The Qi Family Tree Bone Inscription refers to the Xia dynasty king list, and the deciphered bone names match the names of the Xia kings recorded in the classics. First, this bone inscription is authentic according to Sarah Allan and Kuang Yu Chen’s recent study of the engraved strokes of script viewed under microscope. Secondly, this paper introduces the interactive events between Xia Si (夏姒) people and Shang royal people in the Shang bone texts, such as the Shang conquest of the Xia Si, using the Xia people to serve the Shang King affairs, resettling the Xia people north and letting them fight others. This paper specifically interprets the bone scripts of Xia Si to mean that Xia indicates lowland for farming, and Si is the family name of the Xia recorded in the classics. The script for Si (surname) is derived from the image of a silkworm, as the Si are a silkworm totem people. Another decoded script for Xia is a river name, Xia (river) is named after “canal digging and irrigating”. Third, this paper deduces that the Xia people were living in the Jiang Xia (now Jiang Han or Jiang and Han rivers) plains, the Shijiahe site is the ruins of the Xia or Pre-Xia, and a large number of the Shijiahe red pottery figurines for dances were unearthed, which is consistent with the Xia dance and music recorded in the classics. The unearthed jade statues of deities look like silkworm moths, which corresponds to Xia Si being a sericulture tribe. After the Shijiahe culture, the Xia people built a last capital at Panlongcheng (or Panlong City), near the Xia River outlet. Because the classic Poem for the war epic named Shang Hero (殷武) says, “Got there the hero Cheng Tang (達彼殷武), went to conquer Jing Chu in strength (奮伐荊楚, Jing Chu 荊楚is the alternative name of Jiang Xia 江夏).” Another classic Poem for the Shang national epic called Long Growth (長發) says, “The states of Gu and Wei have been conquered (顧韋既伐).” The Gu and Wei are the current Xiangyang 襄陽 and Suixian 隨縣 on the east and west pathways to the Jiang Xia Basin from the Yellow River Basin, based on their ancient names and their sounds being homophonic. After occupying the states of Gu and Wei, the Shang army went south to form a situation of surrounding the Panlongcheng site of the Jiang Xia Plain. Thus, King Jie of Xia gave up the capital and went north to through the Ming Pass (present-day Wusheng Pass 武勝關) to the Huai River Plain of the East People 東夷, and there was the Battle of Ming Tiao in the Ming Pass. Finally, this study introduces an article about the oracle bone script ten classifications or designs, explaining how to decipher a script. The script for names engraved on the bone tablet were deciphered, corresponding to the name of the Xia Emperors in the classics. The meaning of the deciphered characters of the Xia Emperor names is consistent with the deeds of the Xia Emperors recorded in the classics. In the Qi family genealogy, there are inscriptions of the event of an older brother dying and his younger brother assuming the throne, which matches the record in the classics.

There is a character “셓” in the inscriptions on bronze wares of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and up to now, the academic community is divided on the reading of this character. From the use cases where the character appear in the inscriptions on ancient bronzes, it is used as the appellation of the clan without exception, mainly as the single clan name, and then as the constituent of the compound clan name. However, why the clan is named as “셓” and what is the meaning of its configuration have been rarely mentioned. Combining the latest research results of the history and culture of ancient society and archaeology with the inspection and proofreading of the related words of this character, besides versifying with the handed down literature the paper, the paper holds that the character is actually related to the fishery production in ancient times as the symbol of the clan. The configuration of “셓” is the reflection of an image in which a caught fish is disemboweled and then stretched out by bamboo or branches to dry. And the structural meaning is “薧” corresponding to “鱻”, also known as “鱐” in the literature handed down from ancient times “The Three Rituals”, namely the dried fish said today.

The oracle bone script is an ideograph that represents an idea or concept rather than a word or speech sound in general. The ‘ten writings’ means the ten methods used to create characters, to show how ideographs to express a concrete subject and an abstract concept. Ten Writings includes (1) character’s form picturing (象形), (2) form marking (指事), (3) form-form resembling (比喻), (4) form narrating (敘事), (5) form-pattern transferring (字式), (6) form-form modifying (偏正), (7) form-form suggesting (轉注), (8) form borrowing (形借), (9) form-meaning borrowing (意借), (10) form-sound borrowing (音借). The traditional six-fold classification scheme (Six Writings) was originally popularised in the 2nd century CE, is not a guide for the reader on how to decipher an unknown bone script. Ten Writings (十書) system is not a theorization analysis, is an operation manual to deciphering the oracle bone scripts, illustrated through some specific instances below. A script called “Yi, 以” ( , later , turned 90 degrees to show properly, similarly hereinafter) shows “a worm ( ) which has a big head and a long tail and a woman ( )”, it is understood as the “woman looking after the worm”. Later, its simplified form is a “worm ( )” only, which is from （ ）and means “worm totem people”. It is common to find a shape with more than two functions in Chinese characters. Therefore, this script Yi of “using worm for silk and cloths” extends “use”, “by means of” and “with”, it sounds Yi. In other perspective, the “worm” also means “(cloths process) start” and “begin”. And “(the silk people) looks like each other” and “similar”, so the “worm” is also a symbol of “similar”. Because the costume worn by people in ancient times was a nation identification. The same word “worm” for “start” and “similar” sounds Si (silk). The Chinese word for silk also sounds Si. In a worm totem perspective, the script Si means “worm people”. Similarly, the script for “sheep people” is represented as a man wearing a headdress of sheep horns. In addition, the worm character may be pictured from silkworm, later the proper noun “silkworm” was used as the general term “worm”. Now the character “worm” includes worm, insect and snake, even some animals. The variant of Si ( , “worm”) is written as ( , , , “worm”), which are the same as ( , , ) being used for a tribe name. When a common script may be simplely written as ( , “worm”), if a same script for tribal name may be decoratively written as ( ), as the word of the name are written in capital letter. The tribal name Si 以 ( ) is the surname of the Xia dynasty royal family Si 姒 in the Classic of Shiji 史記, the bone text “Xia Si 下以” is the Xia Si 夏姒for the Xia dynasty in the classics. The Shang oracle bone script for the idea BORROW is shown as an ideogram (Jia 假, ) combining a pictogram SHOULDERING-HOE (荷, “farming”, “carrying”) and a pictogram SUN, it together suggests a third scene “under the sun a woman carries a hoe to irrigate the rice fields”, meaning “farming”, “peasant”; in other perspective “borrow sunlight to farm”. The Jia 假and Xia 夏 were one word, and the bone texts for the Jia 假 are about the Xia River 夏水where the Xia dynasty lived.

This paper attempts to show that the word sì 巳(祀) used after the negative wù 勿 or wú 毋 functions as a “Vintransitive” (all the abbreviations and references used in this paper are given at the end of Part I). As such, it forms a VP, 勿/毋 V1 (=巳) V2, where V2 is frequently, but not always, one of the six “Type-A ritual Vs”—one being dăo 禱 ‘to pray’ and the rest given in the paper; when V2 is a “Type-B non-ritual V”—one being diàn 田(甸) ‘to hunt’ and the rest inexhaustible. A major reason for the use of V2 is to contrast with the preceding V1. This is deduced from closely examining the semantic relationship between V1 and V2. The details will be explained with examples. There are also inscriptions in which V1 (巳/祀) is used before yú 于, a “multidirectional” preposition. This is labelled as “Nloc in the sense of ‘in, at’, not ‘to, for’ when preceded by the V1 or in the construction given in the title. The paper accounts for its motivating principle. The paper argues that 巳/祀 is a Vaction meaning “conduct sì-providential ritual”. It was done at a place to seek divine direction and guidance from the deity or Power believed to have dwelt in situ. Originally presented in Takashima (2009a), this paper delves further into linguistic, philological, and cultural aspects of the 巳-ritual couched in the VP, 勿/毋 V1 (=巳/祀) V2. Part I has covered “Examination I: Zhū Shēngyù’s Questions and Zhāng Yùjīn’s Interpretation”. The paper answers the former and evaluates the latter. Part II begins with “Examination II: Qiú Xīguī’s Interpretation” and ends with the conclusions of the entire paper.

Similar to Sumerian proto-cuneiform writing, the nature of Chinese writing is fundamentally ideographic, in which concepts or thoughts are represented visually rather than through abstract speech sounds. This paper explores ten ways to form Chinese characters by using the decoded characters through their ideograms. A character comes from thoughts, the thoughts come from images, and the images themselves come from the object or the event depicted. Therefore, the same character can be used in different dialects or languages to depict the same concepts. Only when there are enough ideograms to create their graphs for phonography can we develop phonography. During the first stage of hundreds of years, most Sumerian clay characters were pictograms and ideograms. The majority of the phono-semantic compounds appeared in the second stage when the foreign Akkadians used Sumerian characters. Just as the majority of Shang bone characters were pictograms and ideograms, most phono-semantic compound characters were modified and created by the foreign Zhou people later. At present, western theories have not followed the traditional path to the meaning of thought. The ten strategies of ideographic writing are the conventional path to the meaning of thought, rather than a bridge between language.

