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Oracle bone
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Oracle bone
A Shang dynasty oracle bone from the Shanghai Museum
Chinese
甲骨
Literal meaning
Shells and bones
[show]Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Jiǎgǔ
Gwoyeu Romatzyh
Jeaguu
Wade–Giles
Chia3-ku3
IPA
[tɕjà.kù]
Wu
Romanization
Chiaʔ-kueʔ
Hakka
Romanization
Gap5-gut5
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization
Gaap-gwāt
Jyutping
Gaap3-gwat1
Southern Min
Tâi-lô
Kah-kut (col.)
Kap-kut (lit.)
Oracle bones (Chinese: 甲骨; pinyin: jiǎgǔ) are pieces of ox scapula or turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the correct term if ox scapulae were used for the divination; plastromancy if turtle plastrons were used.
Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding future weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and other similar topics.[1] These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well.[2] By the Zhou dynasty, cinnabar ink and brush had become the preferred writing method, resulting in fewer carved inscriptions and often blank oracle bones being unearthed.
The oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing[a] and contain important historical information such as the complete royal genealogy of the Shang dynasty.[b] When they were discovered and deciphered in the early twentieth century, these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, which some scholars had until then doubted.
Contents
[hide]
1 Discovery
2 Official excavations
3 Dating
4 Shang divination
4.1 Materials
4.2 Preparation
4.3 Cracking and interpretation
5 Archaeological evidence of pre-Anyang pyromancy
6 Oracle bones at other sites
7 Post-Shang oracle bones
8 Notes
9 References
9.1 Works cited
10 External links
Discovery[edit]
Wang Yirong, Chinese politician and scholar, was the first to recognize the oracle bones as ancient writing.
The Shang-dynasty oracle bones are thought to have been unearthed periodically by local farmers[9] since as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties and perhaps starting as early as the Han dynasty,[10] but local inhabitants did not realize what the bones were and generally reburied them.[11] During the 19th century, villagers in the area digging in the fields discovered a number of bones and used them as "dragon bones" (Chinese: 龍骨; pinyin: lóng gǔ), a reference to the traditional Chinese medicine practice of grinding up Pleistocene fossils into tonics or poultices.[11][12] The turtle shell fragments were prescribed for malaria,[c] while the other animal bones were used in powdered form to treat knife wounds.[13]
In 1899, an antiques dealer from Shandong Province searching for Chinese bronzes in the area acquired a number of oracle bones from locals, several of which he sold to Wang Yirong, the chancellor of the Imperial Academy in Beijing.[14] Wang was a knowledgeable collector of Chinese bronzes and is believed to be the first person in modern times to recognize the oracle bones' markings as ancient Chinese writing similar to that on Zhou dynasty bronzes.[14] A legendary tale relates that Wang was sick with malaria, and his scholar friend Liu E was visiting him and helped examine his medicine. They discovered, before it was ground into powder, that it bore strange glyphs, which they, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions, recognized as ancient writing.[13] As Xǔ Yǎhuì states:
"No one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into peoples' stomachs."[13]
It is not known how Wang and Liu actually came across these "dragon bones", but Wang is credited with being the first to recognize their significance.[13] Wang committed suicide in 1900 in connection with his involvement in the Boxer Rebellion, and his son later sold the bones to friend Liu E, who published the first book of rubbings of the oracle bone inscriptions in 1903.[14][15] News of the discovery of the oracle bones spread quickly throughout China and among foreign collectors and scholars, and the market for oracle bones exploded, though many collectors sought to keep the location of the bones' source a secret.[14] Although scholars tried to find their source, antique dealers falsely claimed that the bones came from Tangyin in Henan.[13] In 1908, scholar Luo Zhenyu discovered the source of the bones near Anyang and realized that the area was the site of the last Shang dynasty capital.[14]
Decades of uncontrolled digs followed to fuel the antiques trade,[d] and many of these pieces eventually entered collections in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan.[16] The first Western collector was the American missionary Frank H. Chalfant (1862–1914).[e] Chalfant also first coined the term "oracle bone" in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing, which was then borrowed into Chinese as "jiǎgǔ 甲骨" in the 1930s.[18] The Canadian Presbyterian minister James Mellon Menzies (1885–1957) bought the largest amount.[19] The Chinese still acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Menzies as "the foremost western scholar of Yin-Shang culture and oracle bone inscriptions." His former residence in Anyang was declared a "Protected Treasure" in 2004, and the James Mellon Menzies Memorial Museum for Oracle Bone Studies was established.[20][21][22]
Official excavations[edit]
Oracle bone pit at Yinxu, Anyang
By the time of the establishment of the Institute of History and Philology headed by Fu Sinian at the Academia Sinica in 1928, the source of the oracle bones had been traced back to modern Xiǎotún (小屯) village at Anyang in Henan Province. Official archaeological excavations in 1928–1937 led by Li Ji, the father of Chinese archaeology,[23] discovered 20,000 oracle bone pieces, which now form the bulk of the Academia Sinica's collection in Taiwan and constitute about 1/5 of the total discovered.[f] The inscriptions on the oracle bones, once deciphered, turned out to be the records of the divinations performed for or by the royal household. These, together with royal-sized tombs,[g] proved beyond a doubt for the first time the existence of the Shang dynasty, which had recently been doubted, and the location of its last capital, Yin. Today, Xiǎotún at Anyang is thus also known as the Ruins of Yin, or Yinxu.
The Jiǎgǔwén héjí (甲骨文合集) edited by Hu Houxuan, with its supplement edited by Peng Bangjiong, is the most comprehensive catalogue of oracle bone framents. The 20 volumes contain reproductions of over 55,000 fragments. A separate work contains transcriptions of the inscriptions into standard characters.[25]
Dating[edit]
Ox scapula recording divinations by Zhēng 爭 in the reign of King Wu Ding
The vast majority of the inscribed oracle bones were found at the Yinxu site in modern Anyang, and date to the reigns of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty.[26] The diviners named on the bones have been assigned to five periods by Dong Zuobin:[27]
Period
Kings
Common diviners
I Wu Ding[h] Què 㱿, Bīn 賓, Zhēng 爭, Xuān 宣
II Zu Geng, Zu Jia Dà 大, Lǚ 旅, Xíng 行, Jí 即, Yǐn 尹, Chū 出
III Lin Xin, Kang Ding Hé 何
IV Wu Yi, Wen Wu Ding
V Di Yi, Di Xin
The kings were involved in divination in all periods, but in later periods most divinations were done personally by the king.[29] The extant inscriptions are not evenly distributed across these periods, with 55% coming from period I and 31% from periods III and IV.[30] A few oracle bones date to the beginning of the subsequent Zhou dynasty.
The earliest oracle bones (corresponding to the reigns of Wu Ding and Zu Geng) record dates using only the 60-day cycle of stems and branches, though sometimes the month was also given.[31] Attempts to determine an absolute chronology focus on a number of lunar eclipses recorded in inscriptions by the Bīn group, who worked during the reign of Wu Ding, possibly extending into the reign of Zu Geng. Assuming that the 60-day cycle continued uninterrupted into the securely dated period, scholars have sought to match the recorded dates with calculated dates of eclipses.[32] There is general agreement on four of these, spanning dates from 1198 to 1180 BCE.[32] A fifth is assigned by some scholars to 1201 BCE.[33] From these data, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, relying on the statement in the "Against Luxurious Ease" chapter of the Book of Documents that the reign of Wu Ding lasted 59 years, dated it from 1250 to 1192 BCE.[34][35] David Keightley argued that the "Against Luxurious Ease" chapter should not be treated as a historical text, because was composed much later, presents reign lengths as moral judgements, and gives other reign lengths that are contradicted by oracle bone evidence.[36] He dated the reign of Wu Ding as approximately from 1200 to 1181 BCE.[37] Ken-ichi Takashima dates the earliest oracle bone inscriptions to 1230 BCE.[38]
Period V inscriptions often identify numbered ritual cycles, making it easier to estimate the reign lengths of the last two kings.[39] The start of this period is dated 1100–1090 BCE by Keightley and 1101 BCE by the XSZ project.[37][35] Most scholars now agree that the Zhou conquest of the Shang took place close to 1046 or 1045 BCE, over a century later than the traditional date.[40][41][42]
Shang divination[edit]
Since divination (-mancy) was by heat or fire (pyro-) and most often on plastrons or scapulae, the terms pyromancy, plastromancy[i] and scapulimancy are often used for this process.
Materials[edit]
Tortoise plastron with divination inscription
The oracle bones are mostly tortoise plastrons (ventral or belly shells, probably female[j]) and ox scapulae (shoulder blades), although some are the carapace (dorsal or back shells) of tortoises, and a few are ox rib bones,[k] scapulae of sheep, boars, horses and deer, and some other animal bones.[l] The skulls of deer, oxen and humans have also been found with inscriptions on them,[m] although these are very rare and appear to have been inscribed for record keeping or practice rather than for actual divination;[43][n] in one case, inscribed deer antlers were reported, but Keightley (1978) reports that they are fake.[44][o] Neolithic diviners in China had long been heating the bones of deer, sheep, pigs and cattle for similar purposes; evidence for this in Liaoning has been found dating to the late fourth millennium BCE.[45] However, over time, the use of ox bones increased, and use of tortoise shells does not appear until early Shang culture. The earliest tortoise shells found that had been prepared for divinatory use (i.e., with chiseled pits) date to the earliest Shang stratum at Erligang (Zhengzhou, Henan).[46] By the end of the Erligang, the plastrons were numerous,[46] and at Anyang, scapulae and plastrons were used in roughly equal numbers.[47] Due to the use of these shells in addition to bones, early references to the oracle bone script often used the term "shell and bone script", but since tortoise shells are actually a bony material, the more concise term "oracle bones" is applied to them as well.
