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Luo Zhenyu [Lo Chen-yü; zi Xuetang; hao Chensuntang]
(b Huaian, Jiangsu Province, 3 Aug 1866; d Lüshun, Liaoning Province, 19 June 1940). Chinese writer, collector and calligrapher. He is particularly well known for his studies of oracle bone script ( jiagu wen), the earliest Chinese writing, so called because it was found on animal bones and shells used for divination (see CHINA, §IV, 2(i)(a)). Luo’s friend Wang Yirong (1845–1900) and Liu E (1857–1909) were the first to collect the bones, which they discovered and rescued from pharmacists, who ground them up for medical prescriptions. The importance of oracle bones for early Chinese history was more widely recognized in 1899 after large quantities of them were unearthed at the Yinxu site in ANYANG, Henan Province. Sun Yirang (1848–1908), Wang Guowei (1867–1927) and Luo investigated the texts on the oracle bones, and Luo dated them to the latter part of the Shang period (c. 1600–c. 1050 BC); before the discovery of these artefacts, many Western scholars believed the Shang dynasty to be a myth. Luo published many reproductions of oracle bones from his own and Lin E’s collections, but he was not only interested in oracle bones: he also wrote extensively about the scripts on Han (206 BC–AD 220) wooden slips and calligraphy from the Six Dynasties (AD 222–589), Sui (AD 581–618) and Tang (AD 618–907) periods.
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