metadata
license: cc-by-4.0
Oracle Bone Inscriptions Multi-modal Dataset (OBIMD)
Dataset Overview
The Oracle Bone Inscriptions Multi-modal Dataset (OBIMD) is the first large-scale corpus providing pixel-aligned rubbings and facsimiles, character-level annotations, and sentence-level transcriptions and reading sequences for oracle bone inscription (OBI) research. This dataset enables multi-modal learning across visual, structural, and linguistic dimensions, laying the foundation for end-to-end OBI recognition and interpretation.
Dataset Statistics
- Total OBI images: 10,077 across five Shang Dynasty phases
- Annotated characters: 93,652
- Missing character positions: 21,667 (due to fragmentation)
- Sentences: 21,941 syntactically validated
- Non-sentential elements: 4,192
Data Structure
The dataset follows a three-level hierarchy:
- Image-level: Contains rubbing and facsimile pairs
- Sentence-level: Groups characters into meaningful units
- Character-level: Detailed annotations for each character
Data Fields
| Field Name | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Facsimile | Path to facsimile image | facsimile/h00002.jpg |
| Rubbing | Path to rubbing image | rubbing/h00002.jpg |
| RubbingName | Short identifier | H2 |
| GroupCategory | Sentence type | InscriptionSentence1 |
| Position | Bounding box (x,y,w,h) | 558,581,80,218 |
| OrderNumber | Character order in sentence | 5 |
| Label | Main character label | xkubtjk815 |
| SubLabel | Secondary label | xkubtjk815 |
| SeatFont | Placeholder indicator | 0 |
| Mark | Special marker | -1 |
Data Modalities
- Rubbing images: Original scanned images of oracle bones
- Facsimile images: Expert reconstructions aligned with rubbings
- Character annotations: Bounding boxes and classifications
- Sentence groupings: Semantic organization of characters
- Reading sequences: Order of characters within sentences
Hierarchical Character Metadata Supplement
This folder contains supporting materials for the character hierarchy used in OBIMD. It includes:
- Sub-character Images: Images of sub-character variants, stored in a two-level folder structure. The top-level directory is named by the main character UID, and each subfolder is named by the corresponding sub-character UID.
- Sub-character to Transcription Mapping: Maps each sub-character UID to its modern Chinese transcription.
- Sub-character to Main-character Mapping: Maps each sub-character UID to its parent main character UID in the Oracular Digital Platform.
Usage Notes
The dataset is designed to support various research tasks:
- Character detection and recognition
- Sentence-level character clustering
- Character reordering within sentences
- Multi-modal analysis (rubbing vs. facsimile)
License
This model is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
Citation
If you use this dataset in your research, please cite: