))The subjects which the Shang rulers inquired about through the oracle bones cover most aspects of the king's life. Questions regarding royal births, military and hunting expeditions, agricultural issues, the disposition of his ancestors' spirits, and even questions such as the cause of a toothache(!) are included among the inscriptions.(Yang, Xiaoneng, Ed. 1999),(Keightley 1976).
Shang divination was a very methodical, even logical, business.
Questions were posed in the form of "charge-pairs"-the
couching of questions in affirmative an
negative forms, reflecting an early form of the classic yin/yang
dichotomy. A typical charge-pair inscription on the bones takes
the following form:
As this account shows, there are various aspects to a typical divination record. There is usually a Preface, Charge(s), Prognostication, and Verification, but not all of these aspects were recorded in every period. The Preface usually included notes about who ritually prepared the scapula/plastron and the date of the divination.
The court diviners and scribes took care to make sure that the
inscriptions reported
what took place after the divination. In cases of failure, the language used didn't directly refute the king, but it did report what actually happened, even if it contradicted the king's prognostication. The king's importance is reflected in his title of "I, the one man" (Yang, Xiaoneng, Ed. 1999, pg.183), who alone could be relied upon to effectively intercede on behalf of the Shang civilization with the ancestors, but at the same time, the king apparently didn't make claims of total infallibility. The honest intent reflected in the inscriptions indicates sincere belief in divination by all members of Shang society, from peasant to the king (Keightley 1999).
From the translation and analysis of the oracle bones, archaeologists and other scholars have learned much about the cultural achievements of the Late Shang. One of the more interesting facets of Shang achievement communicated by the bones is the evidence for astronomical record keeping. Celestial phenomena such as solar and lunar eclipses, sunspots, references and records of sacrifices made to known stars and constellations, such as Antares, references to the planet Jupiter, and observations of comets were recorded on the oracle bones (Xu, Kevin K.C., and Stephenson 1989).