The bones or shells were first sourced and then prepared for use. Their sourcing is significant because some of them (especially many of the shells) are believed to have been presented as tribute to the Shang, which is valuable information about diplomatic relations of the time. We know this because notations were often made on them recording their provenance (e.g., tribute of how many shells from where and on what date). For example, one notation records that "Què (雀) sent 250 (tortoise shells)", identifying this as, perhaps, a statelet within the Shang sphere of influence.[48][49][p] These notations were generally made on the back of the shell's bridge (called bridge notations), the lower carapace, or the xiphiplastron (tail edge). Some shells may have been from locally raised tortoises, however.[q] Scapula notations were near the socket or a lower edge. Some of these notations were not carved after being written with a brush, proving (along with other evidence) the use of the writing brush in Shang times. Scapulae are assumed to have generally come from the Shang's own livestock, perhaps those used in ritual sacrifice, although there are records of cattle sent as tribute as well, including some recorded via marginal notations.[51]
Preparation[edit]
Holes drilled into an oracle bone
The bones or shells were cleaned of meat and then prepared by sawing, scraping, smoothing and even polishing to create convenient, flat surfaces.[50][52][r] The predominance of scapulae and later of plastrons is also thought to be related to their convenience as large, flat surfaces needing minimal preparation. There is also speculation that only female tortoise shells were used, as these are significantly less concave.[48] Pits or hollows were then drilled or chiseled partway through the bone or shell in orderly series. At least one such drill has been unearthed at Erligang, exactly matching the pits in size and shape.[53] The shape of these pits evolved over time and is an important indicator for dating the oracle bones within various sub-periods in the Shang dynasty. The shape and depth also helped determine the nature of the crack that would appear. The number of pits per bone or shell varied widely.
Cracking and interpretation[edit]
In this Shang dynasty oracle bone (which is incomplete), a diviner asks the Shang king if there would be misfortune over the next ten days; the king replied that he had consulted the ancestor Xiaojia in a worship ceremony.
Divinations were typically carried out for the Shang kings in the presence of a diviner. A very few oracle bones were used in divination by other members of the royal family or nobles close to the king. By the latest periods, the Shang kings took over the role of diviner personally.[3]
During a divination session, the shell or bone was anointed with blood,[54] and in an inscription section called the "preface", the date was recorded using the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, and the diviner name was noted. Next, the topic of divination (called the "charge") was posed,[s] such as whether a particular ancestor was causing a king's toothache. The divination charges were often directed at ancestors, whom the ancient Chinese revered and worshiped, as well as natural powers and Dì (帝), the highest god in the Shang society. A wide variety of topics were asked, essentially anything of concern to the royal house of Shang, from illness, birth and death, to weather, warfare, agriculture, tribute and so on.[1] One of the most common topics was whether performing rituals in a certain manner would be satisfactory.[t]
An intense heat source[u] was then inserted in a pit until it cracked. Due to the shape of the pit, the front side of the bone cracked in a rough 卜 shape. The character 卜 (pinyin: bǔ or pǔ; Old Chinese: *puk; "to divine") may be a pictogram of such a crack; the reading of the character may also be an onomatopoeia for the cracking. A number of cracks were typically made in one session, sometimes on more than one bone, and these were typically numbered. The diviner in charge of the ceremony read the cracks to learn the answer to the divination. How exactly the cracks were interpreted is not known. The topic of divination was raised multiple times, and often in different ways, such as in the negative, or by changing the date being divined about. One oracle bone might be used for one session or for many,[v] and one session could be recorded on a number of bones. The divined answer was sometimes then marked either "auspicious" or "inauspicious", and the king occasionally added a "prognostication", his reading on the nature of the omen.[56] On very rare occasions, the actual outcome was later added to the bone in what is known as a "verification".[56] A complete record of all the above elements is rare; most bones contain just the date, diviner and topic of divination,[56] and many remained uninscribed after the divination.[55]
The uninscribed divination is thought to have been brush-written with ink or cinnabar on the oracle bones or accompanying documents, as a few of the oracle bones found still bear their brush-written divinations without carving,[w] while some have been found partially carved. After use, shells and bones used ritually were buried in separate pits (some for shells only; others for scapulae only),[x] in groups of up to hundreds or even thousands (one pit unearthed in 1936 contained over 17,000 pieces along with a human skeleton).[57]
Archaeological evidence of pre-Anyang pyromancy[edit]
