January
13
/ 2024
Believe it or not, but the intriguing discovery of China's earliest writing was thanks to an unlikely ally— malaria. When the Chancellor of the Imperial Academy, Wang Yirong, contracted malaria, he was prescribed dragon bones, a conventional remedy believed mystical healing properties. While usually sold in powdered form, a stroke of luck provided him with whole bones on which remnants of inscriptions were still visible. This fortuitous event ultimately led to the discovery of the famed oracle bones of Yinxu, a site now known as the cradle of Chinese writing. Wang Yirong fell ill in 1899 and, as luck would have it, he was visited by a fellow scholar by the name of Liu E who joined him in researching
