北美所見甲骨選粹考釋

Selections from Oracle Bone Collections in North America

李棪(YIM LEE)

《中國文化研究所學報》 3卷2期 (1970/09) Pp. 255-320+ap1-20

https://doi.org/10.29708/JCS.CUHK.197009_3(2).0001

並列摘要

During the past ten years, I have had the opportunity of seeing and examining more than 5,700 pieces of genuine inscribed oracle bones in North American collections alone; and at the same time, I made hundreds of transparencies and colour prints with over two thousand black and white photoprints, which I believe to be as good a collection of photographs of oracle bones as may be found anywhere. These photoprints are good for reading purposes but for the most part they do not reproduce very well. I have, therefore, chosen only a few of them for this article Fortuhately Dr. H. H. Chou has kindly supplied me with some thirty ink-squeezed specimens to make this article more presentable. I also thank Mr. H. Tribner of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto University; Dr. James L. Swauger of the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh University; Dr. John O. Brew of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University and Dr. E. Evans of the Columbia University Library, for without their kind help and interest I would not now be able to introduce their collections to the public. The 42 pieces introduced here are only examples from the five different collections and this short essay but a preliminary description of a superb treasury of oracle bones in the Western World never published before. The first of these collections is Bishop White's collection of 2,999 pieces. Ever since Bishop Williams C. White published his Bone Culture of Ancient China, scholars began to admire his large collection of oracle bones, of some 3,000 pieces, but owing to the fact that he was not a specialist in this 'field, he did not manage to assess its value, or classify the pieces as the Japanese did in the Kyoto Collection, or group them according to periods as Academia Sinica suggested to other museums which had bought their oracle bones only from art dealers and therefore could not follow the archaeological order of arranging them by site. Professor Kaizuka Shigeki of Kyoto University had an opportunity of looking at the Collection when he visited Toronto a year before my arrival. He was unable to work on, them because of their disorderly state. In 1963, I was invited to the Royal Ontario Museum, and singled out 151 pieces which I considered forgeries, as well as 84 pieces without inscriptions. I used Professor Tung Tso-pin's method for periodization, fitting the remaining 2,764 pieces into five sections. Then, I classified the pieces belonging to each section according to the usual categories for oracle bones. The next collection which I wish to discuss is Dr. James D. Menzies' collection of 1,750 pieces which is also in Toronto. In 1917, Dr. Menzies published his Oracle Records from the Waste of Yin in Shanghai, containing tracings of 2,369 fragments. Afterwards he continued to collect oracle bones from time to time. There were rumours that he owned more than 20,000 pieces, and in some articles published in Peking after the war, Chinese scholars accused Dr. Menzies of having brought them all back to Canada. In fact, he had buried all his Chinese antiques, including the oracle bones, in missionary ground some- where in Shantung. (I have this information from Professor F. S. Drake.) The present collection of 1,750 pieces was brought back with him to Canada in 1938, according to Mrs. Menzies. It is worthwhile mentioning that none of these pieces has ever been ink-squeezed or photographed or traced, and so, of course, never published. According to Mr. H. Tribner, the Curator of R.O.M., this collection has been on loan to the Museum since Dr Menzies' death in March 1957, and since then its existence has not been known to anyone apart from the staff of the Royal Ontario Museum. I was lucky enough to be allowed to undertake the assessment and then the re-arrangement of the collection in the same way as for the Bishop White collection. The third collection is the Carnegie Museum's collection of 438 pieces. The Couling- Chalfant Collection of Inscribed Oracle Bone was published in 1935, where this collection is reproduced by tracings only. Scholars seldom quote from this material owing to doubts about its authenticity. I have examined the collection more than once, and have found only 4 pieces which I consider to be forgeries. Dr. James L. Swauger, the Deputy Director of the Carnegie Museum of Arts, knowing that I was about to publish some inscriptions from the collection, sent me 50 good photoprints from which I might choose. Though I appreciate his kindness, I shall not use the photoprints for this article, as I have already borrowed Dr. H. H. Chou's ink-squeezed specimens. On the occasion of my second visit to the Museum in 1964, I pieced together 12 pieces from 32 fragments; these are among the pieces that I have chosen for reproduction in this article. The fourth collection is the Harvard Peabody Museum's collection. According to the Museum record, two lots of oracle bones are stored there. The first lot was collected by Langdon Warner in April 1919 at Hsiao-Tun, from villagers. There were 817 small fragments, most of them haying 2 or 3 characters on them, a few as many as 5 or 6 characters, but owing to the way in which the fragments are broken, these are not all consecutive. The second lot consists of 14 good-sized pieces with inscriptions ranging on the average from about 10 to 30 characters or more each. These were presented to the Fogg Museum by Mr. Yamanaka, the art dealer, and are on deposit as a loan. I came to examine this collection in 1964, and found that I can vouch for its authenticity, although there are only one-tenth of the total number of 700 that can be said to have any value for scholars. The fifth collection is the Columbia University Library collection. In 1963, I was in New York and found two Oracle Bone Collections in the East Asian Section of the Columbia University Library. This collection is in two lots: (1) a small collection of 62 pieces originally owned by Professor J. Smith. After an intensive study, I came to the conltusion that it had been, unearthed during the time when there was a quarrel between Academia Sinica and the local Government between December 1929 and March 1931. According to a report published by the Chinese Government in An Yang, some of the bones unearthed during the period between the third and fourth Excavations led by Academia Sinica, were stolen from where they were stored on the site and sold to foreigners. Because most of these 62 pieces are related to those published in Hsiao-T'un Archaeo-logia Sinica, No. 2, Part I-I dare to say that this collection, although small, is as important as that in Academia Sinica. (2) Another collection of about 100 fragments originally owned by Mr. Roswell S. Britton. Here, I could single out only 15 pieces which are genuine and even these are not of any importance.