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(soft piano music)

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- [Narrator] We're in the Shanghai Museum,

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and we're looking at a
very early Oracle Bone.

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And this is so important
because this brings us

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to the very beginnings of
writing in ancient China.

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- [Narrator] The Oracle
Bone is on an ox scapula,

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so it's actually the shoulder blade here

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that you can see carved
little tiny characters

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from the right to the
left, all in little lines.

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- [Narrator] And those
characters are still,

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many of them, recognizable
as Chinese characters today.

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- [Narrator] Yeah, about
40% of them, actually

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are decipherable, and we
have tons of these remaining.

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We have about 200,000 of them.

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- [Narrator] We're not
really used to the idea

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in the west that we could read writing

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that's more than 3,000 years old.

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- [Narrator] And, of course,
this is really important,

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because you can read history through it.

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When we have a group of
these objects together,

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we can look back and
see how things evolved

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on this particular year, what
kinds of concerns people had.

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- [Narrator] It's an Oracle Bone,

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so we know that it something
that could divine the future,

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that could help people understand

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what the future might bring.

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- [Narrator] They would get these bones,

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they would inscribe the questions on them,

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and then a diviner would come
and use a particular ritual

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that involved a heated rod, a metal rod,

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that they would touch to the bone,

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and the way that the cracks would evolve

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on the questions would divine the future.

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- [Narrator] So the cracks
would be read by someone

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who had a kind of special power.

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- [Narrator] The questions
were all directed

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toward somebody named Shangdi,

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the deified ancestor of
the Shang royal cult.

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And we're talking about the Shang Dynasty,

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this is in the cradle of civilization,

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the Yellow River Valley, the capital.

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And the kinds of questions
that people would ask

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would involve everything from

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the very mundane to ritualistic things.

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When should a sacrifice be performed,

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a particular rite of worship.

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This one we're looking
at, a question about

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the bumper harvest, when to be planting.

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- [Narrator] And, ancestor worship

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was incredibly important
during the Shang Dynasty,

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and that's something that will change with

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the next dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty.

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- [Narrator] Now, when
we get into the Zhou,

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we see a different concept of the divine.

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- [Narrator] So, Shangdi
was the particular

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ancestor/god of the Shang Dynasty.

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- Exactly, royalty.
- And it makes sense with the

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- next dynasty--
- Exactly (drowned out).

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- you'd have to adjust that.
- You'd have to adjust.

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- [Narrator] So, we see these on,

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especially on scapula of oxen,

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but also other animal bones,
and also tortoise shell.

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- [Narrator] Tortoise shell
is another favorite medium,

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probably also as tortoise
was an important mythological

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creature from very early times.

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But, here, you can see that
the medium itself is very flat,

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it's a good surface to carve into.

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And, when we're looking
at these kinds of things,

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keep in mind that this is what we have.

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We have bones, these
stood the test of time,

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but that doesn't mean that there

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wasn't also writing on other things.

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- [Narrator] And the
writing that we're seeing,

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we know that Chinese
characters stand for words,

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but, perhaps, at this time in history,

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the signs that we're seeing
are more pictographic--

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- Yeah, they've been--
- until it evolved.

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- [Narrator] Yeah, they've
been slowly decoded

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and, actually, art historians have spent

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quite a bit of time
trying to decipher this,

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enough so that we can read them,

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but, at this point, writing
is a functional medium.

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It's to communicate, in
this example, with the gods.

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Eventually, it evolves into calligraphy,

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which becomes this art form.

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- [Narrator] And, so, the
importance of Chinese writing

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here in this very early moment.

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- [Narrator] A lot of major developments

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in Chinese society right, we've got

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centralized power as a
major theme coming out

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of the writing, the idea
that people can communicate

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and organize, and this idea
of creating a history here.

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- [Narrator] And, so
lucky that we can at least

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untangle 40% of it,

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- Yeah, 40%.
- of these thousands

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of bones that survive.

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- Exactly.
- And, one day,

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we'll understand even more of them.

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- [Narrator] Even more of them, exactly.

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(piano music)