Riding the wind of rebirth

"This understanding does fit the following text, but it is definitely a wrong understanding, because '其兄一强' lacks a verb in the middle, which does not conform to the grammar of oracle bone script."

"And I have no idea what Qianghuo means." Guan Shuning was quite honest.

Zhou Zhi couldn't help but laugh when he heard this. It turned out that a problem that seemed very simple to him was so difficult in the eyes of others.

"If you can explain it clearly, I can ask Guan Shuning to take you to the flea market this weekend." An Siyuan raised his lips slightly: "They all have their own little tricks, which are very interesting."

Zhou Zhi immediately became interested: "In our place, people like Mr. Guan will be recognized by the people in the flea market, and then they will raise the price on the spot. Even if they just pick up something and look at it, the price will increase tenfold. I wonder if it will be the same here?"

"The country's heritage is not that rich, and they tend to collect Western art more. There are still too few experts on Eastern art."

Zhou Zhi couldn't help rubbing his hands. This situation was the best for taking advantage of.

This made Lu Gensi and An Siyuan feel very funny. Lu Gensi said with a smile: "It depends on whether you have the ability to win the opportunity."

Zhou Zhi said, "Mr. Guan Shuning's explanation of these two paragraphs is generally correct, but there are some problems with a few words."

"Let's look at the text first. The correct interpretation should be like this. The first paragraph: Xin Hai, Bu, Zhen, his brother is a Qiang, and the king receives Youyou. The second paragraph: Yi Mao, Bu, Da Quan, Zhen, Qi Qiang, his mother Xin, Sheng, Zhen, Qi Qiang fire."

"The translation should be: On the day of Xin Hai, the divination was carried out, and the divination was that if a Qiang person performed a blessing sacrifice, the king would be blessed. On the day of Yi Mao, the divination was carried out again by Da Quan, and the divination was carried out again, and the divination was carried out to sacrifice a Qiang person in the form of a 鬳, and to offer a gift to the king's mother Xin, and it would be auspicious. The third divination confirmed that the sacrifice could only be made by hanging over a fire and roasting."

"Such a terrible oracle?" Lu Gensi couldn't help but shudder.

"Yes, in fact, most of the oracle bone records are related to sacrifices, and sacrifices in the Shang Dynasty were often related to human sacrifices. The main source of human sacrifices at that time was the Qiang people located northwest of the Shang capital."

"So this is the word 'zhu' instead of 'xiong'? Does it mean a blessing?" Guan Shuning was confused: "Then this is '鬳', is it also a kind of sacrifice? Does this '叀' mean 'hanging'?"

"The two characters 'brother' and 'bless' have actually puzzled the industry for a long time," Zhou Zhi explained. "This time, through the oracle bone conjugation project and root analysis technology, we have mastered a large number of oracle bone characters and finally figured out the difference between the two characters."

"In a normal character for 祝, there is a mouth on top and a person on the bottom. In the character 兄, there is also a mouth on top and a person on the bottom. The only difference between the two is that in the character 祝, the person on the bottom is kneeling, while in the character 兄, the person on the bottom is standing."

"So the meaning of 祝 is to open your mouth and pray to your ancestors. Sometimes, in order to make the meaning clearer, an altar is added to the left side of the word, which is the direction of the kneeling figure. This is the origin of the Chinese character '祝' today. Because self-reflection is very similar, the kneeling figure is still transformed into the character '兄'."

"The real word 'brother' is a standing posture, which means to give instructions from a superior position. It indicates the position of the elder brother in the family at that time, and also means the one who has the most weight among all the children."

"So that's it..." Guan Shuning suddenly realized, and then suddenly reacted: "No! According to your explanation, the text on this joint should be the word "brother"? The person under the mouth is standing!" "This involves a situation that can be occasionally found in oracle bone inscriptions." Zhou Zhi continued: "This problem has troubled our ancient calligraphers for a long time. In the end, the mystery was solved, and it turned out to be a ridiculous thing."

"What's going on?" Guan Shuning was so anxious.

"Because the cultural level of the practitioners at that time was also different, some of them would make typos." Zhou Zhi almost laughed: "This piece of oracle bone is a typical example. Everyone knows that oracle bone inscriptions have a fixed grammar, so only verbs can be used here. And considering the context, it must be a sacrificial ritual, so there is only one explanation - the practitioner who carved this oracle bone was an apprentice, and he carved the word 'zhu' instead of 'xiong'!"

"Ah?" Guan Shuning had never considered that the answer to the question would be like this, but when he thought about it carefully, this was really the only reasonable explanation. Now he understood why Zhou Zhi said that the majority of oracle bone scholars would be amused and confused after knowing the answer. How much time had been wasted by a poor student who lived thousands of years ago!

"Ah? Could it be like this?" Lu Gensi and An Siyuan couldn't help but laugh: "Has there been such a discovery before? You didn't make it up, did you?"

"Yes." Zhou Zhi gave an example: "And it was a mistake between the characters for brother and blessing. On a piece of oracle bone script, the three characters 'Zhu Qie Xin' were first carved. At that time, everyone thought it was an oracle bone for worshiping Zu Xin, the king of the Shang Dynasty."

"Later, when we successfully combined this oracle bone with another one from the database, we discovered that this was an oracle bone in which Zu Xin's younger brother Wo Jia offered sacrifices to his older brother."

"Zuxin was the son of Zuyi, the king of Shang. He reigned for sixteen years and died of illness before being buried in Diquan. His brother Wojia succeeded him. After Wojia's death, the throne was passed back to Zuding, the son of Zuxin."

"So the three characters '祝且辛' on the joint should actually be '兄且辛', but the scribe made the mistake."

"I see." Guan Shuning nodded to show that he had learned something, and then asked, "What about the characters 鬳 and 叀?"

"This '鬳' involves the study of character roots," Zhou Zhi said. "In the past, we traditionally believed that the head of the character 虎 came from the image of a tiger, because in oracle bone script, the tiger head and the tiger head part of the character 虎 are exactly the same."

"But with the completion of the Oracle Bone Script Database, we found the tiger head shape in many characters. Finally, we found that it does not only represent a tiger head, but also represents the shape of a human head with its mouth open and shouting, and often refers to a person who is excited by fear."

"For example, the dream character we decoded is a tiger head with a bed next to it, which means someone is shouting in their sleep."

"For example, the character 虘, with the character qie (qie) at the bottom, means ancestor, male reproduction, or deity. Adding the character hu (huo) at the top, it is hard to understand its original meaning. However, if we interpret it as a person shouting with his mouth open, it is easy to understand, meaning 'the ancestor is expressing excitement.'"

"So the name of this li is easy to understand. Li is a bronze vessel, belonging to the lower half of the yan. It can be used alone to cook food. If it is combined with the upper half of the zheng, it is the earliest steamer in my country."

"If 'zhu' is a sacrifice in which the victim is killed by smashing his chest with a wooden pestle, then 'qi' is a sacrifice in which the victim's head is put into a cauldron and cooked."

"In the northwest of Anyang Yinxu Wang Mausoleum area and in the north of Liujiazhuang, there are bronze tripods with human heads!" Guan Shuning suddenly thought of those two terrifying artifacts. (End of this chapter)