Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

The rediscovery of the Shang began with malaria. That, at least, is the legend. In 1899 a sick member of Wang Yirong's family sent out to a pharmacist for turtle plastrons—the ventral shells—that could be used to make traditional Chinese medicine. Before the shells were ground up, somebody in the family noticed that they were inscribed with strange characters that resembled written Chinese.
   
Ever since, historians have argued about whether the tale is true. But there's no doubt that Wang Yirong, an expert in ancient Chinese texts, became the first major collector of the inscribed shells, called oracle bones, which he purchased from pharmacies. To the average literate Chinese, the oracle bone characters were at first glance unintelligible, but classical scholars like Wang immediately recognized them as an early form of the Chinese script. Wang's scholarship came to an abrupt end in 1900, when the Boxer Uprising raged across the nation in protest of foreign occupation of Chinese territories. Wang, who was a Qing dynasty government official, reluctantly accepted the command of some of the Boxer forces. On August 14, when European, U.S., and Japanese troops entered Beijing to put down the Boxers, Wang committed suicide by drinking poison and jumping down a well.

For years after Wang's death it seemed as if the objects—which were described by pharmacists as "dragon bones"—were anything but healing. Scholars bickered over their authenticity, and dealers tried to maintain a monopoly by lying about the source, which was a small village outside Anyang called Xiaotun. Villagers in Xiaotun became so obsessed by the dragon bone trade that they engaged in fights and lawsuits. Forgeries flooded the antiquities markets in Beijing and Shanghai.

But behind the chaos, the Chinese intellectual climate was undergoing revolutionary changes that allowed the oracle bones to be viewed in a new light. After the Qing fell at the end of 1911, intellectuals began calling for China to embrace Western science and philosophy. Realizing that archaeology could provide a fresh perspective of the past, the newly established Academia Sinica sent an excavation team to Xiaotun in 1928—a project that trained a generation of Chinese archaeologists.

The earliest digs, which followed in the tracks of looters and dealers, focused on retrieving oracle bones. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, as more than 100,000 inscribed fragments came to light, the once mythical Shang dynasty became historical.

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

Chinese names are difficult enough for Westerners—unfamiliar with the sounds and spellings—to pronounce, but additional confusion results because there are two different systems of romanization of Chinese characters: Wade-Giles and pinyin. Wade-Giles, the first widely used system, was developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s by two British sinologists. Developed for a European audience, it was relatively easy for Westerners to use.

In the first half of the 1900s China began to develop a system of romanization based on Peking dialect that would more accurately reflect Chinese pronunciations. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the work intensified. The new version, called pinyin, became the official system of romanization within the PRC in 1979.  (Taiwan adopted pinyin only in 2002.)

During the 1980s pinyin became widely used throughout the international community, including much of the Western news media, publishers, and the United States government. It was at this time that Peking—the original British spelling for the city—switched to pinyin Beijing.

Other issues complicate transliteration of Chinese names and words. For instance, Yangtze (or Yangzi), named after the ancient fiefdom of Yang, is the common and highly recognizable name used in the West for China's renowned river. In pinyin it is called Chang Jiang, in Wade-Giles Ch'ang Chiang, both meaning "long river."

The National Geographic Society makes allowances for the preferences of individuals. Some Chinese, especially those in Taiwan, such as archaeologist Shih Chang-ju, still prefer to use Wade-Giles spelling for their names. While the Chinese method of writing a name is surname first, given name second, naturalized Americans often prefer to have their surname placed at the end—such as archaeologists K. C. Chang and Zhichun Jing. Throughout the story on Bronze Age China, if you see a one-syllable name, such as Tang or Jing, it's a surname. A two-syllable name, such as Jigen or Zhichun, is a given name.

A short guide to less obvious pinyin pronunciation

x = sh (as in shovel) or s (as in sun)
zh = j (as in Joe)
ou = o (as in no)
q = ch (as in church)
ui = way
eng = ung (as in young)

Examples:

Sanxingdui	san-shing-dway
Shanxi	shan-see
Qin	chin
Qing	ching
Xia	sha
Xiaotun	shaow-toon
Xu Wenqiu	shoo wen-chyo
Yinxu	yin-shoo
Zhou	joe
Zhengzhou	jung-joe
Zheng Zhenxiang	jung jen-shiang)
Zhichun Jing	ji-choon jing

Useful romanizations related to our feature story

Pinyin	Wade-Giles
Deng Xiaoping	Teng Hsiao-p'ing
Di Xin	Ti Hsin
Li Ji	Li Chi
Mao Zedong	Mao Tse-tung
Qin	Ch'in
Qing	Ch'ing
Sichuan	Ssu-ch'uan
Wang Yirong	Wang I-yung
Wu Ding	Wu Ting
Xia	Hsia
Xiaotun	Hsiao-t'un
Zhengzhou	Cheng-chou
Zhou	Chou

UCLA Library
For links to Wade-Giles and pinyin syllabic conversion tables, see www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/ctable2.htm for Wade-Giles to pinyin, and www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/eastasian/ctable3.htm for pinyin to Wade-Giles. 

—Elizabeth Snodgrass