Compound characters in oracle bone inscriptions refer to the form of two or three oracle bone characters combined together. These characters, formed after combination, are called compound characters and represent one of the structural features of oracle bone scripts. The phenomenon of compound characters is prevalent among river names in oracle bone inscriptions. Based on this observation, we propose that the formation of river names in oracle bone inscriptions was initially the combinations of geographic names and rivers, and these compound character forms have generally gone through a development process from separate characters to compound characters. Through the study of the structure formation of river names in oracle bone inscriptions, a deeper understanding of the people’s perceptions of river systems and geographical environments during the Shang Dynasty can be obtained, as well as the relationship between geographic names and rivers.

The so called “special characters”, is the characters that intended to represent a particular meaning. The concept of “special characters” has been developed for a long time, and as early as the Southern Tang Dynasty, Xu Kai’s (徐锴) interpretation of “lang (郎)” in the “Shuowen Jiezi Xizhuan 《( 說 文解字繫傳》)” already had the meaning of “special characters”. The Qing dynasty scholar Wang Yun (王筠) also discussed “special characters” many times. “Special characters” are exist more or less in various periods of Chinese characters, and “special characters” have appeared as early as the existence of oracle-bone inscriptions. This paper preliminarily sorts out the “special characters” in the oracle-bone inscriptions, and then groups these “special characters” and briefly sorts out the configuration of each group of characters, in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the development of “special characters” in the oracle-bone inscriptions. On the basis of analyzing their use in combination with the example and context, the “special characters” in the oracle-bone inscriptions are compared with the “special characters” in Dongba script, and it is found that these “special characters” have distinctive characteristics when used. The “special characters” in the oracle-bone inscriptions are often accompanied by partial changes in the shape structure, and the frequency of their use is unbalanced. When “special characters” are used, there is often a situation where a character represents a phrase, the use of “special characters” is often limited by superordinate level semantics and it will gradually be unified into a glyph in the later stage. Finally, combined with the production and development process of Chinese characters, we find that the production of “special characters” is a natural manifestation in the process of writing development, which is closely related to the context of the use of oracle-bone inscriptions and the thinking habits of primitive ancestors.

The four angels standing on the four corners of the earth and the four winds of the earth by season are a same concept in a Shang Oracle Bone inscriptions. By the Yellow River in middle China, there are easterly winds during spring, southerly winds during summer, westerly winds during autumn and an northerly winds during winter. For example, when the Shang people saw the monsoon coming from the east for several days, they believed it shows that the angel of the east had come here, and announced that spring had come and they started farming. Even today the farmers are not only based on the calendar’s date to farm, also check up the new temperature keep for several days. Similarly when the southern monsoon comes and keeps, the Shang people know it is summer. However, due to seasonal lag, May, June, July, August and September are the warmest months in the middle China, it is not generally recognized that the four seasons on the calendar are equal. Two unearthed Shang bone tablets record the names (features) of the four angels on the four corners of the earth and their four winds of the earth, but so far wrongly explaining seven out of the eight characters in the bone script which name the four-end-wind inscription bone tablet. This paper deciphers the following bone scripts: The character Vibrate震 ( ), pictured that a mouth ( ) issues three forces ( ), which means shouting, the god shouting means thunderclap, the dog’s shouting means shock to awe, the belly’s shouting means pregnancy and birth娠. The character for sprout, separating out, spearing out and exploding out is depicted as Xi 析 ( ) , depicting an axe ( ) to a tree ( ). Thus, on the famous four-end-wind inscription bone tablet, the first inscription says 東方曰析，風曰震 “the east angel names Xi ‘dawn or budding’, the spring wind means thunder or birth (or the spring wind angle names thunder)”. The character Assist襄 ( ) is a picture of a host ( ) around two aliens (夷， ) and walk (行 ), it means the host helps the aliens to walk around his land. The picture is also seen as a Multiracial Zone, like a soil in which several grasses root togerther, thus it means Soil 壤. And the multi-race fusion leads culture prosperity, thus it means Rich and Varied 穰. The character Grow 長 ( ) is a person figure with long hair, in which the plant grows in a way similar to the man hair grows. One of the strategies is for the scribe to create a narrative picture (Chinese character) on the parable of the most familiar thing (for example, human body parts). Thus, the second inscription reads 南方曰襄，風曰長 “the south angel names Rich or Assistance, the summer wind means growth”. The character Dye 染 ( ), depicting a tree 木 ( ) with hatching 彡 ( ), it means the tree with multicolors, or dye is made from plants. The character Bride-kidnapping 彝 ( ), depicting two hands holding a girl with her arms back, it means marriage and extends the meaning of the cardinal law. In other perspective, it means Capture, Receive and Harvest 收 ( ). One shape is with two functions in Chinese characters. Thus, the third inscription says 西方曰染，風曰收 “the west angel names Dye or Color, the autumn wind means harvest”. The character Hug, Pack, Wrap and Womb 勹（ ）is a figure of a woman bows down and hugs a baby but the baby is omitted. Similarly a script for riding a horse is depicted as Yi 夷 and Qi 騎 ( ， ， ), the horse is omitted. The character Destroy毀 ( ), composed of an honoust man ( ) under the hand-mallet ( ). Thus, the fourth inscription says 北方曰包，風曰毀 “the north angel names Pack or Seed, the winter wind means destruction”. The first three pairs of characters Sprout-Birth, Enrich-Growth, Colour-Harvest are mutual glossing, the last pair of characters Pack-Destroy is in opposite, which forms a cycle.

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 people of Shang Dynasty were superstitious, advocating ghosts and gods. They liked divination to ask the gods for anything, and used this to judge the good and bad. Therefore, ‘disaster’ and ‘auspicious’ are two very important aspects of divination. For the words about disaster in oracle-bone inscriptions, the predecessors have done more systematic studies. However, there is relatively little systematic research on words related to ‘auspicious’. So this paper focuses mainly on the words that few scholars have discussed before, and compares their glyphs, meanings, modified things and grammatical aspects between oracle-bone inscriptions and bronze ones. After the systematic comparison and analysis, it draws the following conclusions. First, in terms of the glyphs and meanings, the components and combinations of the words in the oracle-bone inscriptions are mostly stable, but the meaning extension method is simple and very imperfect. Second, in terms of the types of things modified, and in comparison with the category of the bronze inscriptions, that of the oracle-bone ones is more and more detailed, and at the same time, the focus of the oracle-bone ones is different from the ‘person’ to which the bronze ones pay attention as the focus of them is on the ‘event itself’. Last, in terms of grammatical functions, the words are more independent in the oracle-bone inscriptions than in the bronze ones, having the usage of single-word sentences. But they cannot be used as attributives, and the stability of grammatical functions is not as good as that in the bronze ones. Through the analyses and conclusions above, this paper shows the synchronic distribution, the diachronic development, and the characteristics of the words in the oracle-bone inscriptions in a comprehensive way. It also demonstrates the ideology and culture of Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, which can be summed up as ‘from the theocracy-centered to the ruled-by-men’.

It is at present generally believed that there was only 疾 but not 病 in the disease-related oracle bone inscriptions. This implies that there was no distinction between the two characters in the late Shang Dynasty, and that their concepts were not thoroughly understood in the Yin and Shang dynasties either. It was not until the middle of the Warring States period that the word 病 began to gradually replace the word 疾. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the word 病 had a slight advantage. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the meanings of 疾病 (disease) and 生病 (to catch a disease) have been basically used instead of 疾. However, from the oracle bone inscriptions, there are about two kinds of characters: 、 and . These different types of hieroglyphs indicate different situations. The word 疾 in oracle bone inscriptions has not merely different glyphs but different concepts of human diseases as well. Therefore, this paper intends to trace back to the concept and usage of 疾 and 病 in the late Shang Dynasty from the shape of the word 疾 in oracle bone inscriptions, and to the evolution of the meanings of 疾 and 病 in ancient literature.

