Anyang creates a new landmark of Chinese culture in the Yinxu Oracle Bone Inscriptions
The new Yinxu Museum opened with a bang, presenting the great Shang civilization in a panoramic view. The provincial tourism development conference proposed to gradually form a widespread understanding that “visiting Yinxu is a must for traveling to China, and seeing Chinese culture is a must for seeing oracle bone inscriptions.” The “Walking in Henan, Reading Chinese Characters” promotion activity for the new landmark of Chinese culture of Yinxu Oracle Bone Inscriptions was launched in Anyang. A series of cultural and tourism events were held in Anyang, and major measures were launched around Anyang. The ancient capital Anyang stood at the center of the cultural and tourism stage.
On the evening of June 29, Henan Province’s “Walking in Henan, Reading Chinese Characters” promotion activity for the new landmark of Chinese culture of Yinxu Oracle Bone Inscriptions was grandly opened in the new Yinxu Museum, using characters as a medium to invite the world.
Yinxu records the past, shapes today, and serves the future. We have the obligation to pass it on well. “Tang Jigen, a professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology and the former leader of the Yinxu Archaeological Team of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said with emotion, “The Anyang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government are doing a great thing, which is to continue the great Shang civilization. ”
Yinxu is the first capital site of the Shang Dynasty in China that has been documented and confirmed by archaeological excavations. According to oracle bone inscriptions, the people of the Shang Dynasty called their capital Dayi Shang. According to archaeological calculations, Dayi Shang was the largest and most prosperous capital in the world at that time, with an area of more than 30 square kilometers and a population of more than 100,000.
The construction of Yinxu Archaeological Cultural Tourism Town is accelerating, and the Yinxu Archaeological Science Experience Hall will be open to the public on May 1. The new Yinxu Museum, the Yinxu Palace and Temple Area, the Royal Tomb Area, and the Yinxu Archaeological Cultural Tourism Town together constitute a large-scale Yinxu interpretation system of “one museum, two areas, and one town”.
“The planning scope of the more ambitious Yinxu National Archaeological Site Park covers the entire Yinxu Protection Area, and will build a world-class archaeological site park and a model for the sustainable development of world cultural heritage.” A relevant person in charge of the Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau said, “A series of protection projects such as the environmental improvement of the Yinxu core area and the improvement of the protection and display of Yinxu have been launched. The Dayi Shang 3,300 years ago is striding towards us.”
On July 29, in the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Oracle Bone Information Processing of Anyang Normal University, the laboratory director Liu Yongge operated a computer to show reporters that a three-dimensional oracle bone was clearly displayed on the monitor, rotating in all directions and zooming in and out at will. Through micro-trace analysis, the reporter can not only see the writing style and stroke overlap relationship on the oracle bone tablets, but also understand the details such as the drilling shape, divination cracks, material texture, etc.
“This is a digital oracle bone.” Liu Yongge said, “We cooperated with Tencent to achieve technical breakthroughs in “micro-trace analysis” and “oracle bone 3D modeling” based on artificial intelligence and other technologies, and established the “Oracle Bone Script Full Information Data Model”, which achieved high-fidelity restoration and protection of oracle bones in digital space, giving oracle bones eternal life.”
Relying on the “Oracle Bone Script Full Information Data Model”, our city is working hard to coordinate and promote the return of oracle bones scattered at home and abroad to their hometowns in a digital form, which will not only achieve the goal of sustainable preservation and inheritance of oracle bones, but also bring revolutionary changes to the study and interpretation of oracle bones.
We have built the world’s first oracle bone big data platform – Yinqi Wenyuan, developed intelligent splicing technology and completed the splicing of 88 groups of oracle bone images, jointly built a digital oracle bone co-creation center with many well-known universities and research institutions at home and abroad, and released the world’s largest oracle bone multimodal data set. The digitalization and intelligentization of oracle bone research in our city has been accelerated.
The Chinese Character Museum is a popular science center for Chinese character culture represented by oracle bone inscriptions. It is a national first-class museum integrating cultural relic protection, display and scientific research. Millions of tourists come here every year to appreciate the charm of Chinese characters.
“The return of characters shines the light of 3,000 years of civilization, and cultural inheritance shows the fruits of civilization in the new era.” Wei Wencui, deputy director of the museum, said, “The Chinese Character Museum is more like the ‘home’ of Chinese characters. It has built a systematic and complete Chinese character culture exhibition system. While becoming a window to showcase Chinese culture, it strives to create an international cultural exchange platform.”
Our city has 47 provincial and municipal oracle bone inscription specialty education schools, allowing young people to be influenced by oracle bone inscriptions from an early age. 105 oracle bone bookstores are full of books, becoming the poetry and distance around the people. The protection and display of the oracle bone unearthed sites in Yinxu Huadong, the high-speed railway Anyang East Station uses oracle bone inscriptions and simplified characters for dual-standard display, the oracle bone inscription decoration of Anyang City Cultural and Sports Center, the main bus stops in the urban area, and more than 36,000 sets of road manhole covers, all reflect the elements of Yinxu and oracle bone inscriptions.
Adhering to Anyang’s profound cultural heritage, calligraphers in our city, represented by oracle bone inscriptions and seal scripts, have firmly established Anyang’s shining business card as “China’s Famous Calligraphy City”.
Our city’s original oracle bone inscription radio gymnastics scientifically combines oracle bone inscriptions with music and body movements to exercise the body and spread culture. It has been widely welcomed and has not only entered our city’s schools, institutions, and communities, but also promoted nationwide.
In the first half of the year, Anyang received a total of 43.1499 million tourists and a comprehensive tourism income of 37.491 billion yuan, up 33.98% and 14.04% year-on-year respectively. Our city’s cultural and tourism industry has shown a good trend of strong growth and comprehensive prosperity.
Tell the story of Anyang well and help the cultural and tourism industry grow bigger and stronger. During the May Day holiday this year, our city relied on Anyang Media’s “1+6+N” new media matrix to push more than 1,200 graphic reports and 380 original short videos, with a total of more than 13 million online views and more than 250,000 likes, bringing a steady stream of brand traffic to Anyang’s cultural tourism.
Create a new highland for study and tourism, focus on launching 10 boutique study and tourism routes such as “Study in the Capital of Characters” and “Red Classics”, and the number of people studying in Anyang this year has exceeded one million. Study courses such as “The Origin and Development of Chinese Characters from Ancient to Modern Times” were selected as the top ten cases of national cultural heritage study, and the Red Flag Canal Memorial Hall was selected as a national red gene bank construction unit.
“Yinxu Cultural Creativity” has become a well-known brand, “Anyang Gift” cultural creation has been released, and the 2024 “Yinxu Oracle Cup” Anyang Gift International Cultural Creativity Design Competition has officially kicked off. The series of activities of the “Henan Highlights, Let’s Come Together” People’s Cultural Festival were very popular, the “Anyang Culture and Tourism” smart tourism service platform was launched on May 1st, and 3 special bus tourist lines were opened. The level of tourism factor guarantee in our city continues to improve.
The ancient capital of Anyang is dancing, and the dance is wonderful. On par with the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang, the new landmark of Chinese culture, the oracle bone inscriptions at Yinxu, is being established. It is gradually becoming a consensus that “you must visit Yinxu when you travel to China, and you must see the oracle bone inscriptions when you want to learn about Chinese culture.”