Monday, December 21, 2015

A Little Primer of Chinese Oracle-Bone Inscriptions with Some Exercises

Author:
TAKASHIMA, Ken-ichi 髙嶋謙一

Publisher:
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

Publication Year:
2015




Abstract:

Indispensable to the study of the history of Chinese religion, politics, agriculture, the calendar system, hunting, warfare, medicine, sacrificial and ritual practices, and other matters of life in China’s first historical dynasty, these more than 130,000 pieces of inscribed turtle plastrons and bovine scapulas, though mostly fragmented ones, comprise more text in terms of number of characters than the combined transmitted traditional pre-Qín classical Chinese texts.

The material will be presented in three forms: normalized transcriptions of the texts into modern standard Chinese script, translations into English, and ink-squeezes or rubbings of the original texts. There is also a detailed linguistic and philological explanation of the text, plus an annotation, and commentary on the cultural and historical background of the material. No special background in analyzing grammar and syntax will be required to understand most, if not all, of the materials presented in this Little Primer.

Table of Contents:

Preface
List of Figures and Tables
Chinese Oracle-Bone Inscriptions
  Piece 1-38
  Zhōuyuán jiǎgǔ kècí 周原甲骨刻辭
  Map of Yīnxū 殷墟
Appendix: A Short Annotated Bibliography*

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