| Summary: | 碩士 === 世新大學 === 中國文學研究所 === 107 === This thesis first traces the origin of the three-year mourning period in the Shang Dynasty. After summarizing the related literature, it is inferred that the three-year mourning period may stem from the custom of a second burial. Based on this finding, the focus of this study is unfolded and divided into two parts. Firstly, this thesis analyzes Shang people’s naming principle which used the ten celestial stems to give titles and examines the particular phenomenon of the cycle of ancestral sacrifices as well as worship in the Shang Dynasty to point out their potential association with three-year mourning period.
Secondly, this thesis discusses the creative composition of three words in oracle bone script: Jí (Disease), Sǐh (Death) and Zàng (burying). The pictogram of Jí is the form of a person lying on the bed due to disease or wounds; qiang, its component, is the pictogram of chuáng (the bed) and chuáng is installed primarily for terminal or dying people, or set in a coffin for positioning a body. As for Sǐh, there are two forms for the character: one indicates the shape of the dead put in a coffin, and the other refers to the human bones. Zàng has six variants, chiefly divided into two signifying branches, respectively representing the form of the first burial right after a person’s death and the second burial carried out after skeletonization. Lastly, combining the messages these three words convey with the archeology studies for burials and tombs in the Shang Dynasty, this thesis concludes that the customary second burial was practised in the Shang Dynasty, and “three years” were the time the decomposition process of the human body would take. Thus, it is highly possible that the three-year mourning period was a widespread custom in the Shang Dynasty.
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