Image: OracleSun

Description: Oracle bone stating: 貞：今日，其雨？ which can be translated to: Divination: today, will it rain? According to the exhibit caption, the Chinese words or phrases for "Sun" can be found on this oracle bone fragment. Another wikipedian interpreted the writing and suggested the character is actually "Day". In Chinese "Sun" and "Day" shares the same character. This picture was taken in July 2004 from an exhibit at Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California. The caption for the exhibit read: Oracle Bones Shang Dynasty (c. 16th - 11th century BCE) Over 3,000 years ago, the Chinese used animal bones to help make important decisions. To use an oracle bone, a diviner made two statements, one positive and one negative. Each oracle bone had two halves, a positive one and a negative one, with holes bored in each half. When the holes were heated with a burning stick, the bone cracked. The king would read the cracks to find the answers. No one knows exactly how the cracks were interpreted. Afterwards, information about the oracle was carved onto the bone.
Title: OracleSun
Credit: Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Tomchen1989 using CommonsHelper.
Author: The original uploader was Kowloonese at English Wikipedia.
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