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61-690: Records about Predynastic Zhou came from two sources. The Shang dynasty kept records about Zhou in oracle bones . The texts about Zhou inscribed by the Shang court are mainly those from the reign of Wu Ding and the last Shang monarchs. After the fall of Shang, the Ji clan established the Zhou dynasty and started their own narrative about previous generations. The Book of Documents and the Bamboo Annals are two major historical sources. Later, Sima Qian wrote about

122-410: A Venetian blind turned 90 degrees, are present in oracle bone inscriptions. Since the ease of writing with a brush is even greater than that of writing with a stylus in wet clay, it is assumed that the style and structure of Shang graphs on bamboo were similar to those on bronzes, and also that the majority of writing occurred with a brush on such books. Additional support for this notion includes

183-419: A phono-semantic compound , and a rough meaning can be inferred based on the semantic component. For instance, an oracle bone character was recently found which consists of 礻 on the left and 升 on the right ([ 礻升 ] when converted from oracle bone forms to their modern printed equivalents). This character may reasonably be guessed to a compound with 示 'altar' as the semantic and 升 (modern reading sheng ) as

244-471: A royal hunt. There are relatively few oracle bone inscriptions dating after the conquest of the Shang by the Zhou dynasty ( c.  1046 BC ). From their initial discovery during the 1950s, only a handful of examples from this later period had been uncovered, and those that did were fragments consisting of only one or two characters. In August 1977, a cache containing thousands of Zhou-era oracle bones

305-409: A small number of pottery, shell and bone, and jade and other stone items, and there is evidence that they also wrote on bamboo (or wooden) books just like those found from the late Zhou to Han periods, because the graphs for a writing brush ( 聿 yù , depicting a hand holding a writing brush ) and bamboo book ( 冊 cè , a book of thin bamboo and wooden slips bound with horizontal strings, like

366-638: Is 1050 BC, the year proposed by the XSZ Chronology Project. However, the American sinologist David Nivison studied the information given by the Bamboo Annals, and suggested the Shang dynasty's beginning year to be 1558 BC. Because the Bamboo Annals says that King Wu's assumption of power began 496 years after its predecessor, he is thought to have done so in 1062 BC. He moved the 1059 BC planetary conjunction back to 1071 BC, arriving at

427-704: Is a systematic and scientific inquiry into the inherent laws of the oracle bone script itself and uses it as a basis for glimpsing the history, society, and customs of the ancient world. The oracle bones should not be confused with orthography. It is generally agreed that the tradition of writing represented by oracle bone script existed prior to the first known examples, due to the attested script's mature state. Many characters had already undergone extensive simplifications and linearizations, and techniques of semantic extension and phonetic loaning had also clearly been used by authors for some time, perhaps centuries. However, no clearly identifiable examples of writing dating prior to

488-506: Is the study of oracle bones and oracle bone script. It is a humanities discipline that focuses on the Chinese Upper Antiquity oracle characters. Oracle bone science can be divided into a narrow sense of oracle bone science and a broad sense of oracle bone science. In the narrow sense, the study of oracle bone script is limited to the study of oracle bone script itself, and it is a discipline of paleography . This includes

549-462: The Rong " barbarians " around Shang. His power threatened King Wen Ding and he was tricked into an ambush at a place called Saiku ( 塞库 ). In 1101 BC, Wen Ding sent Jili to a local store house, and then left him starve to death. The leader's son, Ji Chang, was chosen to be the next Zhou elder. In the first half of the 11th century BC, Ji Chang was enfranchised by Di Xin and given the tile "Overlord of

610-556: The 13th century BC have been discovered. Sets of inscribed symbols on pottery, jade, and bone that have been discovered at a variety of Neolithic archeological sites across China have not been demonstrated to have any direct or indirect ancestry to the Shang oracle bone script at Anyang. Along with the contemporary bronzeware script , the oracle bone script of the Late Shang period appears pictographic. The earliest oracle bone script appears even more so than examples from late in

