Oracle bones, collected by National Museum of China

Topic: Shang civilization in oracle-bone inscriptions

Speaker: Liu Yuan, researcher of Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Director of Research Center on Pre-Qin history; Doctoral supervisor of College of History, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Date: at 3:00pm on July 17 

Location: Multi-function hall 

How to Attend: Please scan the code below to skip to the Museum's WeChat official account , and make your reservation!

Tel: 0371-63582521

In 1899, Wang Yirong, a scholar of Qing Dynasty, found some tiny carved marks in a kind of traditional Chinese medicinal material called "Longgu", and later those symbols were identified as the ancient Chinese characters in Shang, which startled the whole world. This was the beginning of China discovering and studying the oracle-bone inscriptions of Shang.

Oracle-bone inscriptions is the first mature Chinese character discovered so far, meanwhile it serves as both the origin of Chinese character and important root of China's profound traditional culture. And its abundant content is connected with politics, military affairs, culture, social customs, astronomy, calendar, medicine as well as other aspects, which provide first hand information to research the history, culture, languages and characters of  ancient societies, especially the Shang society（1600BC-1046BC）. 

How to identify oracle-bone inscriptions? How these inscriptions were carved and how tortoise shells were used for divination in Shang? And how to learn the oracle-bone inscriptions for beginners? Join this lecture and you may find your answers!