Oracle-bone inscriptions make UNESCO register

By Troye Sivan

甲骨文成功入选“世界记忆名录”发布会在故宫博物院举行，甲骨文成中国第13项入选该名录的文化遗产。

Chinese authorities announced that Chinese oracle-bone inscriptions—the earliest documentary evidence found in China—have been included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

China has been preparing these artifacts for the UNESCO program since 2013,and on Oct 30 UNESCO announced on its website oracle-bone inscriptions were included.

The inscriptions were excavated from the Yin ruins in Anyang city,Central China’s Henan province,which provide records of divinations and prayers to the gods from people in the late Shang Dynasty(16thcentury～11thcentury BC).

Oracle-bone inscriptions are the prototype of modern-day Chinese characters and the embodiment of the continuous evolution of Chinese civilization.

Initiated by UNESCO in 1992，the Memory of the World Program aims to rescue the gradually aging,worsening and disappearing documentary heritage in the world and to raise public awareness of the significance of documentary heritage.

The program takes place every two years,and China has 13 examples of documentary heritage inscribed on the Memory of the World Register so far.

The most recently included Chinese documentary evidence,“Archives of the Nanjing Massacre”,was inducted in 2015.

有关部门宣布中国甲骨文——中国出土的最古老的文书——入选联合国教科文组织“世界记忆名录”。

中国早在2013年就开始为联合国教科文组织准备甲骨，10月30日教科文组织在网站上宣布甲骨文入选。

甲骨文最早出土于中国河南省中部城市安阳市殷墟，为商代后期（公元前16世纪—公元前11世纪）人们的占卜问卦提供了记录。

甲骨文印记是现代汉字的原型，同时也是中华文化持续变革进化的象征。

世界遗产名录是由联合国教科文组织在1992年发起的，旨在减少世界上正在持续老化，衰败和消失的文物遗产，同时提高公众对于文物遗产继承重要性的认识。

该项目每两年申报发布一次，迄今为止，中国已有13项文物遗产收录其中。

最近刚收录的中国文献记载：南京大屠杀史实卷宗，是在2015年提交申报的。