RADIOCARBON DATING OF ORACLE BONES OF LATE SHANG PERIOD IN ANCIENT CHINA

ABSTRACT Oracle bone script developed into a sophisticated writing system in Shang Dynasty of China more than 3000 years ago. The systematic scientific dating of oracle bones had not been previously reported. Here we present radiocarbon (14C) dates measured from the sequential samples of oracle bones that pertain to the Shang kings. The results indicate that King Wu Ding (who is called Wu Ting in some literature) reigned during 1254 BC to 1197 BC, and the Shang Dynasty terminated around 1041 BC. It also points that the Li group in the sequence of oracle bones is most probably related to the time of King Wu Ding and Zu Geng.

A Study on Chinese Shape Taking Methods Reflected on the Character Making Process: Focusing on Major Nature Gods

'Letters record a language' means that letters, in specific forms, represent particular meaning and sounds differentiated from others. Because one language reflects its people's way of thinking, letters also include those thinking as a sign of that language. Especially from the very beginning, Chinese characters were devised to take the shapes that represent meaning of languages rather than the signals that indicate pronunciation, therefore the shapes of Chinese characters, especially that of the ancient pictographs, can be treated directly as very precious historical data, also can be said exactly reflect social aspects of the times.But in some cases, meaning of language did not have specific shapes that represent exact meaning, so people in Shang Dynasty have to develop the system of taking shapes that represent abstract meaning.To search for this, this research made consideration on the taking shapes system of Chinese character based on the findings through the analysis of oracle-bones letters and oracle-bone inscriptions regarding The God of Nature, especially The God of dragon, wind, rainbow, sun.

The importance of oracle rejoining in the study of ancient characters and the history of the Shang Dynasty

From the beginning of the unearthing of oracle bones in Anyang Henan, traditional descriptions of the ancient history of China have been gradually modified. It is regrettable that the disaster of non-scientific excavations and long-distance transit happened at almost the same time. From knowing the history of the damage to the oracle bones, we can then understand how important the recovery work is. The rejoining work began early in the 20th century, and many scholars have contributed to the related work. The seven examples in this article present multiple values regarding not only recovering the broken oracle bones to their original state, but also ‘highlighting the particular phenomenon of culture’, ‘getting the real recovery of inscriptions’, and ‘verifying the authenticity of documents’. This speaks well of the important rejoining work which benefits the study of ancient characters and Yin Shang history. After all, to use the oracles as a tool to study ancient characters and history, we should first undertake rejoining and restore them to their original appearance.