Oracle Bones of the Ancient Chinese Shang Dynasty
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- Oracle bones or dragon bones were the shoulder blades of oxen or the flat underside of a turtle shell known as a plastron that were used for divination during the Shang Dynasty of China which dates between c. 1600 and 1046 BCE. The bones were carved with symbols, the symbols eventually became words and it was from these that the Chinese script developed from.
A psychic or fortune teller would carve symbols into the bones or turtle shell, then they would either apply a hot poker to the object or place it next to a fire until it cracked and from the direction of the crack, their future would be predicted. Although some oracle bones have been found from the Zhou Dynasty, most of them are dated to the Shang dynasty, the period of Chinese history when oracle bones were used most regularly.
Since the oracle bones were written or carved on with such detail, stories that were initially thought to be myths about the Shang Dynasty - such as people’s wealth, occupations, trade goods, and cultural values - were able to be verified by scholars. Chinese writers in later dynasties referred to the Shang Dynasty as a kind of golden age, and the oracle bones showed modern-day scholars that they had certainly had a good reason to.
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- CHAPTERS -
0:00 Introduction
1:03 What are Oracle Bones?
3:32 The Use of Oracle Bones
5:57 The Importance of Oracle Bones
7:54 Outro
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Oracle Bones www.worldhistory.org/Oracle_B...
Shang Dynasty www.worldhistory.org/Shang_Dy...
Chinese Writing www.worldhistory.org/Chinese_...
Ancient China www.worldhistory.org/china/
Zhou Dynasty www.worldhistory.org/Zhou_Dyn...
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What divination practices do people believe in your country? And do you believe in divination?
This was very fascinating! Oracle bones are very interesting to learn about. Informative as always! Thanks for the amazing information.
Informative as always.
Thanks for watching! :)
I've been to Anyang and saw the oracle bone museum there! It was stunning. A lot of really amazing artifacts from that time period.
That would have been awesome to have seen in person. 🙂
So very underrated. It's rare to find content regarding history outside of Europe and near-east that is well-researched and concise. I have great expectations for the future of this channel.
Thanks for the kind words, Yan! 🙂
I A The Regular viewer of WHE but every time I get notification I know I got a video filled up to brim with a startling historical research . Great work guys. May you rise to Ruby Play Button
Amazing as Always
ممتاز ♥️
Turtle shell was the source of magic square, found on the nine parts of the shell of a turtle found in rivers of south China, with 'dots' from 1 to 9 making the square, 4000 bp.
Video bloggers can tell some interesting stories found in oracle bone inscriptions, such as the oracle bone inscriptions that the king of Shang gave his wife FUHAO generals several times。
Indeed. Thanks for watching!
I am guessing this is very similar to the use of sheep ribs for prophecy in the nomadic peoples of the southern urals region, from my understanding some of them kept sheep but didn't use them for food (other than milk maybe ie: no teeth marks on the bones)? Are there any other similarities I am unaware of? Thanks in advance...
One BIG mistake: the oracle bones were for the kings ONLY, because of the complicated procedure and the the cost. ie. 300 slaves executed as sacrifice for the ancestors. There were NO such thing called "horoscopes/ psychics" for civilians, all the psychics were top rank officials, or sometimes the king / queen themselves.
Thanks for your feedback!
The Shang started in Nigeria.
It's an ancient Chinese royal Dynasty.