Decoding history's bones

A small bone on display records a divination paying tribute to an earlier Shang king with elephants as sacrifice. "The word 'elephant' in jiaguwen seems to imitate the elephant's shape. This bone tells us that Yinxu was very moist, and elephants roamed during the late Shang period. Archaeological studies prove that by the elephant bones unearthed there. It sheds light on Anyang's ecological environment 3,000 years ago," says Zhang.

Another bone on display shows ancient people's understanding of rainbows. "The word 'rainbow' is similar to its shape in jiaguwen. Ancient people saw a curved band of different colors straddling a river and thought it was a mythical beast drinking water. They worried if the beast would drink all the water without leaving some for the people. So, they practiced divination to know if they wouldn't have water to drink and if their crops would harvest in the future," says Zhang.

According to He Yuling, head of the Anyang workstation affiliated with the Institute of Archaeology with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, understanding the Shang civilization is a major aspect of why scholars study the bones, and another is to identify the words on the bones.

As of now, Yinxu has yielded more than 150,000 inscribed oracle bones, on which there are more than 4,500 words. One-third of them have been decoded, says He.