Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 17, 28 November 2023
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Red and Ink in Oracle Bone Inscriptions
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Abstract
Based on oracle bone inscriptions, it is evident that the color system of the Shang Dynasty was relatively advanced and mature, with frequent references to white color in extant literature, forming the concept of "Shang people value white." However, with the discovery of vermillion and ink inscriptions on oracle bones and the use of red and black in many oracle texts, the veracity of the notion of "Shang people value white" remains debatable. This is closely related to the concepts of "Xia people value black" and "Zhou people value red," as the Shang Dynasty was positioned between the Xia and Zhou Dynasties, and color usage and other cultural practices were likely inherited by the succeeding dynasties. Thus, vermillion, ink, and white colors were all crucial to the Shang people.
Keywords
Shang Dynasty, oracle bones, vermillion, ink
References
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the International Conference on Global Politics and Socio-Humanities
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-167-4
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-168-1
- Published Date
- 28 November 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/17/20230882
- Copyright
- 28 November 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited