seen in school orchestras, as there is a reduced likelihood of it being dropped (since it

2640-399: The Han dynasty that are preserved in museums today. Traditionally, the sheng has been used as an accompaniment instrument for solo suona or dizi performances. It is one of the main instruments in kunqu and some other forms of Chinese opera . Traditional small ensembles also make use of the sheng , such as the wind and percussion ensembles in northern China. In

2720-601: The Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The Chinese still acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Menzies as "the foremost western scholar of Yin-Shang culture and oracle bone inscriptions" . His former residence in Anyang was declared a "Protected Treasure" in 2004, and the James Mellon Menzies Memorial Museum for Oracle Bone Studies was established. By the time of the establishment of

2800-533: The 1970s have been dated to the Zhou dynasty, with some dating to the Spring and Autumn period ; very few, however, were inscribed. It is thought that other methods of divination supplanted pyromancy, such as numerological divination using milfoil (yarrow) in connection with the hexagrams of the I Ching , leading to the decline of inscribed oracle bones. However, evidence for the continued use of plastromancy exists for

2880-732: The Institute of History and Philology by Fu Sinian at the Academia Sinica in 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced back to modern Xiaotun ( 小屯村 ) village at Anyang in Henan. Official archaeological excavations led by Li Ji , the father of Chinese archaeology, between 1928 and 1937 discovered 20,000 oracle bone pieces, which now form the bulk of the Academia Sinica's collection in Taiwan and constitute about 1/5 of

2960-518: The Rénmín ( 人民 ) Park phase. Four inscribed bones have been found at Zhengzhou: three with numbers 310, 311, and 312 in the Hebu corpus, and one that has a single character ( ㄓ ), which also appears in late Shang inscriptions. HB 310, which contained two brief divinations, has been lost, but is recorded in a rubbing and two photographs. HB 311 and 312 each contain a pair of characters that are similar to

3040-721: The Shang culture sites. Ox scapulae and plastrons, both prepared for divination, were found at the Shang culture sites of Táixīcūn ( 台西村 ) in Hebei and Qiūwān ( 丘灣 ) in Jiangsu . One or more pitted scapulae were found at Lùsìcūn ( 鹿寺村 ) in Henan, while unpitted scapulae have been found at Erlitou in Henan, Cixian ( 磁縣 ) in Hebei, Níngchéng ( 寧城 ) in Liaoning, and Qijia ( 齊家 ) in Gansu . Plastrons do not become more numerous than scapulae until

3120-571: The Xia–Shang–Zhou project. Most scholars now agree that the Zhou conquest of the Shang took place close to 1046 or 1045 BCE, over a century later than the traditional date. Since divination was by heat or fire and most often on plastrons or scapulae, the terms pyromancy , plastromancy and scapulimancy are often used for this process. The oracle bones are mostly turtle plastrons , probably female and ox scapulae, although there are also examples of tortoise carapaces , ox rib bones,

3200-453: The Zhou ritual centre known as the Zhōuyuán. Some of these are believed to be contemporaneous with the reign of Di Xin , the last Shang king, and others to date from the early Western Zhou. The inscriptions are distinguished from those of Anyang in the way the bones and shells were prepared and used, the smallness of the characters, the presence of unique vocabulary, and the use of the phases of

3280-531: The area was the site of the last Shang dynasty capital. Decades of uncontrolled digs followed to fuel the antiques trade, and many of these pieces eventually entered collections in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan. The first Western collector was the American missionary Frank H. Chalfant (1862–1914). Chalfant also coined the term "oracle bone" in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing , which

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3360-660: The areas oracle bones were discovered and thus it is theorized they were presented to the region as tribute. Neolithic diviners in China had long been heating the bones of deer, sheep, pigs, and cattle for similar purposes; evidence for this in Liaoning has been found dating to the late fourth millennium BCE. However, over time, the use of ox bones increased, and use of tortoise shells does not appear until early Shang culture. The earliest tortoise shells found that had been prepared for divinatory use (i.e., with chiseled pits) date to

3440-580: The bamboo pipes to amplify its sound. The other change was the development of the keyed sheng . Nowadays, traditional sheng are usually only used for solo repertoire, due them not being fully chromatic (and also the fact that certain techniques – like glissandi – can only be achieved on a traditional sheng ). For an orchestra setting, keyed sheng tend to be preferred for being fully chromatic. Many modern traditional sheng do come with some keys for ease of fingering; there are also fully chromatic traditional sheng . These are still known by

3520-478: The beginning of the subsequent Zhou dynasty . The earliest oracle bones (corresponding to the reigns of Wu Ding and Zu Geng) record dates using only the 60-day cycle of stems and branches , though sometimes the month was also given. Attempts to determine an absolute chronology focus on a number of lunar eclipses recorded in inscriptions by the Bīn group, who worked during the reign of Wu Ding, possibly extending into

3600-438: The black "C" causes the notes C3, C4 and C5 to be sounded simultaneously). It primarily uses the treble (octave down) and alto clefs (albeit less common as of the late 2010s – notably with Singapore Chinese Orchestra deciding to scribe alto sheng scores in treble clef). The alto variants tend to have a more mellow timbre than the slightly more metallic sounding soprano sheng . While many countries have alto sheng with

3680-484: The blanket term "traditional sheng " due to them retaining the typical traditional sheng -like fingering. Also, traditional sheng are usually held in the player's hands when playing, and a 37-reed fully chromatic traditional sheng tends to be too heavy to be held for long performances. Chromatic 24- and 26-reed keyed sheng were common during the 1950s, but current models usually have 32 to 38 reeds. There are four main ranges of keyed sheng , forming

3760-495: The bones were and generally reinterred them. During the 19th century, villagers in the area who were digging in the fields discovered a number of bones, and used them as dragon bones , following the traditional Chinese medicine practice of grinding up Pleistocene fossils into tonics or poultices . The turtle shell fragments were prescribed for malaria, while the other animal bones were used in powdered form to treat knife wounds. In 1899, an antiques dealer from Shandong who

3840-403: The cracking. A number of cracks were typically made in one session, sometimes on more than one bone, and these were typically numbered. The diviner in charge of the ceremony read the cracks to learn the answer to the divination. How exactly the cracks were interpreted is not known. The topic of divination was raised multiple times, and often in different ways, such as in the negative, or by changing

3920-401: The date being divined about. One oracle bone might be used for one session or for many, and one session could be recorded on a number of bones. The divined answer was sometimes then marked either "auspicious" or "inauspicious", and the king occasionally added a "prognostication", his reading on the nature of the omen. On very rare occasions, the actual outcome was later added to the bone in what

4000-461: The difference between the two types of sheng are increasingly blurred. However, sheng instruments are generally categorized into either type based on the kind of fingering system that they adopt. This includes (on traditional sheng ) certain notes (namely the leading note, submediant, dominant, followed by tonic) present as a group on the left posterior side. Due to fourth and fifth harmonies being common in traditional sheng repertoire,

4080-486: The earliest Shang stratum at Erligang (modern Zhengzhou ). By the end of the Erligang, the plastrons were numerous, and at Anyang, scapulae and plastrons were used in roughly equal numbers. Due to the use of these shells in addition to bones, early references to the oracle bone script often used the term "shell and bone script", but since tortoise shells are actually a bony material, the more concise term "oracle bones"

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4160-460: The earliest oracle bone inscriptions to 1230 BCE. 26 oracle bones throughout Wu Ding's reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BCE (±10 years) with an estimated 80-90% probability of containing the true individual ages. Period V inscriptions often identify numbered ritual cycles, making it easier to estimate the reign lengths of the last two kings. The start of this period is dated 1100–1090 BCE by Keightley and 1101 BCE by

4240-730: The extent to which the living could influence them. While the use of bones in divination has been practiced almost globally, divination involving fire or heat has generally been found only in Asia and the Asian-derived North American cultures. The use of heat to crack scapulae (pyro-scapulimancy) originated in ancient China, the earliest evidence of which extends back to the 4th millennium BCE with archaeological finds from Liaoning, though these were not inscribed. The scapulae of cattle, sheep, pigs, and deer used in pyromancy have been found at neolithic archeological sites, and

4320-407: The fingerings on traditional sheng are optimized for such. As a result, fingerings for traditional sheng tend to look jumbled up, and can vary regionally. Keyed sheng , on the other hand, have sequenced fingerings that allow for easy key changes. On a traditional sheng , there are holes on the finger pipes which can be covered by the player's fingers to sound that particular note. On

4400-548: The inscribed oracle bones were found at the Yinxu site in modern Anyang and date to the reigns of the last nine Shang kings. The diviners named on the bones have been assigned to five periods by Dong Zuobin : The kings were involved in divination in all periods, with divinations in later periods done personally by the king. The extant inscriptions are not evenly distributed across these periods, with 55% coming from period I and 31% from periods III and IV. A few oracle bones date to

4480-463: The king. By the latest periods, the Shang kings took over the role of diviner personally. During a divination session, the shell or bone was anointed with blood and, in an inscription section called the "preface", the date was recorded using the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches , along with the diviner's name. Next, the topic of divination (called the "charge") was posed, such as whether

