Écriture et divination sous les Shang

摘要

Writing and divination during the Shang dynasty After a brief exposition of the main techniques of divination using bones and tortoise shells which were practised during the Shang dynasty (14th-11th century B.C.) in China, this article reviews the main endeavours to describe the relationship between this practice and the religious beliefs of that period. It is shown that pieces of evidence bear witness to the fact that the inscriptions engraved on bones and shells were not in themselves of the nature of divinations or incantations according to their textual characteristics. The hypothesis proposed here is that the act of divination in its practice and the act of writing from all its linguistics dimensions correspond to two artefacts and correlate in fact to two different types of rationality.