Thank you very much, Mark, for this kind introduction and thank you all for coming to my talk.

So my talk today will be about archaeology of Osteoporamans here in early China.

So what is Osteoporamansi?

It is basically a technique of divination by using bones of animals from which meat has

been removed and to which heat was applied in order to produce cracks, what could be

interpreted by a diviner as an answer from the forces to which he was addressing.

This technique spread in East Asia about the fourth millennium BC.

In China, Osteoporamansi experienced its heyday during the last quarter of the second millennium

BC.

Then it became a highly elaborated technique and ritual practice at the royal court of

the Shan dynasty.

Later on, Osteoporamansi became gradually overshadowed by newer divination techniques

such as Yarov Stokes divination.

However, it persisted among some minority peoples like, for example, Mongols and it

has been and is still practiced in some other cultures across the world such as Native Americans.

My presentation today is dedicated to archaeological discoveries reflecting the practices of Osteoporamansi

in early China.

Although I promised to speak about new discoveries by which I mean the finds of two recent decades,

I will first go back a century earlier and briefly introduce you the circumstances under

which the ancient Osteoporamansi became known to the academic world.

Then I will outline the main research achievements and directions of the study of Osteoporamansi

during the 20th century and identify some new trends that are becoming apparent since

recently.

In the last part, I will present you some new discoveries and new observations of what

I was able to make in the framework of my research project here in Erlangen.

The story begins at the end of the 19th century when farmers discovered some strange bones

with signs in Anyang.

They identified those bones as dragon bones.

Dragon bones are petrified bones which are found here and there from time to time and

which are regarded as medicine and used in the traditional Chinese medicine.

The bones were sold, the finds were found, and eventually they became known to Wan Yizhong

who was the director of the Imperial Academy.

He was also a collector of early Chinese bronzes and a specialist in epigraphy.

He was able to recognize the signs on the bones as writing.

Wan was not able to continue his studies because he was politically engaged in the Boxer Rebellion

and he committed suicide in just one year after that.

But his friend Liu E published The Rubbings in 1903 and his friend Lord Renyu who was

also a political person but at the same time an epigrapher and collector of antiquities

was able to trace the source of the inscribed bones to Anyang, the seat of the kings of

the Shan dynasty.

As we are going to speak a lot about Chinese dynasties, and not everyone in this room is

very well aware of the Chinese chronology, so let me just give you some orientation in

time and space.

So the Empire was founded in China in 221 BC.

Early Imperial historiographers imagined their past as similar to the present and in the

deep antiquity they placed legendary emperors who ruled all of the world and then about

2000 years in between is commemorated as the epoch of the three dynasties, Xia, Shan and

Zhou.

Those dynasties belong to the epoch what archaeologists term the Bronze Age, a cultural

technological epoch, then the ability to produce bronze and alloy of copper, tin and sometimes