Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:47:45.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Once Again on the New Period of Western Zhou Oracle-Bone Research With a Brief Description of the Zhouyuan Sacrifice Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Wang Yuxin*
Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Social SciencesInstitute of History, Beijing, China

Extract

If one were to speak of the “incipient period” of research on Western Zhou oracle bones, he would have to refer to that period of time after the discovery in 1950 at Sipanmo (SP 11) of oracle bones whose “writing was not consistent with inscriptional standards,” and before November of 1956 when Professor Li Xueqin pointed out that the inscribed oracle bones from Fangdui village of Shanxi's Hongzhao County were artifacts of the opening period of the Western Zhou. Through the study of these oracle bones discovered at Sipanmo and Fangdui village, as well as in Bin county in Shaanxi and Taishanmiao in Luoyang, it was then possible for the first time to recognize that in addition to Shang oracle bones there were also Western Zhou oracle bones, thus debunking the traditional belief that all oracle bones were produced by the Shang. The excavation in 1956 of inscribed oracle bones at Fengxi in Shaanxi then provided positive proof of the existence of Western Zhou oracle bones.

Type
The Early China Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)