Page 177 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

Yiqi Kuanshi 攀古樓彝器款識, was published in 1972. attention of Wang Yirong 王懿榮 (1840 – 1900) a famous antiquarian
and epigraphist, who recognized that the markings on the ‘dragon
■ Wu Dacheng 吳大澂 (1835 – 1902), a very high-ranking official bones’ were, in fact, inscriptions. He and other scholars, including
at the Qing Court, who collected ancient bronze vessels as well as Liu E 劉鶚 and Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 immediately understood that there
jade. One thousand and forty-eight inscriptions from Shang 商 and was a relationship between these ‘oracle bone’ inscriptions and the
Zhou 周 dynasty ritual vessels are recorded in his Kezhai Jigulu 愙 inscriptions on Shang 商 and Zhou 周 dynasty bronze ritual vessels.
齋集古錄, which was published only in 1916.
The search for yet more ‘oracle bones’
■ Duan Fang 端方 (1861 – 1911), a member of the Qing 清 Manchu
aristocracy 滿州正白旗人, a high government official, far-sighted Some years later in the decade between 1928 and 1937, after the
statesman, scholar, epigraphist and avid collector of ancient overthrow of the Qing 清 dynasty and the establishment of the
bronze vessels, seals, etc. His book, the Taozhai Jijinlu 陶齋吉 Republic of China 中華民國, the Archaeological Department of the
金錄, published in 1908, was the first in China in which rubbings National Research Institute of History and Philology of the Academia
of ancient bronze inscriptions were published using the then new Sinica 國立中央研究院歷史語言研究所 decided to organize 15 scientific
technique of ‘gravura reproduction’. excavation expeditions under the direction of the archaeologists Dong
Zuobin 董作賓, Li Ji 李濟 and others to the Anyang 安陽 area of Henan
河南 province, the reported origin of these ‘dragon bones’ and the site
5. Modern studies of the ancient city of Yin 殷, the last capital of the Shang 商 dynasty.
Thanks to these expeditions, a further 24918 inscribed oracle bones
The discovery of Jiaguwen 甲骨文, oracle bone writing were unearthed.

At the end of the 19 century an extraordinary discovery deeply Spurred on both by the impact of the discovery of what are now
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influenced and changed the course of all studies of ancient Chinese termed ‘oracle bones’ and by further important discoveries made by
bronze inscriptions. In the late 1890s, what were called in ignorance the Academia Sinica expeditions in Henan province, a number of
“dragon bones” began making their appearance in a number of shops Chinese and foreign scholars of the last century continued to make
selling traditional Chinese herbal medicine, where they were pounded great contributions to the study of ancient bronze vessels and their
into powder and made into medicine. Many of these ‘dragon bones’ inscriptions. Several of the most prominent of these were:
bore very unusual and, at the time, largely ignored inscriptions etched
in the earliest form of Chinese writing. This writing was later termed ■ Luo Zhenyu 羅振玉 (1868 – 1940), who was one of the first to
jiaguwen 甲骨文 ‘tortoise shell and bone writing’ in Chinese, since all take up the study of the newly discovered jiaguwen 甲骨文 ‘oracle
these inscriptions were written either on tortoise shells or on animal bone inscriptions’. He subsequently published three collections of
bones, and ‘oracle bone writing’ in English, since the contents of the oracle-bone inscriptions, the Yinxu Shuqi Qianbian 殷墟書契前
inscriptions dealt almost exclusively with questions asked of oracle 編, the Yinxu Shuqi Jinghua 殷墟書契菁華 and the Yinxu Shuqi
spirits by wu 巫, shamans or sorcerers of the Shang 商 (circa 17 /16 – Houbian 殷墟書契後編. Luo also carried out extensive studies on
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12 /11 centuries B.C.) and Western Zhou 西周 dynasties (circa bronze vessel inscriptions. The most important publication which
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12 /11 centuries – 771 B.C.) concerning the possible auspiciousness resulted from his research is his Sandai Jijin Wencun 三代吉金文
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or inauspiciousness of most activities planned by the Kings and ruling 存 (Collection of Surviving Bronze Inscriptions from Three Reigns)
classes of the time. published in 1937, in which he recorded 4831 inscriptions, the
largest collection of its kind recorded even up to the present. This
In 1899 the ‘dragon bones’ for sale in the medicine shops drew the book remains to this day a primary reference for all specialists.

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