Recently, an online book launch for Compendium of Oracle Bone Inscriptions was held in Beijing and simultaneously broadcast to more than 350,000 viewers across the globe. Mr. Huang Tianshu, editor-in-chief of the book and professor from Tsinghua University, attended the event.

Divided into 43 volumes, this seminal work contains inscriptions of 70,659 pieces of oracle bones, 28,703 more than its earlier counterpart. The book adopts a new periodization approach instead of the traditional Five Period method to categorize oracle bone inscriptions, which remarkably reduces confusion and inconsistency.

Known to be the largest collection of oracle bone inscriptions to date, the book has been acclaimed as “a milestone publication in the study of oracle bones,” and has been praised for “setting a framework for the future direction of this initiative.” It is also one of the most important outcomes of a national-level project on ancient Chinese language jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Education and other competent authorities.