671-547: The American missionary Frank H. Chalfant (1862–1914) in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing , which first appeared in Chinese books during the 1930s. In earlier decades, Chinese authors used a variety of names for the inscriptions based on the name of Yinxu , their purpose ( 卜 bǔ 'to divine'), or the method of inscription ( 契 qì 'to engrave'). A previously common term was 殷墟卜辭 ( Yīnxū bǔcí 'Yinxu divinatory texts'). Oraculology ( 甲骨学 ; 甲骨學 ; jiǎgǔxué )

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732-420: The Ji clan's territory. When Wu Ding died ( c. 1200 BC), Shang's contact with Zhou declined; the Ji clan, still a vassal, only reestablished their influence during the reign of Wu's great grandson, Wu Yi (武乙, reigned 1147 - 1112 BC). During the period, Predynastic Zhou was under the control of Ji Jili (季歷). Oracle bones at this time mention very little about Jili and his descendants' relation to Shang. Zhou

793-521: The Jiang clan. His second son Ji Fa was coupled with Jiang Ziya's daughter Yi Jiang and fathered a son, Ji Song . To ensure Zhou's power before countering Di Xin's army, Ji Chang launched numerous expansion campaigns. His target included the Shang dynasty's long-term hostile polities that had already been weakened by Wu Ding almost 200 years earlier. After expelling the Quanrong barbarians, he turned to

854-490: The Mandate of Heaven as a means of picturing their heavenly right to be the master of "tianxia" (all under Heaven). The genealogy of Predynastic Zhou leaders is given using traditional accounts: Oracle bone inscriptions Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese , dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones , usually either

915-444: The Shang dynasty, most graphs were already conventionalized in such a simplified fashion that the meanings of many of the pictographs are not immediately apparent. Without careful research to compare these to later forms, one would probably not know that these represented 豕 'swine' and 犬 'dog' respectively. As William G. Boltz notes, most of the oracle bone graphs are not depicted realistically enough for those who do not already know

976-464: The West". Di Xin was otherwise aware of Zhou's rising power, and prepared for his actions. Chang was imprisoned by Di Xin at Youli before being ransomed by other nobles. In some accounts, Wen was forced to consume his eldest son as meat cakes or a soup at the king's bequest. After years, some of Di Xin's officials became impressed by the leader's righteousness and bribed the king for his mercy. Ji Chang

1037-470: The Western Zhou. No Zhou-era sites with a comparable cache of inscriptions to Yinxu have been found; however, examples from this period appear to be more widespread, having been found near most major population centers. New sites have continued to be discovered since 2000. The oracle bone inscriptions—along with several roughly contemporaneous bronzeware inscriptions using a different style—constitute

1098-416: The addition of the 禾 component. Some characters are only attested in the oracle bone script, dropping out of later usage and usually being replaced by newer characters. An example is a fragment bearing character for 'spring' that has no known modern counterpart. In such cases, available context may be used to determine the possible meaning of the character. In other cases, the character may be assumed to be

1159-576: The center of the shell or bone, then moving toward the edge such that the two sides mirror one another. Despite the pictorial nature of the oracle bone script, it was a fully functional and mature writing system by the time of the Shang dynasty, meaning it was able to record the Old Chinese language, and not merely fragments of ideas or words. This level of maturity clearly implies an earlier period of development of at least several hundred years. From their presumed origins as pictographs and signs, by

1220-497: The closest vassals and regional provinces of Shang. He attacked Chong, home of Hu, Marquis of Chong, his arch-enemy, and defeated it, gaining access to the Ford of Meng through which he could cross his army to attack Shang. As a result of his ability to maintain formidable power, he eventually gained control of the majority of Shang lands. Nevertheless, Ji Chang also died at that time (around 1050 BC), and his plans to directly attack Di Xin

1281-513: The country using the texts as reference. The time after which historians are certain about the exact time of events is 841 BC, the beginning of the Gonghe Regency . Predynastic Zhou, having existed about three centuries earlier, proves to be difficult when historians try to find its beginning and end year. The vassal spanned across four generations from Gugong Danfu to Ji Fa (King Wu). However, there are very scarce records detailing years in

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1342-417: The difficulty in decipherment is that components of certain oracle bone script characters may differ in later script forms. Such differences may be accounted for by character simplification and/or by later generations misunderstanding the original graph, which had evolved beyond recognition. For instance, the standard character 秋 'autumn' now appears with the components 禾 'plant stalk' and 火 'fire', whereas

1403-582: The earliest corpus of Chinese writing, and are the direct ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts developed over the next three millennia. Their study is essential for the research of Chinese etymologies . It is also the direct ancestor of over a dozen East Asian writing systems. The length of inscriptions ranges from 10 to over 100 characters, but a few dozen is typical. The subjects of concern in inscriptions are broad, and include war, ritual sacrifice, and agriculture, as well as births, illnesses, and deaths in

1464-500: The five planets visible to the naked eye could be seen in the constellation of Cancer, followed a few seasons later by an apparition of Comet Halley . King Wen of Zhou (still called Ji Chang at the time) witnessed the heavenly signs and thought of them as Heaven choosing him to be the new ruler. Early records, such as the inscription on the Da Yu ding , describe Heaven's Mandate in terms of an actual astronomic event: "the great command in

1525-535: The former's rule, so the end year has been more concerned by modern historiography. Zhou official texts record various astronomical events, whose time can be calculated by scientific laws; that gives an advantage in deciding the exact period. The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, an ambitious collaboration of Chinese historians commissioned by the People's Republic of China in 2000, produced a draft report that identifies Gugong Danfu's first year of rule as 1158 BC, around

1586-464: The integration of theories, research methods and materials from various disciplines, such as paleography, history, archaeology, historical culture, historical literature, and cultural anthropology, to thoroughly study the historical and cultural background of the oracle bones and some of the patterns of the oracle bone divination. It is a diversified and specialized discipline. In the early days of oracle bone discovery, oracle bones were called qiwen , and

1647-510: The last king of the Shang dynasty ; in the Book of Rites , however, it is assumed that his inheritance represented an older tradition among the Zhou of passing over the eldest son. (Fa's grandfather Jili had likewise inherited Zhou despite two older brothers.) Upon his succession, Fa worked with his father-in-law Jiang Ziya to accomplish an unfinished task: overthrowing the Shang dynasty. During

1708-452: The last nine Shang kings are named in the inscriptions beginning with Wu Ding , whose accession is variously dated between 1250 and 1200 BC. Oracle bone inscriptions corresponding to Wu Ding's reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC (±10 years). Following the overthrow of the Shang by the Zhou dynasty in c.  1046 BC , divination using milfoil became more common; far fewer oracle bone inscriptions are dated to

1769-890: The ninth year of his reign, Fa marched down the Yellow River to the Mengjin ford and met with more than 800 dukes. He constructed an ancestral tablet with his father's posthumous name as King Wen and placed it on a chariot in the middle of the host; considering the timing unpropitious, though, he did not yet attack Shang. In 1046 BC, King Wu took advantage of Shang disunity to launch an attack along with many neighboring dukes. The Battle of Muye destroyed Shang's forces and King Zhou of Shang set his palace on fire, dying within. King Wu followed his victory by establishing many feudal states under his 16 younger brothers and clans allied by marriage, but his death three years later provoked several rebellions against his young heir King Cheng and

1830-403: The one chosen by Heaven had to be the eldest male child of the current ruler. The right to rule of a person depended on his virtue; if the one chosen was cruel and incapable, Heaven had the authority to depose him and replace him with a new one. The replacement would be pre-announced through natural disasters and extraterrestrial happenings. According to Zhou's narrative, the final Shang king Di Xin

1891-537: The opportunity and attacked. The remaining Shang forces suffered a fatal defeat at Muye; Di Xin died around the same time. Zhou entered the Dynastic period. Unlike their predecessor Shang, the kings of Zhou kept detailed records about their pre-royal era. Historical records are in the Shangshu and the Bamboo Annals . The texts contain various chapters concerning the reigns Shang kings from Wu Ding, corresponding with

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1952-461: The oracle bone characters found that they were 23% pictographs, 2% simple indicatives, 32% associative compounds, 11% phonetic loans, 27% phono-semantic compounds, and 6% undetermined. Although it was a fully functional writing system, the oracle bone script was not fully standardized. By the early Western Zhou period, these traits had vanished, but in both periods, the script was not highly regular or standardized; variant forms of graphs abound, and

2013-415: The oracle bone form depicts an insect-like figure with antennae – either a cricket or a locust – with a variant depicting fire [REDACTED] below said figure. In this case, the modern character is a simplification of an archaic variant 𪛁 (or 𥤚 ) which is closer to the oracle bone script form – albeit with the insect figure being confused with the similar-looking character for 龜 'turtle' and

2074-498: The other hand, Wu Ding never visit Zhou territory to tour or hunt. He also did not order Zhou manpower to aid Shang's public construction works and wars. Furthermore, despite his concerns about Zhou people's prosperity, he made no questions and divinations about whether their harvests were successful or not. His focus were primarily nearer tribes and chiefdoms, especially the Gui Fang and Tu Fang, which lay between Shang core regions and

2135-413: The period (thus some evolution did occur over the roughly 200-year period). Comparing the oracle bone script to both Shang and early Western Zhou period writing on bronzes, the oracle bone script is clearly greatly simplified, and rounded forms are often converted to rectilinear ones; this is thought to be due to the difficulty of engraving the bone's hard surface, compared with the ease of writing them in

2196-464: The phonetic. Though no modern character consists of these two components, it likely refers to a type of Shang dynasty ritual with a name similar to the pronunciation of 升 in Old Chinese. In the same collection of fragments, the character ⟨阝心⟩ was surmised to be a place name, since the semantic component 阜 means 'mound', 'hill', and the divination concerned the king traveling for

2257-536: The regent Ji Dan , even from three of his brothers . A burial mound in Zhouling town, Xianyang, Shaanxi was once thought to be King Wu's tomb. It was fitted with a headstone bearing Wu's name in the Qing dynasty. Modern archeology has since concluded that the tomb is not old enough to be from the Zhou dynasty, and is more likely to be that of a Han dynasty royal. The true location of King Wu's tomb remains unknown, but

2318-404: The reign of Wu Ding , from approximately 1250 BC to 1192 BC. His court carved a large portion of the total inscriptions mentioning Zhou; however, they only provide the king's perspective towards the country. Wu Ding referred to the Ji clan and its subordinates as "Zhou Fang" (周方), a common naming traditions that the Shang used to address neighboring polities. Zhou at that time was vassalized, but it

2379-399: The reign of Shang king Geng Ding . His son Jili's rule was calculated to be 1126 BC - 1101 BC, that indicates that he died at the same time with the contemporary king Wen Wu Ding . Ji Fa's ascension to power is of historical interest, since his life revolved around heavenly signs that have been proved to be true. The common accepted year in which Ji Fa succeeded as leader of Predynastic Zhou

2440-407: The reorientation of some graphs, by rotating them 90 degrees, as if to better fit on tall, narrow slats. The style must have developed on books of bamboo or wood slats, and then carried over to the oracle bone script. Additionally, the layout of characters in columns from top to bottom is mostly carried over from bamboo books. In some instances, characters are instead written in rows in order to match

2501-511: The result. The Battle of Muye was supposed to be in Wu's 12th year in the Annals, a year different from other historical texts. Nivison's research fixed this battle as 1051 BC and stated that Predynastic Zhou also reached its end that year. Information about Proto-Zhou that was written by Shang dynasty is scarce, as the polity was considerably far from Shang's core lands. The earliest ones date back to