This paper attempts to show that the word sì 巳(祀) used after the negative wù 勿 or wú 毋 functions as a “Vintransitive” (all the abbreviations and references used in this paper are given at the end of Part I). As such, it forms a VP, 勿/毋V1V2, where V2 is always one of the six “Type-A ritual Vs”—one being dăo 禱 ‘to pray’, the rest given in the paper. The semantic relationship between V1 (巳/祀) and V2 is closely examined. There are also inscriptions in which V1 is used before yú 于, a “multidirectional” preposition. This is labelled as “Nloc in the sense of ‘in, at’ (not ‘to, for’)” in the construction given in the title. The paper accounts for its motive principle. The paper argues that 巳/祀 is a Vaction meaning “conduct sì-providential ritual”. It was done at a place to seek divine direction and guidance from the deity or Power believed to have dwelt in situ. Originally presented in Takashima (2009a), this paper delves further into linguistic, philological, and cultural aspects of the 巳-ritual couched in the VP, 勿/毋V1(=巳/祀)V2. A major reason for its use is to contrast the 巳-ritual with other rituals and sacrifices. The details will be explained with examples. Part I covers “Examination I: Zhū Shēngyù’s Questions and Zhāng Yùjīn’s Interpretation”. The paper answers the former and evaluates the latter. Part II begins with “Examination II: Qiú Xīguī’s Interpretation” and ends with the conclusions of the entire paper.

Modern attempts to decipher the Shang bone scripts have been hampered by the fundamental assumption that the scripts are recordings of the sound of the language and not ideas. Some phonetic “translations” could be proposed without the possibility of verification, and some graphic “translations” without meanings are seen as the names of sacrificial rituals by previous scholars. Actually, a character is derived from a thought, and the thought is derived from a figuration, while the figuration itself is derived from the graphed object or event. Therefore, the same character can be used in different dialects or languages to depict the same concepts. Based on the bone scripts being ideograms, several bone scripts used frequently for the names of the day were assumed to be the moon phases; thus, the time interval between two corresponding days with its moon phase was calculated for verification. Extensionally, according to the time interval between the two days, and the moon phase recorded on the bone tablets (or bronze wares) and the chronological table of the kings of Shang compiled by the pre vious scholars, the assumptions of the moon phase characters are attested by the calculations of the numbering days of the solunar date. Solunar dates (Chinese: Gan-Zhi 干支) were used to record dates with a cycle of 60 days. Conversely, on consideration of the dates and moon phases for the bone inscription events, the prevous chronology is improved with iterative methed, and we propose new chronology for Shang kings. In addition, through computation, three records of a lunar eclipse on the Shang bronze inscriptions and on the Zhou bronze vessels are newly recognized, which helps to reconstruct the years of the kings of Shang and of the kings of Zhou; the Shang bone calendar’s New Year started from the summer solstice of the year, from the full moon of the lunar phase and from the dawn of the day.

The "V Shang" structure is a structure that appears frequently in modern Chinese, and the meaning it expresses is also closely related to the verb it is collocated with. At the same time, it is also closely related to the meaning of “Shang” itself. The predecessors have conducted relevant research on the literal and deep meaning of the “V Shang” structure. Based on the previous research, this article starts from the basic meaning of “Shang” and once again discusses the “Shang” in “V Shang”. To analyze, we hope to sort out the development clues of the semantics related to “Shang”, as well as the combination characteristics of different meanings that these different semantic types can bring. In the aspect of linguistic cognition, from the perspective of image schema, the different meanings of “Shang” in “V Shang” are presented, which further influences the semantic structure, and makes a corresponding exposition. Starting from the basic image schema of “V Shang”, Variation 1 is the meaning of displacement, and the process of moving to “Shang” completely follows the basic image schema; Variation 2 is the meaning of result realization; Variation 3 is to satisfy the reference standard , reach a certain quantity meaning; Variation 4 is the meaning of contact attachment; Variation 5 is the meaning of new action and state start. From Variation 1 to Variation 5, it can be seen that the “V Shang” structure is a unified whole that is interconnected and differentiated from each other.

