oracle bones, bones used for divination by the Chinese during the Shang dynasty (traditionally c.1766 B.C.-c.1122 B.C.). Along with contemporary inscriptions on bronze vessels, these records of divination, which were incised on the shoulder blades of animals (mainly oxen) and on turtle shells, contain the earliest form of Chinese writing. In addition to being an important source for understanding the development of written Chinese, they tell a great deal about Shang society. Questions asked by the diviners concerned such matters as sacrifices, weather, war, hunting, travel, and luck. The bones were heated to produce cracks from which "yes" or "no" answers were somehow derived. A small number of oracle bones have the answer and the eventual outcome inscribed. Discovered in the ruins of the Shang capital of Anyang in the late 19th cent., they were first sold as so-called dragon bones to be ground up for use in Chinese medicinal compounds and only received the attention of scholars in the 1920s.

oracle, in Greek religion, priest or priestess who imparted the response of a god to a human questioner. The word is also used to refer to the response itself and to the shrine of a god. Every oracular shrine had a fixed method of divination. Many observed signs, such as the motion of objects dropped into a spring, the movement of birds, or the rustle of leaves. Often dreams were interpreted. A later and popular method involved the use of entranced persons whose ecstatic cries were interpreted by trained attendants. Before an oracle was questioned consultants underwent rites of purification and sacrifice. There were many established oracles in ancient Greece, the most famous being those of Zeus at Dodona and of Apollo at Delphi and at Didyma in Asia Minor. Other oracular shrines were located in Syria, Egypt, and Italy.

Delphic oracle: see Delphi, Greece.

Source of a divine communication delivered in response to a petitioner's request. Ancient Greece and Rome had many oracles. The most famous was that of Apollo at Delphi, where the medium was a woman over 50 called the Pythia. After bathing in the Castalian spring, she apparently would descend into a basement cell, mount a sacred tripod, and chew the leaves of the laurel, sacred to Apollo. Her utterances, which were often highly ambiguous, were interpreted by priests. Other oracles, including those at Claros (Apollo), Amphicleia (Dionysus), Olympia (Zeus), and Epidaurus (Asclepius), were consulted through various other methods; for example, the oldest of the oracles, that of Zeus at Dodona, spoke through the whispering of the leaves of a sacred oak. At some shrines, the inquirer would sleep in the holy precinct and receive an answer in a dream.

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