While the use of bones in divination has been practiced almost globally, such divination involving fire or heat has generally been found in Asia and the Asian-derived North American cultures.[58] The use of heat to crack scapulae (pyro-scapulimancy) originated in ancient China, the earliest evidence of which extends back to the 4th millennium BCE, with archaeological finds from Liaoning, but these were not inscribed.[45] In Neolithic China at a variety of sites, the scapulae of cattle, sheep, pigs and deer used in pyromancy have been found,[59] and the practice appears to have become quite common by the end of the third millennium BCE. Scapulae were unearthed along with smaller numbers of pitless plastrons in the Nánguānwài (南關外) stage at Zhengzhou, Henan; scapulae as well as smaller numbers of plastrons with chiseled pits were also discovered in the Lower and Upper Erligang stages.[60]
Significant use of tortoise plastrons does not appear until the Shang culture sites.[46] Ox scapulae and plastrons, both prepared for divination, were found at the Shang culture sites of Táixīcūn (台西村) in Hebei and Qiūwān (丘灣) in Jiangsu.[61] One or more pitted scapulae were found at Lùsìcūn (鹿寺村) in Henan, while unpitted scapulae have been found at Erlitou in Henan, Cíxiàn (磁縣) in Hebei, Níngchéng (寧城) in Liaoning, and Qíjiā (齊家) in Gansu.[62] Plastrons do not become more numerous than scapulae until the Rénmín (人民) Park phase.[63]
Oracle bones at other sites[edit]
Four inscribed bones have been found at Zhengzhou in Henan: three with numbers 310, 311 and 312 in the Hebu corpus, and one containing a single character (ㄓ) which also appears in late Shang inscriptions. HB 310, which contained two brief divinations, has been lost, but is recorded in a rubbing and two photographs. HB 311 and 312 each contain a short sentence similar to the late Shang script. HB 312 was found in an upper layer of the Erligang culture. The others were found accidentally in river management earthworks, and so lack archaeological context. Pei Mingxiang argued that they predated the Anyang site. Takashima, referring to character forms and syntax, argues that they were contemporaneous with the reign of Wu Ding.[64][65]
A few inscribed oracle bones have also been unearthed in the Zhōuyuán, the original political center of the Zhou in Shaanxi and in Daxinzhuang, Jinan, Shandong. Some bones from the Zhouyuan are believed to be contemporaneous with the reign of Di Xin, the last Shang king.[66]
Post-Shang oracle bones[edit]
After the founding of Zhou, the Shang practices of bronze casting, pyromancy and writing continued. Oracle bones found in the 1970s have been dated to the Zhou dynasty, with some dating to the Spring and Autumn period. However, very few of those were inscribed. It is thought that other methods of divination supplanted pyromancy, such as numerological divination using milfoil (yarrow) in connection with the hexagrams of the I Ching, leading to the decline in inscribed oracle bones. However, evidence for the continued use of plastromancy exists for the Eastern Zhou, Han, Tang[67] and Qing[68] dynasty periods, and Keightley mentions use in Taiwan as late as 1972.[69]
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ A tiny number of isolated mid to late Shang pottery, bone and bronze inscriptions may predate the oracle bones. However, the oracle bones are considered the earliest significant body of writing, due to the length of the inscriptions, the vast amount of vocabulary (very roughly 4000 graphs), and the sheer quantity of pieces found – at least 100,000 pieces[3][4] bearing millions of characters,[5] and around 5,000 different characters,[5] forming a full working vocabulary (Qiu 2000, p. 50 cites various statistical studies before concluding that "the number of Chinese characters in general use is around five to six thousand"). It should be noted that there are also inscribed or brush-written Neolithic signs in China, but they do not generally occur in strings of signs resembling writing; rather, they generally occur singly and whether or not these constitute writing or are ancestral to the Shang writing system is currently a matter of great academic controversy. They are also insignificant in number compared to the massive amounts of oracle bones found so far.[6][7][8]
Jump up ^ Chou 1976, p. 12 cites two such scapulae, citing his own "商殷帝王本紀" Shāng–Yīn dìwáng bĕnjì, pp. 18–21.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, pp. 4–5 cites The Compendium of Materia Medica and includes a photo of the relevant page and entry.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 6 cites eight waves of illegal digs over three decades, with tens of thousands of pieces taken.
Jump up ^ Rev. Chalfant acquired 803 oracle bone pieces between 1903 and 1908, and hand-traced over 2500 pieces including these.[17]
Jump up ^ over 100,000 pieces have been found in all.[3][4]
Jump up ^ Eleven royal-sized tombs were found.[24] This exactly matches the number of kings who should have been buried at Yin (the 12th king died in the Zhou conquest and would not have received a royal burial).
Jump up ^ Dong also included kings Pan Geng, Xiao Xin and Xiao Yi. However, few or perhaps no inscriptions can be reliably assigned to pre-Wu Ding reigns. Many scholars assume that earlier oracle bones from Anyang exist but have not yet been found.[28]
Jump up ^ According to Keightley 1978a, p. 5, citing Yang Junshi 1963, the term plastromancy (from plastron + Greek μαντεία, "divination") was coined by Li Ji.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 9 – the female shells are smoother, flatter and of more uniform thickness, facilitating pyromantic use.
Jump up ^ According to Chou 1976, p. 7, only four rib bones have been found.
Jump up ^ such as ox humerus or astragalus (ankle bone).[16]
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 34 shows a large, clear photograph of a piece of inscribed human skull in the collection of the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, presumably belonging to an enemy of the Shang.
Jump up ^ There appears to be some confusion in published reports between inscribed bones in general, and bones that have actually been heated and cracked for use in divination.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 35 does show an inscribed deer skull, thought to have been killed by a Shang king during a hunt.
Jump up ^ Some cattle scapulae were also tribute.[50]
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 12 mentions reports of Xiǎotún villagers finding hundreds of shells of all sizes, implying live tending or breeding of the turtles onsite.
Jump up ^ Chou 1976, p. 12 notes that evidence of sawing is present on some oracle bones, and that the saws were likely of bronze, although none have ever been found.
Jump up ^ There is scholarly debate about whether the topic was posed as a question or not; Keightley prefers the term "charge", since grammatical questions were often not involved.
Jump up ^ For a fuller overview of the topics of divination and what can be gleaned from them about the Shang and their environment, see Keightley 2000.
Jump up ^ The nature of this heat source is still a matter of debate.
Jump up ^ Most full (non-fragmentary) oracle bones bear multiple inscriptions, the longest of which are around 90 characters long.[55]
Jump up ^ Qiu 2000, p. 60 mentions that some were written with a brush and either ink or cinnabar, but not carved.
Jump up ^ Those that were for practice or records, where buried in common rubbish pits.[57]
References[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, pp. 33–35.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 40–42.
^ Jump up to: a b c Qiu 2000, p. 61.
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, p. xiii.
^ Jump up to: a b Qiu 2000, p. 49.
Jump up ^ Qiu 2000.
Jump up ^ Boltz 2003.
Jump up ^ Woon 1987.
Jump up ^ Qiu 2000, p. 60.
Jump up ^ Chou 1976, p. 1, citing Wei Juxian 1939, "Qín-Hàn shi fāxiàn jiǎgǔwén shuō", in Shuōwén Yuè Kān, vol. 1, no.4; and He Tianxing 1940, "Jiǎgǔwén yi xianyu gǔdài shuō", in Xueshu (Shànghǎi), no. 1
^ Jump up to: a b Wilkinson 2000, p. 390.
Jump up ^ Fairbank & Goldman 2006, p. 33.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Xu 2002, p. 4.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Wilkinson (2000), p. 391.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 16.
^ Jump up to: a b Chou 1976, p. 1.
Jump up ^ Chou 1976, pp. 1–2.
Jump up ^ Wilkinson (2015), p. 681.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 6.
Jump up ^ Wang Haiping (2006). "Menzies and Yin-Shang Culture Scholarship – An Unbreakable Bond." Anyang Ribao (Anyang Daily), August 12, 2006, p.1
Jump up ^ See Linfu Dong (2005). Cross Culture and Faith: the Life and Work of James Mellon Menzies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-0-8020-3869-2.
Jump up ^ Geoff York (2008). "The unsung Canadian some knew as 'Old Bones' James Mellon Menzies, a man of God whose faith inspired him to unearth clues about the Middle Kingdom." Globe and Mail, January 18, 2008, p. F4–5
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 9.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 10.
Jump up ^ Wilkinson 2000, pp. 400–401.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. xiii, 139.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 31, 92–93, 203.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 97–98, 139–140, 203.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 31.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 139–140.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 113–116.
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, p. 174.
Jump up ^ Zhang 2002, p. 353.
Jump up ^ Zhang 2002, pp. 352–354.
^ Jump up to: a b Li 2002, p. 331.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978b, pp. 428–429.
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, p. 228.
Jump up ^ Takashima 2012, p. 142.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 116, 174–175.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 226–228.
Jump up ^ Li 2002, pp. 328–330.
Jump up ^ Takashima 2012, pp. 142–143.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 7.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 7, note 21.
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, p. 3.
^ Jump up to: a b c Keightley 1978a, p. 8.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 10.
^ Jump up to: a b Keightley 1978a, p. 9.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 22.
^ Jump up to: a b Xu 2002, p. 24.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 11.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 13–14.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 18.
Jump up ^ Xu 2002, p. 28, citing the Rites of Zhou.
^ Jump up to: a b Qiu 2000, p. 62.
^ Jump up to: a b c Xu 2002, p. 30.
^ Jump up to: a b Xu 2002, p. 32.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 3, 4, n. 11 and 12.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, pp. 3, 6, n.16.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 8, note 25, citing KKHP 1973.1, pp. 70, 79, 88, 91, plates 3.1, 4.2, 13.8.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 8, note 25 cites KK 1973.2 p.74.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 6, n.16.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 8, note 25 cites Zhèngzhoū Èrlĭgāng, p.38.
Jump up ^ Takashima 2012, pp. 143–160.
Jump up ^ Qiu 2000, pp. 41–42.
Jump up ^ Takashima 2012, p. 141.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 4 n.4.
