Everything About ___
Live briefing

Everything about Oracle bone script

Ancient form of written Chinese

The 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 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 the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: Oracle bone scriptA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: Dynamic Dataset Augmentation for Deep Learning-based Oracle Bone Inscriptions RecognitionInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: Deciphering Oracle Bone Script ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿The most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Detecting oracle bone inscriptions via pseudo-category labelsCited 28 times
  5. Go sideways: Oracle boneA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: Neolithic symbols in ChinaA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Noun The set of incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones used in divination during Bronze Age China.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Name
  2. Origins
  3. Style
  4. Structure and function
  5. Zhou dynasty inscriptions
  6. Scholarship
  7. Computer encoding
  8. Samples

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics