Dong Zuobin or Tung Tso-pin (1895–1963) was a Chinese archaeologist. He was a leading authority on the

oracle bone Oracle bones () are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. '' Scapulimancy'' is the correct term if ox scapulae were used for ...

and turtle shell inscriptions of the

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...

(1600-1046 BC). In 1928, Dong supervised the first archaeological dig of Anyang, the Shang capital. Dong was a professor at

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

and director of the institute of philology and history at Academia Sinica from 1950 to 1954. Dong's construction of a Shang chronology was his most important research achievement.Boorman, Harvard L., editor,
Biographical Dictionary of the Republic of China
', "Tung Tso-pin", Columbia University Press, New York, 1967. III:345-347.

Early life

Dong was born 20 March 1895 to a shopkeeper's family in

Nanyang Nanyang is the romanization of two common Chinese place names. It may refer to: Written as 南洋 (Southern Ocean) * Nanyang (region), a Chinese term denoting the Southeast Asian lands surrounding the South China Sea ;China * Nanyang Fleet, Qing ...

in southern

Henan Province Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

. His talent for calligraphy and writing were already noticed when he was a child. As a result, he was employed by a local seal engraver when he was about 11 or 12. As his father needed help in the shop, Dong could not begin formal education until 1915. In 1922, Dong went to Beijing to audit classes at Peking University and enrolled the following year.

Career

Dong became a professor at National Zhongshan University in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

in 1927. He visited Anyang in the summer of 1928 and found that villagers were still digging up oracle bones and shells and selling them, as they had been since around 1895. Although many scholars assumed that thirty years of looting had already removed all valuable items, Dong's visit led him to suggest an archaeological dig. His university approved the dig and he supervised fieldwork in October 1928. This was the first systematic dig of the Anyang site. Some 784 items were uncovered. There was a total of fifteen expeditions to Anyang before work was interrupted by the Sino-Japanese War. These expeditions were directed by Li Ji, and Dong participated in most of them. The most spectacular discovery, made in June 1937, was Pit H127. This underground chamber housed the archives of two Shang kings. Three tons of finds were removed from this pit.Higham, Charles,
Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations
', Infobase Publishing, May 14, 2014, "Dong Zuobin", p. 96. In March 1932, Dong's breakthrough work, ''Jiaguwen duandai yanjiu li'', was published. The work gave ten criteria for dating an inscription within the Shang dynasty. It also gave the genealogy of the Shang kings, terms of address used in the inscriptions, names of foreign countries used, grammatical constructions, and ideographic constructions. Publication of the inscriptions themselves was delayed due to wartime conditions and the arduous process of preparation. Dong finally able to published this important work in Hong Kong in 1941 as ''Yinxu wenzi, jia pian'' exts from Yinxu, first collection Dong accepted an invitation to lecture on oracle bone inscriptions in the United States in January 1947. He lectured at both

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

and at Yale. He returned to China in late 1948 and immediately began work on evacuating his department to Taiwan. Among Dong's achievements was his division of the evolution of the

oracle bone script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or Turtle shell#Plastron, turtle plastrons used in pyromancy, pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millen ...

into five stages. He also correlated various Shang calendars with lunar eclipses. His research also led to a chronological identification of the twelve kings who ruled Anyang for 273 years beginning 14 January 1384 BC.In 2000, the

Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project () was a multi-disciplinary project commissioned by the People's Republic of China in 1996 to determine with accuracy the location and time frame of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The project was di ...

produced a chronology that begins with Wu Ding, whose accession is dated as 1250 BC. Dong gives 1339 BC. He also worked out the dates of individual reigns and the rounds of ancestral sacrifice. Dong died in Taiwan on 23 November 1963.

Early life

Career

References

Further reading