Oracle Bone, Shang Dynasty

(soft piano music)

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

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

And this is so important
because this brings us

to the very beginnings of
writing in ancient China.

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

so it's actually the shoulder blade here

that you can see carved
little tiny characters

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

- [Narrator] And those
characters are still,

many of them, recognizable
as Chinese characters today.

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

are decipherable, and we
have tons of these remaining.

We have about 200,000 of them.

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

in the west that we could read writing

that's more than 3,000 years old.

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

because you can read history through it.

When we have a group of
these objects together,

we can look back and
see how things evolved

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

- [Narrator] It's an Oracle Bone,

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

that could help people understand

what the future might bring.

- [Narrator] They would get these bones,

they would inscribe the questions on them,

and then a diviner would come
and use a particular ritual

that involved a heated rod, a metal rod,

that they would touch to the bone,

and the way that the cracks would evolve

on the questions would divine the future.

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

who had a kind of special power.

- [Narrator] The questions
were all directed

toward somebody named Shangdi,

the deified ancestor of
the Shang royal cult.

And we're talking about the Shang Dynasty,

this is in the cradle of civilization,

the Yellow River Valley, the capital.

And the kinds of questions
that people would ask

would involve everything from

the very mundane to ritualistic things.

When should a sacrifice be performed,

a particular rite of worship.

This one we're looking
at, a question about

the bumper harvest, when to be planting.

- [Narrator] And, ancestor worship

was incredibly important
during the Shang Dynasty,

and that's something that will change with

the next dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty.

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

we see a different concept of the divine.

- [Narrator] So, Shangdi
was the particular

ancestor/god of the Shang Dynasty.

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

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

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

- [Narrator] So, we see these on,

especially on scapula of oxen,

but also other animal bones,
and also tortoise shell.

- [Narrator] Tortoise shell
is another favorite medium,

probably also as tortoise
was an important mythological

creature from very early times.

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

it's a good surface to carve into.

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

keep in mind that this is what we have.

We have bones, these
stood the test of time,

but that doesn't mean that there

wasn't also writing on other things.

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

we know that Chinese
characters stand for words,

but, perhaps, at this time in history,

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

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

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

and, actually, art historians have spent

quite a bit of time
trying to decipher this,

enough so that we can read them,

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

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

Eventually, it evolves into calligraphy,

which becomes this art form.

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

here in this very early moment.

- [Narrator] A lot of major developments

in Chinese society right, we've got

centralized power as a
major theme coming out

of the writing, the idea
that people can communicate

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

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

untangle 40% of it,

- Yeah, 40%.
- of these thousands

of bones that survive.

- Exactly.
- And, one day,

we'll understand even more of them.

- [Narrator] Even more of them, exactly.

(piano music)