The origin of the ‘rainbow’ in oracle bone inscriptions has been debated in the academic circles, but no final conclusion has yet been found. According to what the ‘rainbow’ in the oracle bone inscriptions looks like, scholars roughly divide it into two categories: the ‘snake’ and ‘dragon’. Reviewing previous argumentations on this issue and resting on comprehensive analysis of various views, this paper traces the academic origin of the ‘rainbow’ in the oracle bone inscriptions, and, at the same time, takes the ‘rainbow’ as the ‘dragon with two heads’, one of the description views on it. Furthermore, it, by means of combining with some arguments over the present archaeological results and discussing again relevant points of them, puts forward an argument that the ‘rainbow’ in the oracle bone inscriptions was taken from the image of the ‘dragon’. On the basis of this argument and relevant theories of philology, archaeology and cultural anthropology, it reinterprets the cultural connotation of ‘auspicious and ominous symbols’ and ‘gender metaphor’, both of which are unique to the special natural phenomenon of the ‘rainbow’ in Chinese culture. Analyzing the cultural meanings such as pouring rain, giving birth to an emperor or a sage, fornication and reproduction, etc. also helps to explain the cultural interconnectedness between the ‘rainbow’ and ‘dragon’ or, more specifically, dragon worship-related cultural prototypes of China.

The intent of this paper is to introduce a method of deciphering oracle bone characters; specifically the interpretation of the Compound Ideograph. Utilizing this method, the article applies known characters to hypothesizing the expression of unknown characters. This view of Chinese characters comes from such work as I Ching or Classic of Changes and Shi-poem or Classic of Poetry, where the figurative mean and depiction of a realistic scene or parable are captured and symbolized within a pictorial representation or ideograph. By returning pictographic combinations to the realistic scene, all the meanings of an ideograph are derived from the scene and scene’s parable. The following explains the correlation between the combinations with the intended meaning. The ideographs are shown in that the first part is the pronunciation sound in Chinese while the second part in italics is the scene combined pictographs. [1] The English character of Bow for shooting arrows is borrowed figuratively to express “to bend the knee or body, as in reverence, submission”, “to cause to bend; make curved”, and is extended to Bowl to denote the Container figure like a bow. [2] The character of Sol means the sun, and its scene maps a lonely man like the sun without partners around, so Sol is used to denote solitary (alone, lone), sole (single), etc. in its figurative sense. [3] The Chinese character Gou-ear (句) is a scene of the ear with an ear-hook. Gou-ear means the hook in ear’s figurative sense, for a man uses his ear as a hook, or an ear looks like a hook on the wall. In another perspective, Gou-ear depicts Be-hooked, meaning Arrest, Capture, or Chain-up. When an ancient encounters a hook or a man stooping to work, and tries to tell others about it, he may say a tool like the ear (projecting out of the head) or a man working like the ear (figure), which is similar to saying that it looks like a bow in the West. [4] A character Fu-man:tiger (赴) is made of a tiger and man, reading ‘the tiger is like a man standing up’. A scene-parable of the tiger standing suggests “pounce, jump”, extending its meaning to “go to like a tiger jump, dedicate on”. It is a man determinative ideograph: the tiger is determined by a man standing. ‘Man is read as his feature: standing’ is called semantic loan. Similarly, Yue-man:deer (跃), means a deer like a man standing, also meaning a leap. Xiong-man:pig (熊) means a bear; a pig standing is like the bear. [5] A character Lian-ear:mouth (聯) is a narrative scene of the mouth-ear-mouth, words to words through the ear, telling a narrative story of people that are connected in the ear in the wild restricted visibility, which is derived to the connection, union, and contact. [6] Dong-kid (動) means a move, a scene of a boy (semantic loan), for a child’s behavior is the non- stop action for a moment. [7] A character Yu-pup:gape (欲) is a scene of the mouth opened up, which maps ‘want’. Man’s want means wish, man’s want from heart or by nature is hard to draw and ancient Chinese oracle priest to draw ‘animal’s want’, which was used metaphorically to mean the very wish, appetite, and desire (sex, material). Overall, an ideo-character is a narrative picture or story which tells thoughts or ideas, not record language words, and then is pronounced the glyph in it later. Thus the character creates the word.

