Wang Yirong Identifies Oracle Bone Script
- When
- 1899
- Where
- Anyang
Wang Yirong recognized inscriptions on oracle bones as an early form of Chinese writing in 1899, linking them to Zhou bronzes.
In 1899, an antiques dealer from Shandong sold several oracle bones to Wang Yirong, a knowledgeable collector of Chinese bronzes and chancellor of the Imperial Academy in Beijing. Wang recognized the bones' markings as ancient Chinese writing, similar to that on Zhou dynasty bronzes. This recognition established the oracle bones as the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing. The bones originated from the Anyang area, the region of the former Shang capital site of Yinxu, though Wang's identification itself took place in Beijing.
Sources
- Wang Yirong Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-11
- Oracle bone Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-17
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.