Shang Dynasty China: Divination by Tortoise Shell

1 of 2 5/1/2008 2:40 PM

Shang China: Divination by Tortoise Shell

Shang oracle bones and tortoise shells: the art of scapulimancy and pyroscapulimancy. Shang diviners selected bones (mostly the shoulder bones of domestic cattle and water buffalo), polished them, and made rows of grooves and pits on each piece. They also used the plastrons and (rarely) the carapaces of turtles - apparently, only turtles of a few species, not now found in north China - ergo whose shells had to be imported from southern China to An-yang, the site where the oracle remains were discovered; turtle shells must have formed an important article of trade. All this occurred about the time of the siege of Troy: 1000

BC.

The shoulder blades were polished to remove any scraps of flesh and to make their surfaces smooth. The shells were sawn at the bridge, separating the plastrons from the carapaces but leaving the bridges attached to the plastrons; apparently notations of origin and batch number were painted on these bridges. Once sawn, these shells were also smoothed. Both shells and bones may have been soaked in some liquid

solution to make working them easier.

On the underside of each bone or shell, rows of hollows were worked. These were regularly spaced, worked with bore and chisel; most hollows consisted of two overlapping depressions, one circular with a flat or rounded bottom and the other a groove chiseled with a v-shaped cross-section (like the product of

an engraving tool).

When divination was made, heat was applied to this worked underside; cracks appeared on the upper side of the shell; the pattern of these cracks was then interpreted, answering a question posed before the shell was heated. Shells and bones have been found with notations incised on with a knife, listing question and

answer, plus a later notation on whether the answer proved itself true.

The cracking on the worked shells formed a regular pattern. At each pit/grove site, a vertical crack appeared along the groove; a second crack appeared along the diameter of the pit, joining the vertical crack at one end, but perpendicular to it. When on shells, these second cracks were usually all aligned toward the central axis of the shell; one shell pictured shows the cracks as a double line of T's (two lines of five T's, one line on each side of the shell, with the long arms pointing to the dividing line between left and right sides of the shell); characters are incised around the crack-marks, and each crack-mark seems to be

numbered with slashes: I, II, III, IIII, but the fifth and bottom crack is unnumbered.

When on bones, the second cracks were aligned to all point in one direction. A bone, pictured, shows two parallel rows of cracks, marked with slashes I, II, III ... and again, Chinese characters are inscribed

around them.

Each shell or bone represented a single question, but each might have been scorched up to five times during the act of divination.

Shang Dynasty China: Divination by Tortoise Shell

2 of 2 5/1/2008 2:40 PM

Credits

Source: Kwang-Chih Chang, Shang Civilization