April 8, 1931. Xiaotun, Anyang, Henan.

In a pit numbered E10, the excavator Wang Xiang dug up a great heap of animal bones: a tiger skull, the lower jaw of an elephant, a whale's shoulder blade, cattle bones, sawn-off deer antlers.

Among them was a deer skull, antlers still attached, with three lines of characters carved into the bone.

It is one of only two inscribed deer skulls known in the world today.

I. Twelve characters

Twelve characters survive on the skull.

They say, roughly: on the day wuxu, the king hunted at Hao; a guan libation was offered to Wen Wu Ding; the king returned from a campaign.

Scholars read it this way: after a Shang king campaigned against an outlying polity, he hunted on the way home and offered the game to his ancestor Wen Wu Ding.

Some characters are missing. Where Hao lies today, and what route the army took, these few characters cannot map.

II. Not a divination

Most writing on oracle bones is divination, asking "what will happen."

This skull is different. It belongs to a rare class of "record inscriptions," noting something that had already been done.

Asking whether a sacrifice should be held is one thing; recording a sacrifice that has already taken place carries a different weight.

Records carved on animal skulls are mostly connected with sacrifice. The two deer skulls and one cattle skull held by the Institute of History and Philology all record game offered to ancestors.

The other deer skull (Jia 3941) was excavated in 1929. It has no antlers and is less complete than this one. The oracle-bone characters on the emblem of Academia Sinica are taken from that skull.

III. Ancestors with names

On another turtle plastron, the recipient of sacrifice is Shang Jia; on a cattle astragalus, a Shang king is recorded sacrificing to Da Yi.

Turtle shell, cattle bone, deer skull: each preserves the name of a different ancestor. They are not a list of offerings from a single day, but they show that the Shang kings did not face an abstract "god." They faced a line of forebears, each with a name.

Who stood in the ancestral line, and what offerings each received, bore on how the living king understood where he came from.

IV. Hunt first or sacrifice first

A turtle plastron excavated in 1991 at Huayuanzhuang East in Anyang asks, on the same xinyou day, about two possible arrangements:

Should Ding hunt first, and then hold the sacrifice called fa?

Or sacrifice first, and then go hunting?

Here fa is the name of a rite, not a military expedition. The plastron does not tell us which was chosen. But it shows that the order of hunt and sacrifice was worth asking about in earnest.

It is not the same occasion as the deer skull, and the two cannot be joined into one day's itinerary.

V. Four layers underground

Xibeigang, on the north bank of the Huan River, was the Shang kings' own cemetery and sacrificial ground.

Tomb 1004 was robbed many times, but a short stretch of the southern ramp near the burial pit was left undisturbed. The objects there lay in four layers.

At the bottom, probably chariots, leather armor and shields, now decayed. In the second layer, more than a hundred bronze helmets, seventy bronze dagger-axes and over 370 bronze spearheads. In the third, 360 bronze spearheads laid out in neat rows.

On top lay the famous Deer Fangding and Ox Fangding, stone chimes and jade rods.

Weapons below, ritual vessels above. The Zhou, later, had a saying: the great affairs of a state are sacrifice and war. In the corner that survived the looting, this tomb set the two side by side.

Whose tomb it was, nothing says. None of these tombs can be firmly matched to a particular Shang king.

VI. People counted among the offerings

A cattle scapula asks: at a place called Yijing, may three Qiang people and ten cattle be offered?

People were written into the tally of offerings.

This is a question, and it cannot prove the three people were in fact killed afterward. Where Yijing lay is unknown. "Qiang" is a term from Shang sources and cannot be equated with any present-day ethnic group.

But human sacrifice did exist, and there is other evidence. Tomb 1550 at Xibeigang has four accompanying-burial pits, with complete skeletons and a few grave goods. Its southern and northern ramps held many human heads: eight in the southern ramp, 235 in the northern, laid in twenty-four rows.

Those who accompanied the dead often had coffins and grave goods; those killed as offerings were usually decapitated. The dead did not all share the same fate.

VII. One character: wu

The Institute also holds a small fragment of human skull, white, less than three centimeters on each side, with a single character left on it: wu.

Inscriptions on other human skulls include phrases like "the fang chief is used" and "the chief of the Ren polity, a fa offering to Zu Yi," recording polity leaders offered to the Shang kings' ancestors. In 1984 and 1999, bronze yan steamers holding human heads were also found in sacrificial pits at Yinxu. Archaeologists suspect these were polity chiefs who had been cooked.

None of these conjectures can be carried over to this fragment. It tells us nothing of the dead person's name, origin or life.

