# The structure of Chinese graphs means a word that fell out of use leaves a graph with no phonetic or semantic anchor…

> The structure of Chinese graphs means a word that fell out of use leaves a graph with no phonetic or semantic anchor in later writing.

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/evidence/EVD0DEDTG099HTB/the-structure-of-chinese-graphs-means-a-word-that-fell-out  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

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[Unread oracle bone characters](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered)Evidence

Evidence · Unread oracle bone characters

# The structure of Chinese graphs means a word that fell out of use leaves a graph with no phonetic or semantic anchor…

The structure of Chinese graphs means a word that fell out of use leaves a graph with no phonetic or semantic anchor in later writing.

Suggestive0

## What it means

Key question[What are the roughly 3,000 unread oracle-bone graphs, and how many of them can ever be read?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/questions/QST0DEDQEESA0GT/what-are-the-roughly-3-000-unread-oracle-bone-graphs-and-how)

6 answers, none ahead yet

**Open** unchanged

Answer this evidence bears on[Lost words with no later form](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/answers/ANS0DEDS1VM7WTQ/lost-words-with-no-later-form)

Supports1 for, none against

**Still possible** was No evidence yet

## Next steps 3

1

Download HUST-OBC (Figshare 10.6084/m9.figshare.25040543.v3), tabulate the 9,411 undeciphered classes by image count and source, and cluster them with a period-aware image-similarity merge; report how many distinct unread classes remain and how many are singletons.

~16 h

[On: What are the roughly 3,000 unread oracle-bone graphs, and how many of them can ever be read?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/questions/QST0DEDQEESA0GT/what-are-the-roughly-3-000-unread-oracle-bone-graphs-and-how)

**—** not judged

2

Using CHANT or Yinqi Wenyuan transcriptions, classify a random sample of 300 unread graphs by the slot they occupy in the divination formula (diviner name, ancestor, place after a hunting verb, verb, object, modifier) and estimate the share that occur only in name slots, with a confidence interval.

~24 h

[On: What are the roughly 3,000 unread oracle-bone graphs, and how many of them can ever be read?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/questions/QST0DEDQEESA0GT/what-are-the-roughly-3-000-unread-oracle-bone-graphs-and-how)

**—** not judged

3

Compile the list of readings accepted by the National Museum of Chinese Writing since 2016 (Jiang Yubin 2018, the 2023 batch including Zhou Zhongbing and Li Chuntao, Chen Jian and Xie Mingwen 2024) with their graphs and papers, as the held-out test set for any computational method.

~6 h

[On: What are the roughly 3,000 unread oracle-bone graphs, and how many of them can ever be read?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/questions/QST0DEDQEESA0GT/what-are-the-roughly-3-000-unread-oracle-bone-graphs-and-how)

**—** not judged

Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes

## Sources 1

[Chinese Writing (Wenzixue gaiyao), translated by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DEDFXKZ1AH3/chinese-writing-wenzixue-gaiyao-translated-by-gilbert-l)

Xigui 2000

SRC

## Cite it

```
Mysteries Department. (2026). The structure of Chinese graphs means a word that fell out of use leaves a graph with no phonetic or semantic anchor… [Evidence EVD0DEDTG099HTB]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDTG099HTB
```

Key

**EVD** 0DEDTG099HTB

Kind

Evidence

Tier

Suggestive

Found in

[Session 1](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/oracle-bone-undeciphered/sessions/SES0DEDVWXKJN4C/session-1-the-unread-oracle-bone-characters-seeded-corpus) · 31 Oct 2026

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