甲骨卜辭微斷代的演算法研究

殷墟甲骨文是世界四大古文明的文字書寫系統之一，甲骨文年代問題是研究甲骨文主要的工作，學者對甲骨文的分期斷代進行了諸多的研究，由於許多甲骨不是科學發掘的，但是要作為史料，必須要確定其年代。故本研究最終目標為建立一套固定的演算方式，探討卜辭上月份與干支，推算甲骨板歲首可能的干支且對照年表推論卜辭刻寫的可能年代，並立於前人研究的斷代基礎上，納入貞人與分期因素，將不符合邏輯性的成果排除，最後提供最有可能的結果。本研究從68,057甲骨板中，找出394板符合計算條件可以計算歲首干支，並且推論可能年代，再從其中以合集版號11485的甲骨板與夏含夷教授所提出的微細斷代法結果進行比對，討論月首干支與曆法比對的問題。考慮曆表的不確定性將系統設計成可以在比對曆法時調整歲首月與月首，並將演算結果給甲骨文研究人員進行考證。

關鍵字

甲骨文；卜辭；斷代工程；貞人

並列摘要

Oracle bones is one of the four most important ancient written languages. One oracle bone often contains one to more than ten oracles. Dating the oracles has been one of the most celebrated problems of Oracle Bone Studies. Although we know the approximate dates (from 1300s BCE to 1100s BCE, Ying Era of Shang Dynasty) of the oracles, the precise years (or even dates) when the oracles were made are mostly unknown. This problem is called Microdating by Edward L. Shaughnessy. In this study, we try to develop algorithms utilizing the records of months and ganzhi (干支, Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches) that are often recorded in the oracles. We also use work by previous scholars on the possible periods of the oracle bones and the zhenren (貞人, divinitors) to rule out the unlikely dates. In our study, we selected 394 oracle plates, from the 68,057 plates whose orales have been identified and transcribed, that meet our conditions, then calculated the possible candidates of the dates of each plate. We compared our finding on plate number 11485 which was used by Shaughnessy in his microdating method. During the comparison we noticed another problem, which is the uncertainty that may arize from the calendars used by different scholars. To be more precise, it is still uncertain among scholars which month of the calendar common used corresponds to the first month of the year during Ying Era. Our algorithm has the advantage of avoiding this controversy by calculating different potential dates for different calendar conventions. Scholars may even use our results to study which calendar convention is more likely