In oracle-bone script, wu is a dagger-axe above a foot: its first meaning was to set out on campaign carrying a weapon. The later gloss "stopping the dagger-axe is wu" is another matter.

VIII. What became of the deer skull

In 1933, Dong Zuobin looked at the whale scapula and elephant jaw lying beside the deer skull in pit E10 and suggested they were all exotic trophies taken when Di Xin campaigned against the Ren polity in the east.

Being found in the same pit cannot prove that every bone came from the same campaign. That elegant explanation is still bounded by the gaps in the text.

The skull's later life, though, is perfectly clear.

In April 1937 it was shown publicly for the first time, at the Second National Art Exhibition in Nanjing. As the war spread, the Institute moved to Lizhuang in Sichuan; on June 9, 1941, in a makeshift exhibition hall there, it was still the center of attention.

In 1998 it traveled to the Grand Palais in Paris. On April 2, 2008, it was designated a National Treasure. In 2014 it appeared on a postage stamp.

Today it is in the Museum of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, in Nangang, Taipei, in a special display case from July 25, 2026 to February 3, 2027.

Epilogue

The end of a deer, a king's journey, an ancestor's name: all carved on the same piece of bone.

Many offerings were made before the ancestors: game, cattle, bronze, and people. Who those offerings came from, and how they arrived, deserve to be remembered alongside the ancestors' names.

Sources and editorial notes

1. IHP Museum, “Approaching National Treasures: Inscribed Deer Skull” (2026). Object R041038 / Jia 3940, field number 4.946; the April 8, 1931 discovery in Xiaotun E10; and the reading of twelve surviving characters were consulted. Old conjectures assigning all accompanying animals to campaigning and inconsistent depth figures on the webpage are not adopted. https://museum.sinica.edu.tw/exhibitions/205/ 2. IHP Museum, “Oracle Bone Stars”: Yi 8688, cattle astragalus recording sacrifice to Dayi; Jia 3333 + 3361, the Yijing charge involving three Qiang persons and ten cattle; and Jia 3739. Charges are not converted into completed events, and the ancient label Qiang is not equated with modern ethnic boundaries. https://museum.sinica.edu.tw/exhibitions/21/ 3. Yu Chenglong, “Turtle Plastron with Sacrificial Inscriptions,” National Museum of China, consulted for Shangjia as recipient. Later narratives about Shangjia and Wang Hai are not read back into this object. https://www.chnmuseum.cn/zp/zpml/csp/202008/t20200826_247305.shtml 4. National Museum of China / Institute of Archaeology, CASS, 2013–2014 Yinxu exhibition: the Huayuanzhuang East H3 object excavated in 1991, querying hunting before sacrifice or sacrifice before hunting. Only that object's reading is used; broad claims concerning Pan Geng's motives or the projection of later jade-ritual systems are not adopted. https://www.chnmuseum.cn/zl/zlhg/201812/t20181220_32319.shtml 5. IHP Museum, “Yinxu Culture”: tomb 1004's object layers, uncertainty about assigning individual royal tombs, and differing human burial contexts. A later saying from the Zuo Commentary is not presented as a Shang king's speech. https://museum.sinica.edu.tw/exhibitions/28/ 6. IHP Museum, “Stopping the Dagger-Axe? Human Skull Inscriptions,” consulted for Jia 3739 and statements about two other skull inscriptions. Speculative identification of all victims as chiefs and a universal processing sequence are not adopted. https://museum.sinica.edu.tw/knowledge-base/item/60/ 7. National Museum of China, 2019 oracle-bone exhibition, for the coexistence of Di, ancestors, and natural powers, without constructing an undisputed complete pantheon from exhibition summaries. https://www.chnmuseum.cn/portals/0/web/zt/20191022jiagu/ 8. UNESCO Yin Xu description and component maps, cross-checking royal-cemetery human sacrifice, modern Anyang, and areas on the two banks of the Huan. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1114/ ; https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1114/maps/ 9. Time and place: ancient activity is situated broadly in the late Shang, approximately the thirteenth–eleventh centuries BCE, without invented exact royal dates. The years 1931 and 1991 are modern discoveries. Xiaotun, Huayuanzhuang East, and Xibeigang are distinct locations. Map associations use documented area references for the palace/shrine and royal-cemetery components; Hao and Yijing remain unresolved, with no invented campaign or hunting route. 10. Original bilingual narrative paraphrasing ancient inscriptions and archaeological facts. No protected paper, photograph, or complete modern transcription is reproduced. Dialogue, sensory scenes, private thoughts, personal identities, and causal links have not been invented. Discussion of resources, power, and differing experiences is contemporary editorial interpretation, not a purported Shang personal account.