Oracle+Bones

Oracle Bones
The Zhou (or Chou) dynasty was founded in 1100 BCE and ended in 250 BCE. Oracle bones were used during the time of the Zhou and Shang dynasties to see into the future and answer common everyday questions. Questions like, “Will it rain tomorrow?” but not something like, “Will I be rich one day?” They were also used to communicate with ancestors to see how they were doing in the afterlife. Now, lets take a blast into the past and see what it was like during the Zhou dynasty.

The Bones
As stated before oracle bones were used to see into the future. Oracle bones were just turtle shells or animal bones. Only emperors had the money to afford to get a pries to come to their home and read an oracle bone for them. So everyone else just had to wait and see if they will ever strike it rich one day.

Reading the bones
To read the oracle bones, a fire would heat up the bones. Then, a bronze pin would be held to it until different crack patterns and combinations were made into the bone. Then the priest (who would usually be a woman) would read the different crack patterns and figure out the answer to your question. It’s not truly known how they exactly read the different crack patterns to figure out the answer to your question but I can imagine how hard it would be to be a woman priest in the times of the Zhou and Shang dynasties.

It has been noted that oracle bones were very common in ancient China. Emperors have used them and I can imagine that the priest’s family might have used the oracle bones too. Wealthy or not oracle bones were still a very common fortune telling device in ancient China and in the Zhou dynasty. Questions

Now lets see if you know what I was talking about this whole time.

1) When was the Zhou dynasty founded? When did the dynasty end? 2) Who would read the oracle bones? Were the readers usually male or female? How were the oracle bones read? 3) What kinds of questions were oracle bones used to answer? Can you think of any that you would ask on an oracle bone? Do you think that you would believe the answers that oracle bones gave? Why or why not?

By Briah