A Study On The Form Of Oracle Bone Inscriptions’ Components

This thesis chooses A New Compilation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions as the material resource, and figures out741components based on the structural analysis of all the inscriptions in the main body of the compilation. All the components, inscriptions related, and the group-division information are present in the appendix, which is also the very reference to the analysis of the components graphic variation in different inscriptions, groups and periods. Each group graphic characteristic is shown as follows:curving lines are frequently used in Dui-group inscriptions; Zi-group inscriptions are very graphic; Bin-group inscriptions have more variations; most of the strokes are very square in Li-group inscriptions; Wu Ming-group inscriptions always add additional strokes; Huang-group inscriptions tend to unify. The variation trend boils down to five points, such as the forms and lines of the components tend to be linearized and fixed, the components add additional strokes more often in the middle to late period of Yin-shang dynasty, and the components of the same period have similarities in their forms. Also the thesis provides several possible reasons for those trends.