Jump up ^ Keightley 1978a, p. 9, n.30, citing Hu Xu 1782–1787, ch. 4, p.3b on use in Jiangsu
Jump up ^ cites Zhāng Guangyuan 1972
Works cited[edit]
Boltz, William G. (2003). The origin and early development of the Chinese writing system. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society. ISBN 0-940490-18-8. Pbk. ed. with minor corr. and a new preface.
Chou, Hung-hsiang 周鴻翔 (1976). Oracle Bone Collections in the United States. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09534-0.
Fairbank, John King; Goldman, Merle (2006). China : a new history (2nd enl. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01828-1.
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——— (1978b). "The Bamboo Annals and Shang-Chou Chronology". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 38 (2): 423–438. JSTOR 2718906.
——— (2000). The ancestral landscape: time, space, and community in late Shang China, ca. 1200–1045 B.C. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-070-9.
Li, Xueqin (2002). "The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project: Methodology and Results". Journal of East Asian Archaeology. 4: 321–333. doi:10.1163/156852302322454585.
Qiu, Xigui (2000). Chinese writing (Wenzixue gaiyao). Transl. by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.
Takashima, Ken-ichi (2012). "Literacy to the South and the East of Anyang in Shang China: Zhengzhou and Daxinzhuang". In Li, Feng; Branner, David Prager. Writing and Literacy in Early China: Studies from the Columbia Early China Seminar. University of Washington Press. pp. 141–172. ISBN 978-0-295-80450-7.
Wilkinson, Endymion (2000). Chinese History: A Manual (2nd ed.). Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4.
——— (2015). Chinese History: A New Manual (4th ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-08846-7.
Woon, Wee Lee 雲惟利 (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution. Macau: University of East Asia. Now issued by Joint Publishing, Hong Kong.
Xu, Yahui (許雅惠 Hsu Ya-huei) (2002). Ancient Chinese Writing, Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Ruins of Yin. English translation by Mark Caltonhill and Jeff Moser. Taibei: National Palace Museum. ISBN 978-957-562-420-0. Illustrated guide to the Special Exhibition of Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. Govt. Publ. No. 1009100250.
Zhang, Peiyu (2002). "Determining Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology through Astronomical Records in Historical Texts". Journal of East Asian Archaeology. 4: 335–357. doi:10.1163/156852302322454602.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oracle bones.
Oracle bones, United College Library, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Includes 45 inscribed fragments.
Oracle Bone Collection, Institute of History and Philology, Taipei City.
High-resolution digital images of oracle bones, Cambridge Digital Library.
四方风 or Winds of the Four Directions World Digital Library. National Library of China.
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Financial costs of the American Revolutionary War
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The American Revolutionary War inflicted great financial costs on all of the combatants, including the United States of America, France, Spain and Great Britain. France and Great Britain spent 1.3 billion livres and 250 million pounds, respectively. The United States spent $400 million in wages for its troops. Spain increased its military spending from 454 million reales in 1778 to over 700 million reales in 1779.
Contents
1 Economic warfare and financing
1.1 Initial boycotts
1.2 British isolation tactics
1.3 The American response
1.4 The American Revolution effect on Great Britain
1.5 American financing
2 Belligerents
2.1 Great Britain
2.2 France
2.3 Spain
2.4 United States of America
2.4.1 Inflation
3 References
3.1 Notes
3.2 Bibliography
Economic warfare and financing[edit]
The Boston Tea Party, an early American boycott of British goods which resulted in increased tensions prior to the Revolution.
Initial boycotts[edit]
The economic warfare between Great Britain and the colonists began well before the colonies declared their independence in 1776. Regulations from the crown were met with fierce opposition from the colonists. After lobbies and petitions proved ineffective, the colonists turned to boycotting imported English goods. Boycotting proved to be successful in crippling British trade.[1] After the first colonial boycott in 1765, Parliament overturned the Sugar and Stamp Acts, and after a second boycott in 1768 Parliament overturned all of the Townshend duties except for the tax on tea.[2] The colonists persisted, and the American boycott on tea ultimately culminated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Despite the Revolution's widespread association with the colonists' aversion to higher taxes, it has been claimed that the colonists actually paid far less tax compared to their British counterparts.[3]
British isolation tactics[edit]
British efforts to weaken the colonies included isolating their economy from the rest of the world by cutting off trade. With a navy that was many times more powerful than its American counterpart, the English had complete control over the American ports.[4] The British took control of major port cities along the colonial east coast, and as a result British warships were able to drastically reduce the number of ships that could successfully travel from the colonies. Consequently, the U.S. saw a fall in exported goods due to the relentless British blockade.[5] Furthermore, England’s naval strength was great enough to intimidate other nations and scare them away from exporting goods to the colonies, so smuggled and inexpensive imports became costly and rare.[6]
The American response[edit]
The Continental Army under the direction of George Washington sought to engage in a war of attrition.[7] Because the fight was on colonial soil, Washington aimed to take advantage of the lack of trade with Great Britain by cutting them off from necessary resources, hoping that eventually the redcoat army in North America would grow sick and tired. Under the Articles of Confederation, however, the Continental Congress did not have the power to impose taxes or regulate commerce in the colonies, and thus could not generate the sufficient funds for a war of attrition.[8]
To solve this problem, the Continental Congress sent diplomats including Benjamin Franklin to Europe in search of foreign support for the American cause. For the first two years of war, the colonists received secretive private and public loans from the French, who held a lingering resentment for the British after the Seven Years' War.[9] After the British defeat at Saratoga, however, foreign support for the Continental Army increased, and in 1778 the colonies signed a treaty with France, officially bringing them into the war with England.[10] By the end of the war, the colonies had received loans from several different European nations, including significant contribution from France, Spain and the Netherlands. In addition, the colonies received much private funding, most notably from the Marquis de Lafayette and the Baron of Kalb, both Frenchmen.[11] This funding ultimately enabled them to fight the war of attrition that General Washington hoped for.
The American Revolution effect on Great Britain[edit]
French warships during the American Revolutionary War.
Because the French possessed a powerful navy, their entrance into the war weakened the British blockade on colonial ports and further cut off the British army from its Atlantic supply route.[12] The British forces recognized that they would not last long without shipping in supplies, so in retaliation, the British redeployed some of their forces to the French Caribbean. Their hope was to capture French sugar islands and cut the French financial supply line.[13] The new war in the Caribbean added to England’s already large financial costs, yet unlike the colonies, the British were not successful in their attempts to garner foreign loans or armaments. Without economic assistance from other nations, the financial strain on Parliament and British taxpayers became increasingly burdensome, and ultimately had a hand in wearing down the British forces and ending the war for independence.
American financing[edit]
As the war progressed, the Americans’ deteriorating financial stability quickly became Britain’s greatest asset. Because it did not possess the power to tax the colonists, the Continental Congress printed money at a rapid rate to fund the army’s expenses and pay off its loans from foreign nations.[14] As a result, the colonies experienced severe inflation and depreciation of the Continental dollar. The colonists also had great difficulty in financing a wartime effort against the British southern campaign, not effectively halting the British destruction until the battle of Yorktown in 1781. When war ended in 1783, American negotiations, monetary policies and government restructuring all contributed to paying off the American national debt.[15]
Belligerents[edit]
Great Britain[edit]
The American Revolutionary War took a heavy toll on Great Britain. The average cost for the war was £12 million a year. The British ended the war with a national debt of £250 million, which generated a yearly interest of over £9.5 million (3.8 percent). This debt piled on to the already outstanding debt from the Seven Years' War. Taxes on the British population increased over the years and duties on some items such as glass and lead were also added, the average tax for the British public being four shillings in every pound (20 percent).[16] Furthermore, the Royal Navy was not able to 'rule the waves' as it had done in the Seven Years' War.[17]
Great Britain's trade with the thirteen American colonies fell apart once the American Revolution started, causing British businessmen, especially from the tobacco industry, to suffer. Income from the sale of woolen and metal products dropped sharply and export markets dried up. British merchant sailors also felt the pinch: it is estimated that 3,386 British merchant ships were seized by enemy forces during the war.[18] However, Royal Navy warships did make up these losses somewhat, due to their own privateering efforts on enemy shipping, particularly Spanish and French merchant ships.
France[edit]
During the war, France shouldered a financial burden similar to that of Great Britain, as debt from the American Revolutionary War was piled upon already existing debts from the Seven Years' War. The French spent 1.3 billion livres on war costs. When the war ended, France had accumulated a debt of 3,315.1 million livres,[19] a fortune at the time.
The debt caused major economic and political problems for France, and, as the country struggled to pay its debts, eventually led to the Financial Crisis of 1786[20] and the French Revolution in 1789.[21]
Spain[edit]
Spain's economic losses were not as great as those of the other belligerents in the American Revolutionary War. This was because Spain paid off her debts quickly and efficiently. However, Spain had nearly doubled her military spending during the war, from 454 million reales in 1778 to over 700 million reales in 1779.[22] Spain's revenue loss was similar to Britain's, since she lost a lot of income from her American colonies due to the war. To make up for the shortfall, Spanish governors introduced higher tax rates in the South American colonies, with little success.[citation needed] Spain's next move was to issue royal bonds to her colonies, also with limited success.[citation needed] Finally, in 1782 the first national bank of Spain – the Banco San Carlo – was created to improve and centralize the economic situation.[vague]
United States of America[edit]
For more details on the impact on the United States, see Economic history of the US.
The thirteen American states flourished economically at the beginning of the war.[23] The colonies could trade freely with the West Indies and other European nations, instead of just Britain. Due to the abolition of the British Navigation Acts, American merchants could now transport their goods in European and American ships rather than only British ships. British taxes on expensive wares such as tea, glass, lead and paper were forfeit, and other taxes became cheaper. Plus, American privateering raids on British merchant ships provided more wealth for the Continental Army.