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2562-479: The royal family. As such, they provide invaluable insights into the character of late Shang society. The common Chinese term for oracle bone script is 甲骨文 ( jiǎgǔwén 'shell and bone script'), which is an abbreviation of 龜甲獸骨文字 ( guījiǎ shòugǔ wénzì 'turtle-shell and animal-bone script'). This term is a translation of the English phrase "inscriptions upon bone and tortoise shell", which had been coined by

2623-466: The same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself. Out of an estimated 150,000 inscriptions that have been uncovered, the vast majority were unearthed at Yinxu , the site of the final Shang capital (modern-day Anyang , Henan). The most recent major discovery was the Huayuanzhuang cache found near the site in 1993. Of the 1,608 Huayuanzhang pieces, 579 bear inscriptions. Each of

2684-576: The script to recognize what they stand for; although pictographic in origin, they are no longer pictographs in function. Boltz instead calls them zodiographs , emphasizing their function as representing concepts exclusively through words. Similarly, Qiu labels them semantographs . By the late Shang, oracle bone graphs had already evolved into mostly non-pictographic forms, including all the major types of Chinese characters now in use. Loangraphs, phono-semantic compounds, and associative compounds were already common. One structural and functional analysis of

2745-411: The shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtles . The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the Late Shang royal family. These divinations took the form of scapulimancy where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on

2806-672: The size and orientation of graphs is also irregular. A graph when inverted horizontally generally refers to the same word, and additional components are sometimes present without changing the meaning. These irregularities persisted until the standardization of the seal script during the Qin dynasty . There are over 30,000 distinct characters found from all the bone fragments so far, which may represent around 4,000 individual characters in their various forms. The majority of these still remain undeciphered, although scholars believe they can decipher between 1,500 and 2,000 of these characters. One reason for

2867-409: The sky" ( 天有大令 ). King Wen is not mentioned as receiving the Mandate in official traditional records; however, ancient texts all agree that he really got the divine power to be the next king. The subsequent generations of the Zhou dynasty developed the concept into a system that would dictate the Chinese monarchy for approximately 3000 years. From the Zhou dynasty onward, almost every Chinese ruler used

2928-491: The study of oracle bones was called qiology . In 1931, Zhou Yitong proposed for the first time that "oracle bone science" was an independent discipline. Wang Yuxin emphasized that oracle bones are precious cultural relics and historical materials left over from the ancient period, but their value for archaeological and historical research lies in orthography beyond script interpretation, which has become increasingly recognized by scholars as orthography develops. Oracle bone science

2989-482: The text with divinatory cracks; in others, columns of text rotate 90 degrees mid-phrase. These are exceptions to the normal pattern of writing, and inscriptions were never read bottom to top. Columns of text in Chinese writing are traditionally laid out from right to left; this pattern is first found with the Shang-era bronze inscriptions. However, oracle bone inscriptions are often arranged with columns beginning near

3050-566: The time of Yayu, Gongshu Zulei, Gugong Danfu, Ji Jili, Ji Chang and Ji Fa. Han-period historian Sima Qian (145 - 86 BC) used the books to construct his work. The Zhou ancestors were allegedly descendants of the Yellow Emperor through Emperor Ku . Legends say that Ku's wife Jiang Yuan stepped in a magic footprint and conceived. She gave birth to Hou Ji , who is considered the first Zhou ancestor. The narrative implies Zhou and Shang's familial relations, as Shang's legendary ancestor Xie

3111-482: The wet clay of the molds the bronzes were cast from. The more detailed and more pictorial style of the bronze graphs is thought to be more representative of typical Shang writing using bamboo books than the oracle bone forms; this typical style continued to evolve into writing styles of the Western Zhou period, and then into the seal script within the state of Qin . It is known that the Shang people also wrote with brush and ink, as brush-written graphs have been found on

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3172-410: Was a decadent, and therefore no longer authorized to receive the Mandate of Heaven. Ji Chang, posthumously known as King Wen of Zhou, was appointed the new ruler by Heaven. King Wen's interpretation of astronomical events anticipated the philosophy, which would get increasingly complex. In 1059 BC, two unusual celestial phenomena took place. In May, the densest clustering in five hundred years' time of

3233-442: Was active as an ally, but through time, relations reversed by the time of Jili's successors. Ji Chang, the penultimate lord of Zhou in traditional records, was called "bo" (elder) of Zhou by Shang scribes. He was addressed "Zhōufāng bó" (周方白) by oracle bones from Shang's final years. Ji Chang passed his power to one of the male children, Ji Fa . Around 1046 BC, the Shang king Di Xin was having war with eastern polities. Ji Fa seized

3294-675: Was discovered at a site closely linked to the ancient Zhou heartland. Among thousands of pieces, 200–300 bore inscriptions. Among the major scholars making significant contributions to the study of the oracle bone writings, especially early on, were: A proposal to include the oracle bone script in Unicode is being prepared. Code points U+35400–U+36BFF in Unicode Plane 3 (the Tertiary Ideographic Plane) have been tentatively allocated. 丁未卜，王[礻升]叀父戊？ This

3355-567: Was eventually released and allowed to retake his control of Zhou. He immediately strengthened the state, aiming to end the impious regime of Di Xin. He then met with Jiang Ziya , an old person who regularly fished in the Pan River. Learning about Jiang's intellectuals and capabilities, the Overlord of the West hired him and make him his most trusted assistant. To strengthen their connections, Chang made several marriages of his relatives to that of

3416-453: Was not fully brought under Wu Ding's suzerainty. Its distance was significant, and it was also separated from the Yin (Shang capital) by numerous aggressive polities. Therefore, oracle texts from Wu Ding's regnal era do not contain sufficient information. Wu Ding wrote about his concerns for his remote vassal. His writings are divinatory texts on Zhou soldiers' welfare, inquiries on Zhou hunts. On

3477-532: Was postponed. Ji Fa then succeeded his father, and was ennobled as the 2nd Overlord of the West. Ji Fa then avenged his grandfather and brother at the Battle of Muye . His army was far more prepared in strength and loyalty. Almost all regional lords that had been subdued by Ji Chang allied with Fa, finally crushed the Shang armed forces. Di Xin was thought to have been killed by Ji Fa as an action to end his "evilness". The king's relatives, such as Weizi and Wu Geng ,

3538-478: Was retained and became Zhou dynasty's subordinates. Predynastic Zhou under the rule of Ji Chang was rectified by later Zhou kings by the Mandate of Heaven . The concept was a philosophical theory that determines a monarch's right to rule. According to the Mandate, a ruler was appointed by Heaven, and Heaven's will would be transmitted to his family. Complying with Predynastic Zhou's patrilineal succession traditions,

3599-583: Was the brother of Hou Ji. According to Sima Qian , Predynastic Zhou was established by Gugong Danfu when he relocated his clan from their home of Bin to a new settlement near the Mount of Qi called Zhouyuan (周原) along the Wei River . His two elder sons Taibo and Zhongyong were said to have abandoned the territory and fled south to establish Wu on the lower Yangtze . His youngest son Jili then inherited Zhou and expanded it with numerous campaigns against

3660-521: Was the first time that the graph ⟨ 礻升 ⟩ had been attested attested in oracle bone inscriptions. Wang translated the sentence as: "Prognostication on the day dingwei : if the king performs the sheng sacrifice, will it benefit Ancestor Wu?" The newly found graph was tentatively assigned the same modern reading as the phonetic component 升 . King Wu of Zhou King Wu of Zhou ( Chinese : 周 武 王 ; pinyin : Zhōu Wǔ Wáng ; died c.  1043 BCE ), personal name Ji Fa ,

3721-477: Was the founding king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty . The chronology of his reign is disputed but is generally thought to have begun around 1046 BCE and ended with his death three years later. King Wu was the second son of Ji Chang (posthumously King Wen) and Tai Si . In most accounts, his older brother Bo Yikao was said to have predeceased his father, typically at the hands of King Zhou of Shang ,

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