Oracle Bone Epigraphy: An Outline

Author: Zhao Cheng
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: The study of ancient textual scholarship primarily focused on small seal script, with little or no discussion of oracle bone script. Modern textual scholarship, however, covers everything, including oracle bone script. However, due to the involvement of all types of Chinese characters, the discussion of oracle bone script is quite insufficient. There are also specialized books on oracle bone script, but they exhibit two serious tendencies. One is to emphasize archaeological and oracle bone-related content, such as the excavation, recording, dating, reconstruction, and authentication of oracle bones. This leaves readers with little practical or theoretical understanding of oracle bone script after reading the book. The other tendency is to devote significant space to explaining the specific usage of certain oracle bone characters and annotating some divinatory inscriptions, resembling a selection for reading oracle bone script. This approach results in a double failure. On one hand, it fails to provide a comprehensive and in-depth theoretical introduction to oracle bone script. On the other hand, it falls short of serving as a textbook for recognizing characters or reading divinatory inscriptions.
There are also some textual scholarship or Chinese character studies that mention oracle bone script, but due to insufficient research on the dating of various Chinese characters, the description of oracle bone script remains incomplete and systematic. The historical development and evolution of oracle bone script are unclear, and as a result, theoretical analysis and discussion are naturally not in-depth. To address this situation and push academic research toward a more scientific and practical path, the best approach would be to compile a comprehensive A Study of Oracle Bone Script that covers excavation, dating, reconstruction, recording, and authentication. A Selected Oracle Bone Script or A Reader of Shang Dynasty Inscriptions should be created by selecting and categorizing the main content of Shang Dynasty inscriptions. A Dictionary of Oracle Bone Characters or A Glossary of Oracle Bone Script should be compiled by consolidating and selecting explanations of oracle bone characters and words. Additionally, a Linguistic Study of Oracle Bone Script should be written from a linguistic perspective to explore theoretical issues in Chinese character studies. Furthermore, decades of experience, lessons, methods, principles, achievements, and problems in deciphering oracle bone script should be thoroughly summarized, preferably combined with the history of oracle bone script research, to create a monograph.
Theoretically, this book should be titled A Study of Oracle Bone Script, as it is a diachronic textual study. However, due to the lack of comprehensive diachronic research on Chinese character systems, many issues remain unexplored, and some key historical threads still need to be connected. Moreover, the number of confirmed oracle bone characters is relatively limited, and our understanding of their planar relationships is also insufficient. Therefore, the discussion of oracle bone script in this book can only be outline-based, leading to the title An Outline of the Study of Oracle Bone Script.
Although An Outline of the Study of Oracle Bone Script is a diachronic textual study, it touches upon major issues related to the origin, nature, and structure of Chinese characters. By comprehensively synthesizing and arranging the material used, exploring the patterns of structure, usage, and development of oracle bone script, and rigorously examining key issues in Chinese character studies—such as original characters, primordial characters, ancient and modern characters, phonetic loans, and original meanings—based on the realities of oracle bone script, the book presents new materials and perspectives on various aspects. It is hoped that the research findings in this book will contribute to addressing the gaps in diachronic Chinese character studies, deepening the research on the historical development of Chinese characters, promoting the compilation of diachronic textual studies such as A Study of Bronze Inscriptions and A Study of Warring States Script, enhancing theoretical exploration of Chinese characters, and enriching the content of Chinese textual scholarship.