4560-498: The late Shang period, and scholars have reconstructed the Shang royal genealogy from the cycle of ancestral sacrifices recorded on oracle bones. When they were discovered at the end of the nineteenth century and deciphered in the early twentieth century, these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, whose historicity had been subject to scrutiny at the time by the Doubting Antiquity School . Oraculology

4640-420: The late Shang script. HB 312 was found in an upper layer of the Erligang culture. The others were found accidentally in river management earthworks, and so lack archaeological context. Pei Mingxiang argued that they predated the Anyang site. Takashima, referring to character forms and syntax, argues that they were contemporaneous with the reign of Wu Ding. A turtle plastron bearing several short inscriptions

4720-421: The main melody note can be played instead. Sheng varieties can be classified into traditional sheng (Chinese: 传统笙 ; pinyin: chuántǒng shēng ) and keyed sheng ( 键笙 ; jiàn shēng ) (sometimes also known as "improved sheng " ( 改良笙 ; Gǎiliáng shēng )). Keyed shengs were only developed in the 20th century, from roughly 1950 onwards. With more and more hybrid models being introduced,

4800-474: The mid-1950s. The result, the Jiaguwen Heji (1978–1982) was edited by Houxuan and Guo Moruo and, with its supplement (1999) edited by Peng Bangjiong, is the most comprehensive catalogue of the oracle bone fragments. The 20 volumes contain reproductions of over 55,000 fragments. A separate work published in 1999 contains transcriptions of the inscriptions into standard characters. The vast majority of

4880-450: The modern large Chinese orchestra , it is used for both melody and accompaniment. The sheng has been used in the works of a few non-Chinese composers, including Unsuk Chin , Jukka Tiensuu , Lou Harrison , Tim Risher , Daníel Bjarnason , Guus Janssen and Christopher Adler . Some believe that Johann Wilde and Pere Amiot traveled to China and brought the first sheng to Europe in 1740 and 1777 respectively, although there

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4960-484: The moon as a dating device. Four pieces (HB 1, 12, 13 and 15) have been particularly puzzling, because they refer to sacrifices in the temples of Shang ancestors, and also differ from the other bones in calligraphy and syntax. Scholars disagree on whether they were produced at Anyang or the Zhouyuan, and whether the diviners and scribes were Shang or Zhou. In 2003, around 600 inscribed bones were found at Zhougongmiao,

5040-428: The most common topics was whether performing rituals in a certain manner would be satisfactory. An intense heat source was then inserted in a pit until it cracked. Due to the shape of the pit, the front side of the bone cracked in a rough 卜 shape. The character 卜 ( bǔ or pǔ ; Old Chinese : *puk ; 'to divine') may be a pictogram of such a crack; the reading of the character may also be an onomatopoeia for

5120-402: The number of pipes to 32, expanding its range and allowing it to play harmony and chords. The air chamber and size of the pipes were also enlarged, changing the tone color of the instrument. Later various changes were also introduced by players such as Weng Zhenfa ( 翁鎮發 ) and particularly Hu Tianquan ( 胡天泉 ), with different variants of the instrument produced. The sheng 's reeds vibrate at

5200-431: The oracle bones' discovery spread throughout China and among foreign collectors and scholars the market for the bones exploded, though many collectors sought to keep the location of the bones' source a secret. Although scholars tried to find their source, antique dealers falsely claimed that the bones came from Tangyin in Henan. In 1908, scholar Luo Zhenyu discovered the source of the bones near Anyang and realized that

5280-559: The pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well. Pyromancy with bones continued in China into the Zhou dynasty , but the questions and prognostications were increasingly written with brushes and cinnabar ink, which degraded over time. Oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing , using an early form of Chinese characters . The inscriptions contain around 5,000 different characters, many of which are still being used today, though

5360-456: The practice appears to have become quite common by the end of the third millennium BCE. Scapulae were unearthed along with smaller numbers of pitless plastrons in the Nánguānwài ( 南關外 ) stage at Zhengzhou; scapulae as well as smaller numbers of plastrons with chiseled pits were also discovered in the lower and upper Erligang stages. Significant use of tortoise plastrons does not appear until

5440-481: The reign of Zu Geng. Assuming that the 60-day cycle continued uninterrupted into the securely dated period, scholars have sought to match the recorded dates with calculated dates of eclipses. There is general agreement on four of these, spanning dates from 1198 to 1180 BCE. A fifth is assigned by some scholars to 1201 BCE. From this data, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project , relying on

5520-435: The scapulae of sheep, boars, horses, and deer, and other various animal bones. The skulls of deer, oxen, and humans have also been found with inscriptions on them, although these are very rare and appear to have been inscribed for record keeping or practice rather than for actual divination; in one case, inscribed deer antlers were reported, but Keightley reports that they are fake. Interestingly, tortoises are not native to

5600-686: The statement in the "Against Luxurious Ease" chapter of the Book of Documents that the reign of Wu Ding lasted 59 years, dated it from 1250 to 1192 BCE. American sinologist David Keightley argued that the "Against Luxurious Ease" chapter should not be treated as a historical text because it was composed much later, presents reign lengths as moral judgements, and gives other reign lengths that are contradicted by oracle bone evidence. Estimating an average reign length of 20 years based on dated Zhou reigns, Keightley proposed that Wu Ding's reign started around 1200  BCE or earlier. Ken-ichi Takashima dates

5680-648: The tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng ( c.  433 BCE ) in present-day Hubei province , and the Han tombs at Mawangdui ( c.  2nd century BCE ) in Hunan province. In the 8th century, three yu and three sheng were sent to the Japanese court and these have been preserved in the Shōsōin imperial repository in Nara . All the instruments had 17 pipes with a long curving mouthpiece and are very similar to

5760-447: The total discovered. The major archaeologically excavated pits of bones have been: When deciphered, the inscriptions on the oracle bones were revealed to be records of the divinations performed for or by the royal household. These, together with royal-sized tombs, proved beyond a doubt for the first time the existence of the Shang dynasty, which had recently been doubted, and the location of its last capital, Yin. Today, Xiaotun at Anyang

5840-415: The total number of discrete characters is uncertain as some may be different versions of the same character. Specialists have agreed on the form, meanings, and sound of a little more than a quarter of the characters, roughly 1,200 with certainty, but several hundred more remain under discussion; these known characters comprise much of the core vocabulary of modern Chinese. They provide important information on

5920-403: The traditional sheng in use today. However, variants with different numbers of pipes, and chromatic instruments have been documented over the centuries. The kinds of sheng currently used are the products of changes made since the early 20th century that enhanced its sound and volume as well as increasing its range. Early changes were made by Zheng Jinwen ( 鄭覲文 , 1872–1935) who increased

6000-465: The use of the writing brush in Shang times. Scapulae are assumed to have generally come from the Shang's own livestock, perhaps those used in ritual sacrifice, although there are records of cattle sent as tribute as well, including some recorded via marginal notations. The bones or shells were cleaned of meat and then prepared by sawing, scraping, smoothing, and even polishing to create flat surfaces. The predominance of scapulae, and later of plastrons,

6080-540: Was found at Daxinzhuang in Shandong on the floor of a semi-subterranean house dating from the Late Shang period. The style of characters is close to that used by particular diviner groups active at Anyang during the reign of Wu Ding, though it shows some variations. Nearly 300 inscribed oracle bones (HB 1–290) were found in 1977 in two pits dug into a building foundation at Qijia, Fufeng County , Shaanxi , part of

6160-567: Was searching for Chinese bronzes in the area acquired a number of oracle bones from locals, and later sold several to Wang Yirong , the chancellor of the Imperial Academy in Beijing. Wang was a knowledgeable collector of Chinese bronzes, and is believed to be the first person in modern times to recognize the oracle bones' markings as ancient Chinese writing similar to that on Zhou dynasty bronzes. A legendary tale relates that Wang

6240-457: Was sick with malaria, and his scholar friend Liu E was visiting him and helped examine his medicine. They discovered that, before being ground into powder, the bones bore strange glyphs which, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions , they recognized as ancient writing. Xu Yahui states that, "[n]o one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into people's stomachs." It

6320-550: Was the first to come up with a method of dating them (in order to avoid being fooled by fakes). In 1917 he published the first scientific study of the bones, including 2,369 drawings and inscriptions and thousands of ink rubbings. Through the donation of local people and his own archaeological excavations, he acquired the largest private collection in the world, over 35,000 pieces. He insisted that his collection remain in China, though some were sent to Canada by colleagues who were worried that they would be either destroyed or stolen during

6400-405: Was then calqued into Chinese as jiǎgǔ 甲骨 in the 1930s. Only a small number of dealers and collectors knew the location of the source of the oracle bones until they were found by Canadian missionary James Mellon Menzies , the first person to scientifically excavate, study, and decipher them. He was the first to conclude that the bones were records of divination from the Shang dynasty, and

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