Oracle bones

Oracle bones are a type of artifact found in archaeological sites in several parts of the world, but they are best known as a significant characteristic of the Shang dynasty [1600-1050 BC] in China.

Oracle bones were used to practice a specific form of divination, fortune-telling, known as pyro-osteomancy. Osteomancy is when shamans (religious specialists) divine the future from the pattern of the natural bumps, cracks, and discolorations in animal bone and turtle shell. Osteomancy is known from prehistoric east and northeast Asia and from North American and Eurasian ethnographic reports.

The subset of osteomancy called pyro-osteomancy is the practice of exposing animal bone and turtle shell to heat and interpreting the resulting cracks. Pyro-osteomancy is conducted primarily with animal shoulder blades, including deer, sheep, cattle, and pigs, as well as turtle plastrons--the plastron or undercarriage of a turtle being flatter than its upper shell called the carapace. These modified objects are called oracle bones, and they have been found in many domestic, royal and ritual contexts within Shang Dynasty archeological sites.

The production of oracle bones is not specific to China, although the largest number recovered to date are from Shang Dynasty period sites. Rituals describing the process of creating oracle bones were recorded in Mongolian divination manuals dated to the early 20th century. According to these records, the seer cut a turtle plastron into a pentagonal shape and then used a knife to incise certain Chinese characters into the bone, depending on the seeker’s questions. A twig of burning wood was repeatedly inserted into the grooves of the characters until a loud cracking noise was heard, and a radiating pattern of cracks produced. The cracks would be filled with India ink to make them easier for the shaman to read for important information about the future or current events.

Oracle bones in China are much older than the Shang Dynasty. The earliest to date related use are unburned tortoise shells incised with signs, recovered from 24 graves at the early Neolithic [6600-6200 cal BC] Jiahu site in Henan province. These shells are incised with signs which have some similarity to later Chinese characters.

A Late Neolithic sheep or small deer scapula from inner Mongolia may be the earliest divination object recovered yet. The scapula has numerous intentional burn marks on its blade and is dated indirectly from carbonized birchbark in a contemporaneous feature to 3321 calendar years BC (cal BC). Several other isolated finds in Ganzu province also date to the late Neolithic, but the practice did not become widespread until the beginning of the Longshan dynasty in the latter half of the third millennium BC.

The patterned carving and scorching of pyro-osteomancy began somewhat haphazardly during the early Bronze Age Longshan period, accompanying a significant increase in political complexity. Evidence for early Bronze Age Erlitou (1900-1500 BC) use of osteomancy is also present in the archaeological record, but like Longshan, also relatively unelaborated.

The shift from generalized use to elaborate ritual took place over hundreds of years and was not instantaneous over the entire Shang society. Osteomancy rituals using oracle bones became most elaborate during the end of the Shang era (1250-1046 BC).

Shang Dynasty oracle bones include complete inscriptions, and their preservation is key to understanding the growth and development of the written form of the Chinese language. At the same time, oracle bones came to be associated with an expanded number of rituals.

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