China was a slave society in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. There are many words about slaves in the existing oracle bone inscriptions.By observing the form of these characters, we can understand their meanings and the cultural meanings contained in them. This paper selects five characters: wei, li, xi, pu and qiang,and analyzes the structure of its oracle bone inscriptions or bronze inscriptions.This paper analyzes the cultural implication of the slaves in the Shang and Zhou dynasties from the characteristics of the slaves' foreign clothing, the characteristics of the slaves' foreign nationality, the methods and ways of the slaves‘ capture, the punishment of the slaves and the unique human sacrifice of the slaves. In the analysis of this paper, “Wei” has evolved from the totem worship of primitive tribes to an important costume feature representing the identity of slaves. “Li” contains the history of the slave‘s resistance to escape under the pressure of slavery. “Xi” is related to the custom of braiding hair of slaves of different nationalities in Shang and Zhou dynasties. Through the structure of “Xi”, we can see the punishment of slaves in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. “Qiang” is the most obvious expression of the bloody slavery system and slaves can not have the essential characteristics of human rights.

Human sacrifice in the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC – 1046 BC) refers to the practice of killing of human beings in rituals such as slaves, war prisoners as offerings to divine patrons and ancestors. The reason for this is the worship of the ancestors and the sacrifice of slaves to the gods to expand the ranks of their ancestors in another world. This paper aims to demonstrate that the Shang culture was based on human sacrifice to the wife of a king of Shang called Female Ancestors(xianbi 先妣) and the focus of this article is qualified xianbi of enjoying sacrifice in oracle inscriptions of Shang Dynasty. This research shows that xianbi had a quite high status in Shang dynasty, they enjoyed the same species of human sacrifices and animals with male ancestors(xianwang 先王). These results are evidence showing that the status of men and women were equal in the royal system of Shang Dynasty.

This research investigates and analyzes the distribution, creation period and creators, design characteristics, and process of change undergone by existing meandering streams used for the floating of wine cups(Liú shāng Qū shuǐ) in China. This study was conducted through literature review, fieldwork investigation and internet research. This research presented a categorization method and standard for discussion toward future research in this field by first categorizing Liú shāng Qū shuǐ facilities into five style categories: Lántíng style(A), Natural stream style(B), Cut stones excavation style(C), Broad natural rock carving style(D) and waterway style(E); this classification was carried out in addition to categorizing the Curved-stream banquet sites of B and C that are characterized by the stone carving style into the subcategories of Cut stones excavation and Broad natural rock carving styles. It is said that the ancient Liú shāng Qū shuǐ facilities of China are the product of natural landscape water systems and Pungryu(elegant lifestyle) culture; from the middle ages of the Tang and Song dynasties, garden forms changed to reflect miniascapes and an imitation of a landscape style, which represented a gradual transition from a tradition that entailed moderation in drinking and natural landscapes that copied Pungryu to those that were symbolic and placed more emphasis on games and amusement. Later in the modern Ming and Qing dynasties, the Cut stones excavation style became the mainstream approach for Curved-stream banquet sites. From this development, it seems that the Curved-stream banquet sites of China gradually evolved from Pungryu facilities used for water systems to garden facilities for amusement. However, the Lántíng⋅Natural stream⋅Cut stones excavation styles seem to have been continuously passed down in eclectic forms throughout all periods of Chinese history.

Digital research in ancient Chinese characters reflects the adjustment and development of the traditional research model under the new condition of information transmission. Through this new research model, more innovative research areas can be opened up. Moreover, the operating criterion of empirical study will be elevated. Currently there are several problems in this research model: overburdened work in the technical area; weak support of existing research and the absence of necessary Chinese information technology. The further realms we can expect are: digital means and platforms will bring a new vision of paleographic research; the development of the digital platform on the basis of resource sharing and cooperation; the development of the function of supervision on digital platform over criterion of the paleographic research.

Human sacrifice is a religious practice in which living human individuals are consumed to worship natural and ancestral spirits. Ample evidence of this practice during the Yin-Shang period is furnished by oracle-bone inscriptions, which are extant from ca. 1200 B.C.E. This paper addresses the issue of female human sacrifice in Shang-dynasty oracle-bone inscriptions both from the point of view of religious studies and from a socio-historical perspective. Proceeding from a systematic overview of the various categories of female human sacrifice in the inscriptional record, the paper analyzes the social status and origins of the victims in order to better understand the specific functions and peculiarities of female human sacrifice under the Shang.

To examine the effects of light intensity on photosynthesis, corn and sorghum species were grown under shade cloths, which reduced light intensity by 25,50 and 75%. Photosynthetic rates were measured between 10 a.m. to noon on a clear day in early and mid