이 논문은 제3차, 4차, 5차 교육과정기의 교과서를 통해서 갑골문 학습의 양상을 밝히고, 당시 갑골문 학습의 문제점을 밝혀 낸 것이다. 제3차, 4차, 5차 교육과정기에는 분석 대상의 교과서들이 單體字 위주로 甲骨文 한자를 제시하고 있다. 合體字는 본디 會意字와 形聲字의 造字 原理를 제시할 수 있음에도 불구하고 갑골문으로 제시 된 合體字는 會意字와 形聲字의 조자 원리를 제시하지 않았다. 또한 대부분 ‘중학교 한문 교과서’의 주로 초기 단원 또는 ‘중학교 한문1’에서 甲骨文을 제시하고 있다. 이는 초기 학습에 字源을 제시할 목적으로 제시한 것일 뿐이다. 상형자의 특징을 보여 주고 한자의 변천 과정과 함께 제시하여 字源 을 통해서 한자를 익히도록 했다. 제5차 한문과 교육과정 해설에서는 ‘內容體系(한문과 교육의 구 조)’가 처음으로 분류 제시되었다. 內容體系는 ‘漢字, 漢字語, 文章’으로 체계화되었으며, 그에 따라 교과서의 소단원에서 ‘본문 이해’의 구성을 ‘한자의 짜임(구조), 한자어의 짜임(구조), 문장의 구조’ 로 제시하였다. 그러나 매 소단원의 한자의 짜임은 楷書를 위주로 ‘한자의 짜임’을 반복 제시하였다. 오히려 甲骨文에 따른 자원 교육은 앞서의 제3, 4차 교육과정기보다도 감소되었다. 제3, 4차 교육과 정기 교과서의 갑골문 제시는 한자의 자원을 보여주기 위한 것으로 제시되었으나, 합체자의 회의자 나 형성자의 자원을 제시하지는 못했다. 제5차 교육과정기 교과서는 ‘한자의 짜임’을 내용체계에서 체계화했으나, 자원 제시 및 자원 해설과 자체 변천 과정 제시는 이전 보다 약화되었다. 제3, 4, 5차 교육과정기의 자원 제시는 체계성이 부족함이 밝혀졌다.

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.

There are a lot of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Dynasty Ruins. But what the exact number is. Different ideas come from different people.The key one among many reasons is that the statisticians don’t have the uniform and specific standards. We can also use some rigid standards to judge the Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Hunting, for example, Shou, Ge, Tian(It has limited conditions), Xian, Jing, Bi, Qin, Fen etc.

This thesis is on the initial evaluation of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination as historical corpus, which is based on the data from word classification by meaning in the Oracle Bones from Xiaotun Locus South. The contents of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination, such as “sacrifices”, “social appellations”, “wars” and “administration” , though not a degree, all have high frequency and concentration on words, and are relatively complex. The contents of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination, such as “the divination”, “climate phenomenons”, “dates”, “natures and states” and “abstract actions”, though not a degree, all have high frequency and concentration on words, and are relatively simple. The contents of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination, such as “livestock”, “climate phenomenons”, “wars”, “buildings” and “beasts”, though not in high frequency of words due to universality, are all relatively hot topics when horizontally compared with other Xianqin unearthed literatures. The various kinds of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination above,though not a degree, all can truely reflect the language in Yin Dynasty to some extent, and therefore be as the corpus for certain research that is effective enough. However, various kinds of the Oracle Bone Inscriptions concerning divination lack the effectiveness in different degree.

The Diviner He – Group inscriptions of Shang oracle-bone inscriptions (i.e., Period III) feature an unusual of the word xiang鄉. Although past studies have treated it as part of the divination charge, I argue in this paper that it should be understood instead as a sort of verification or crack notation, indicating that the spirits have “received” the communication being divined. I then use evidence in the Mozi 墨子 and the Shanghai Museum manuscript of the Zhou Yi 周易 to argue that this function of xiang as a verification continued into the Zhou dynasty, and is the original form of the word heng 亨 seen in the formula yuan heng li zhen 元亨利貞 of the Zhou Yi. On the basis of this identification, I propose a new way to understand Zhou Yi divination.

The research is based on the existing statistic study, which is built upon oracle-bone inscriptions’components with different formats. The quantative statistics of oracle-bone inscriptions’components rested on the frequency of characters engraved on oracle bones is accomplished in this study for the first time. Further, the study compares the quantative statistics of oracle-bone inscriptions’components from the perspectives of characters’formats and frequency. Consequently, the study obtains more authentic information about the quantity of oracle-bone inscriptions’components. Aside from that, the study also reveals the phenomenon that the slow development of oracle-bone inscriptions is associated with the intensive apprearances of oracle-bone inscriptions’components at the highest frequency and the lowest frequency.