Jiaguwen Heji

Under the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty (up to c. 1046 BC), pieces of bone, usually plastrons of tortoises or scapula of oxen, were used in pyromantic divination and then inscribed.

The used oracle bones were deposited in pits at the Shang cult centre now known as Yinxu (near modern Anyang, Hebei) and forgotten for millennia.

On joining the Institute of History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1956, he submitted a proposal to compile a comprehensive collection of rubbings of these inscriptions.

Through the intervention of Guo Moruo, head of the academy and a renowned oracle bone scholar, the materials they had collected were hidden in a cave near Xi'an to save them from destruction.

As well as collating sources published since the Heji, the supplement includes 7000 previously unpublished pieces, most of them small fragments with few characters.