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Everyone can use the oracle bone conjugation database developed by the team of Fudan University |
Oracle bone conjugation refers to the comprehensive utilization of various information on oracle bones to splice oracle bone fragments together, so that the original broken materials become complete or relatively complete materials, and it is one of the main sources of new oracle bone materials. Scholars’ oracle bone fusion results are generally published through monographs, books, periodicals, and online articles, which are often scattered in many places, which is inconvenient to use, and paper publications cannot meet the needs of timely additions and updates.
To this end, the teachers and students of Fudan University’s Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters Research Center jointly created the “Ziyu Lianzhu” oracle bone conjugation information database (hereinafter referred to as “conjugation database”, click the hyperlink to enter), and are committed to comprehensively integrating oracle bone conjugation information , bringing together information such as conjugation, source, and conjugation in one place, hoping to provide convenience for the academic community to check.
April 20 is the 14th “United Nations Chinese Day”. On April 21, The Paper learned from the Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters Research Center of Fudan University that the center’s teachers and students took more than two years to prepare. The conjugation library was officially launched on the 1st. Currently, there are more than 6,400 pieces of conjugation information in the library, which will be updated continuously. Adhering to the principle of openness, the Conjugation Library has a built-in communication and feedback function. In the past two months, it has received more than 250,000 visits and received more than 70 feedbacks from experts and scholars. It has become the main platform for the academic community to search for oracle bone conjugation results.
The study of ancient characters needs to establish rigorous research on a solid foundation of materials, and what this team has done is just a basic work. Jiang Yubin, a researcher at the Fudan Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters Research Center, said: “The biggest advantage of this database is that it is open and everyone can use it. From this, we can know the achievements of the predecessors, which is equivalent to helping everyone complete the preliminary research. ‘Literature review’ section on oracle conjugation.”
Developing an oracle-conjugated library
For scholars who study the writing and history of the Shang Dynasty, oracle bone inscriptions are important first-hand information and are very precious. However, due to the incompleteness of most of the oracle bones, the inscriptions are fragmented and inconvenient to read through. The reason why oracle bone conjugation is important is that it can make oracle bone fragments “reunite” and become valuable historical materials that can be used.
In the past hundred years, more than one hundred scholars have devoted themselves to the work of oracle bone conjugation, and have completed more than 7,000 groups of oracle bone fragments. “The establishment of such a database can effectively avoid duplication of work by researchers of ancient texts, and avoid the situation where it takes a lot of effort to sort out, but after the conjugation is completed, it is found that the predecessors have already embellished it.” Team member, Fudan Unearthed Documents and Paleograph Research Center 2019 Yang Yi, a first-level doctoral student, said.
He, Huang Bo, a 2020 doctoral student, and Cheng Minghui, a 2022 doctoral student, have been collecting data in their spare time since 2021, including information on oracle bone conjugation results of many scholars since the publication of “Oracle Bone Inscriptions”, covering public publications, academic websites, etc. The information source, and then discuss the framework of the website together, and finally hand it over to the technology company to be responsible for the realization.
The front-end of the webpage is divided into retrieval, introduction, bibliographic abbreviation and communication feedback. When using the search function, there are also specific search rules, which need to input “biographical abbreviation + film number”. “Description abbreviation” generally chooses the name commonly used in the academic circle. Now, for new bibliographic books, the author usually draws up the abbreviation by himself, and the conjugation library will directly use it. The use of abbreviations is for the convenience of reference in the text, and it is also a customary habit in the academic circle. The “piece number” corresponds to each piece of oracle bone in the collection. With these two pieces of information, a piece of oracle bone can be precisely located. For example, when seeing “Fudan 008”, the researcher knows that it refers to the eighth piece of oracle bone collected in “Fudan University Collection of oracle bones”.
The conjugation library has a built-in communication and feedback function. The team will regularly check the background, check the opinions and absorb them, and update the records synchronously. Regardless of whether the opinion is adopted or not, the commenter will receive a thank you email from the conjugation library. Taking into account the needs of everyone’s feedback, the number of results of the fuzzy search of the conjugate library has been increased to 50.
However, the successful launch of the conjugate library only means that the work has just begun in the minds of the team members. “The maintenance in the future will be more important, and we welcome feedback from teachers and friends in the academic world.” Yang Yi said.
Conjugate with PS software
How can we judge the successful fusion of two oracle bones?
This not only requires that the shape of the oracle bone can be seamlessly connected, but also that the lines on the front and back of the oracle bone must be the same, and the font, style, and narrative content of the inscription must also match each other.
It is also for this reason that the specimens of tortoise shell and ox scapula are on the desks of teachers and students of the Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters Research Center. Everyone often observes and caresses these specimens, and strives to be familiar with the location and shape of tortoise shell and ox scapula.
Fragments of oracle bones are everywhere, and the most difficult part of the oracle bone fusion work is undoubtedly to be able to form a connection between two scattered oracle bones in the mind. In the eyes of outsiders, this incident is tantamount to “finding a needle in a haystack”.
For researchers of ancient characters, they must first cross the barrier of character shape, be familiar with the writing methods of ancient Chinese characters, and have a profound knowledge of ancient Chinese and history and culture. When it comes to oracle bone conjugation, it is necessary to have a very high level of memory and sensitivity. You must be familiar with the physical form of oracle bones and the published oracle bone information, and form a database in your mind, so that you can use it flexibly in the conjugation work.
It is worth mentioning that the actual scene of combining oracle bones does not mean that the researchers try to “puzzle” pieces of oracle bones with their own hands. Due to the long burial time, most of the existing oracle bones are relatively broken, and slag may fall off the edges, so they must be stored in cultural relics units for proper preservation. Researchers generally can only judge the possibility of conjugation through rubbings and physical photos. However, rubbings can only provide some basic information, and the shape may also be distorted by the curvature of the oracle bone, not to mention that many physical pictures have not yet been made public.
“We are now using PS software for conjugation work, and we will encounter many situations that look similar but are not in the same group. If one element is found to be inconsistent, then there is a high probability that it is wrong.” Cheng Minghui smiled. Word.
In fact, oracle bone conjugation is not the only work of this group of researchers, but a relatively basic part of it. Pit YH127, which Yang Yi is currently studying, is the most famous oracle bone pit excavated in the Yin Ruins. Scholars have spent a lot of time conjugating and restoring the oracle bones in it, but there are still many materials that need to be conjugated and can be conjugated. In recent years, he has also devoted himself to it and completed about 200 sets of conjugations, but his ultimate goal is to comprehensively study the words and contents recorded on the oracle bones.
“Although oracle bone conjugation is just the beginning, it is a basic work with relatively strong materials.” Cheng Minghui emphasized the importance of oracle bone conjugation. The fully bonded oracle bones play an important role in the interpretation of historical and cultural values. Through bonding, researchers can obtain more complete information, thereby further expanding research in more historical and cultural directions.
“No matter what kind of material you use, you always want it to be the most complete. This is a 1+1>2 work.” Jiang Yubin expects that the conjugation library can establish solid materials for subsequent research on ancient characters Base.
Deeply cultivating the unpopular “unique knowledge”
Over the years, the Fudan Unearthed Documents and Ancient Characters Research Center has focused on the improvement of the innovative ability of the trinity of talents, disciplines, and scientific research, and has worked hard to discover the historical thoughts and cultural values in ancient characters and unearthed documents. From Qiu Xigui and other ancient writing research masters to young and middle-aged outstanding scholars, to young students who are determined to devote themselves to related research work, the team of the center inherits the lineage of learning, keeps the integrity and innovates, and continuously produces influential and high-quality results.
Attracted by the excellent team and teachers, Huang Bo came to Fudan for further study. His research interests are oracle bone inscriptions and the history of the Shang Dynasty. “Most of the current academic understanding of the history of the Shang Dynasty is based on oracle bone materials. If you want to make achievements in this area, you must be familiar with the materials. New materials can often open up new ideas.” Therefore, he is very concerned about oracle bones. The new dynamics of conjugation have accumulated a lot of materials in this regard.
Cheng Minghui’s interest in ancient characters originated from her experience of learning calligraphy and seal cutting when she was a child. After studying in the center at the master’s level, she gradually clarified the research direction of oracle bone science. “When I first arrived at the center, my foundation was relatively weak, and I only had some understanding of the direction of oracle bones.” Under the guidance of the teacher, Cheng Minghui slowly started to get started, changing her previous belief that “oracle bone science is a difficult and difficult subject”. idea.
“Teacher Jiang Yubin is very good at teaching students, and he is also very meticulous and patient. When I first started, he would spend 5-6 hours teaching me every other week, teaching me how to read oracle bone materials, understanding the shape of tortoise shell and ox scapula, Pay attention to the subtle differences between glyphs. When teaching the basics of oracle bone science systematically, he often encourages me to do more work in organizing materials and strive to gain new discoveries from them.” She said that after successfully making the first group of conjugations, she strengthened the Confidence has been strengthened, and the determination to continue to engage in related research has been strengthened.
Yang Yi began to study oracle bone inscriptions with his tutor from the master’s degree. Due to his early contact with oracle bone conjugation, he appeared calmer: “When sorting out certain materials, we will first have a basic judgment on it, which is the so-called bottom line .Through investigation, you can roughly know the depth of the material and know how much work remains to be done.”
When finding out about the YH127 pit, Yang Yi had an expectation of the results from the volume of materials and existing data, and felt the importance of the knowledge system constructed by the complete materials to the research. “At the beginning I will also get a lot of motivation from the success of the conjugation, but later I gradually understand that the conjugation is only the basic work of sorting out materials, and further research should be done on top of it. Teacher Jiang often told us to do in-depth research. “
Jiang Yubin said that the continuous deepening of oracle bone conjugation research is a process of continuous innovation and development, which requires continuous efforts and long-term success. Fudan’s ancient writing researchers and the oracle bone conjugation information database of “Ziyu Lianzhu” will provide assistance to scholars, further improve the efficiency of oracle bone conjugation, and contribute Fudan’s strength to deciphering the Chinese wisdom and civilization codes hidden in the mysterious oracle bones.
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