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Shi Zhangru
Archaeologist who joined the Yinxu excavations at Anyang in 1931 and spent decades preparing the Xiaotun series of excavation reports.
Mural of the event “Excavating Yinxu”, which this person took part in.
At the end of the Qing, inscribed bones from around Xiaotun in Anyang were recognised as Shang writing, and many were then dug up privately and scattered through the antiques trade. In 1928 the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica set out to excavate Yinxu by scientific method, and on 13 October Dong Zuobin opened the first trial excavation at Xiaotun. Li Ji then took charge, and by 1937 there had been fifteen seasons: the foundations of Shang palaces and temples at Xiaotun, Shang royal tombs at Xibeigang, and in 1936 pit YH127, which yielded more than 17,000 inscribed oracle-bone pieces.
Also known as Shih Chang-ju (Wade-Giles)
- Roles
- Historian
Shi Zhangru was born at Yanshi in Henan in 1902. In 1931, while a student at Henan University, he and Liu Yao were chosen to join the Yinxu excavations, and in 1932 he entered the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, working on the palace and temple foundations at Xiaotun and at Hougang and Houjiazhuang, and guiding newcomers such as Xia Nai in the field. Made a research fellow in 1949, he moved with the institute to Taiwan and spent decades preparing the Yinxu records, compiling the Xiaotun series of reports and a chronology of excavations. He was elected an academician of Academia Sinica in 1978 and died in 2004 at the age of 102.
Life and times
Dates 1902 CE–2004 CE
- 1928Excavating YinxuTook partage 26
- c. 1934Liang Siyong Excavates Xibeigang Royal Tombsage 32
- 1936Oracle-Bone Pit YH127 Foundage 34