As the war went on however, America's economic prosperity began to fall. British warships began to prey on American shipping, and the increasing upkeep costs of the Continental Army meant that wealth from merchant ships decreased. As cashflow declined, the United States of America had to rely on European loans to maintain the war effort; France, Spain and the Netherlands lent the United States over $10 million during the war, causing major debt problems for the fledgling nation. Coin circulation had also begun to wane. Because of this, the United States began to print paper money and bills of credit to raise income. This proved unsuccessful, inflation skyrocketed, and the new paper money's value diminished. A popular saying circulated the colonies because of this: anything of little value became "not worth a continental."[24]
According to a 2010 Congressional Research Service report on the "Costs of Major U.S. Wars", the Revolution cost the United States the 2011 equivalent of $2.4 billion.[25]
Inflation[edit]
By 1780, the United States Congress had issued over $400 million in paper money to troops. Eventually, Congress tried to stop the inflation by imposing economic reforms. These failed, and only further devalued the American currency.[26] There is, however, some disagreement over the amount of currency issued.[27] Between 1775 and 1783 the colonies experienced an average annual inflation rate of approximately 4.3%. The rate of inflation peaked at 29.78% in 1778.[28][29] Numerous food riots were recorded as discontent grew over rapidly rising prices.[30] The destruction of property and the continued issuing of Continentals by the Congress was another cause of currency devaluation. In addition, counterfeiting of American dollars was carried out by the British Government as an intentional means of sabotaging the war effort.[31]
Late in the war, Congress asked individual colonies to equip their own troops, and pay upkeep for their own soldiers in the Continental Army. When the war ended, the United States had spent $37 million at the national level and $114 million at the state level. The United States finally solved its debt problems in the 1790s when Alexander Hamilton founded the First Bank of the United States in order to pay off war debts and establish good national credit.[32]
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ Ferguson, p. 85
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ "Economic Conditions During the War."
Jump up ^ "Economic Conditions During the War."
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ "Economic Conditions During the War."
Jump up ^ Elson, 1904.
Jump up ^ Elson, 1904.
Jump up ^ Conway, 1995.
Jump up ^ Conway, 1995.
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ Baack, 2001.
Jump up ^ Conway (1995) p. 189
Jump up ^ Marston (2002) p. 82
Jump up ^ Conway (1995) p. 191
Jump up ^ Conway (1995) p. 242
Jump up ^ Marston (2002) p. 82
Jump up ^ Tombs (2007) p. 179
Jump up ^ Lynch (1989) p. 326
Jump up ^ Marston (2002) p. 82
Jump up ^ "Not worth a continental Archived 2012-07-09 at the Wayback Machine.", "Creating the United States", Library of Congress. Retrieved 14 January 2012.
Jump up ^ Stephen Daggett (June 29, 2010). "Costs of Major U.S. Wars" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. p. 4. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
Jump up ^ Marston (2002) p. 82
Jump up ^ Grubb, Farley (2007). "The Continental Dollar: How Much Was Really Issued?" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research. No. w13047. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. However, the details of this story are less well known. Scholars even disagree over how much was issued -- disagree by over 50 percent.
Jump up ^ Williamson, Samuel H. "Annual Inflation Rates in the United States, 1775 - 2016, and United Kingdom, 1265 - 2016". www.measuringworth.com. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
Jump up ^ "In 2013 Dollars". www.in2013dollars.com. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
Jump up ^ Smith, Barbara Clark (1994-01-01). "Food Rioters and the American Revolution". The William and Mary Quarterly. 51 (1): 3–38. doi:10.2307/2947003. JSTOR 2947003.
Jump up ^ "The Economics of the American Revolutionary War". eh.net. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
Jump up ^ Jensen (2004) p. 379
Bibliography[edit]
Baack, Ben. "The Economics of the American Revolutionary War." EH.net Encyclopedia. Economic History Services, 13 Nov 2001. Web. 07 Mar 2013 <http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/baack.war.revolutionary.us>.
Conway, Stephen. The War of American Independence 1775–1783. Publisher: E. Arnold (1995) ISBN 0-340-62520-1. 280 pages.
"Economic Conditions During the War." HistoryCentral.com. MultiEducator, Inc, n.d. Web. 13 Mar 2013. <http://www.historycentral.com/Revolt/Americans/During.html>.
Elson, Henry William. "Foreign Aid." History of the United States of America. Kathy Leigh. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1904. 275-279. Web. <http://www.usahistory.info/Revolution/foreign-aid.html>.
Ferguson, Niall. Empire: How Britain made the modern world. Publisher: Penguin Australia (2008). 422 pages.
Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763–1776. Hackett Publishing (2004) ISBN 978-0-87220-705-9. 735 pages
Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain 1700—1808. Publisher: Oxford (1989) ISBN 978-0-631-19245-9. 450 pages.
Marston, Daniel. The American Revolution 1774—1783. Osprey Publishing (2002) ISBN 978-1-84176-343-9. 95 pages.
Tombs, Robert and Isabelle. That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present. Random House (2007) ISBN 978-1-4000-4024-7. 782 pages.
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