Record Oracles Bones Discovered in China

Dem bones, dem bones... Story from China Daily Record find of oracle bones in Shaanxi By Ma Lie (China Daily)Updated: 2008-11-12 07:10 XI'AN -- Archaeologists in Shaanxi province have unearthed more than 1,100 oracle bone characters, shedding new light on the number of such inscriptions in existence. The find was made at a cluster of tombs in Qishan county that date back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century-771 BC). Lei Xingshan, head of the dig team, said in Xi'an yesterday: "Prior to our discovery at the Temple of Duke Zhou, less than 1,100 Chinese characters written on pieces of bone and tortoiseshell had ever been found." Members of the team have been unearthing scripts almost every day since the excavation began on Sept 1, and there are now more than 1,100 readable words, which is a new record, he said. Among the finds is the character for "king", which could help archaeologists learn more about the lives of the Zhou kings and the region in which they lived, Lei said. Also, after excavating more than 100 commoners' tombs in the area around the duke's temple, the team has built up a large collection of pottery and bronze ware that will help paint a better picture of the lives of ordinary people during the Western Zhou period, he said. "Coincidentally, we also found several items from the Yangshao period of the neolithic era (5,000-7,000 years ago); the first time such relics have been found near the Temple of Duke Zhou," he said. Zhou Chunmao, a researcher with the Shaanxi archaeology research institute, told China Daily Tuesday that the discovery of the new oracle bone scripts has great significance for the understanding of the formation of the Western Zhou dynasty and the structure of society at that time. Since the first oracle bones were found in 1898, Chinese archaeologists have unearthed more than 100,000 pieces of bone and tortoiseshell inscribed with characters. Archaeologists' interest in the area around the Temple of Duke Zhou was aroused in December 2003, after a team led by Peking University Professor Xu Tianjin found two inscriptions featuring 55 characters there. Prior to the record haul by Lei's team, 760 inscriptions dating from the Western Zhou Dynasty had been found in the area. Duke Zhou was the fourth son of the founding King Wenwang of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and regent to to his nephew King Chengwang.

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Divination may be at the root of the earliest forms of "board" games. Chess historians pay scant attention to this aspect of the development of games, seeming to insist that chess is somehow "different" (hint: it's not, darlings). Theory suggests that the earliest "boards" were drawn in the earth with a stick or a finger. The shamans of the Dogon to this day continue to construct complex board-like structures by drawing in the earth in preparation for divination. Another line of thought traces the earliest development of "board" games to the development of agriculture - it is fascinating to see depictions of "fields" and the layout of entire towns along "chessboard" like grids that date back to 8000 years ago.

Ancient Games: Points to Ponder

A short essay from the Elliott Avedon Museum and Archive of Games website: Origins of Games - Issues to Ponder There is considerable difficulty in determining the origin of many games. This page offers some reasons why this is so. The main issue seems to be - are most games just modifications of a couple of games from the very distant past which have evolved and have been diffused throughout the world over time? Or are most games individual creative productions which were invented in different parts of the world at time periods in time. One reason that determining the origin of games is difficult is because games have been around a long time, and people didn't bother to maintain records about something as inconsequential as games. Although there are ancient tomb paintings depicting game playing, or remnants of ancient game equipment [discovered in archaeological excavations in Egypt and Mesopotamia], no one specifically maintained information about when or where a game was "invented' or from which culture it was "borrowed". Such record keeping is a product of the late middle ages and onward. In examining the origins of anything in society, one knows that a thing is either a spontaneous invention of someone, someplace - or the thing is a modified copy of the original that shows up in some other place. That's easy to see because a chair is a chair, or a can opener is a can opener, and this is also true with regard to certain intellectual concepts in mathematics or physics, for example. With games - this is not always the case. Nowadays, when one identifies something as a game as opposed to something else in society, they recognize that a game is a special device or behavior used for recreative purposes. It is taken for granted that games have been perpetuated by civilization to amuse and to entertain. Nonetheless, some people may have also consciously used games for other purposes, such as education or treatment of illness. This has probably been the case since people first began playing games, and may help to explain why in the 19th and early 20th centuries so much of scholarly study of game origins concerned their use in religious rites and practices of certain cultures. In examining anything, one may arbitrarily concentrate on the physical aspects of the thing, or how it might have been used. In the case of a chair or a can opener - its design is limited by its function. Since games may be assigned different functions in society, they may have been consciously modified. This has confused investigation in the past. (For example, in our time those 52 pieces of blank white plastic with little bumps on them are in reality a deck of Braille playing cards designed for use of sightless persons.) In a physical sense, there are two types of games - those that require special equipment and/or settings - and those that don't. Examples of the former would be roulette or tennis; while examples of the latter would be 20 questions or charades. Tracing the origins of games without physical equipment is even more difficult. At times, it is possible to trace connections among games even though they may look and seem very different. A case in point is a standard European Chess set and a Japanese Shogi set. Although they have different boards and playing pieces - one of the pieces in each set features the same unique move. In the West it's called the knight's move - one forward and one to the side, or one to the side and one forward. Or another example would be in decks of playing cards from many different cultures - all decks of cards are divided into suits and sequences. Similarities such as these have led a number of scholars to conclude that many games have a singular origin and were diffused to different cultures over time by traders, travelers, and soldiers. Because of these and certain other reasons, for the most part - theories about the origins and early geographical distribution of games are just theories which may never be verified!