Oracle Bones
Learn about oracle bones — the turtle shells and ox bones used for divination in Shang Dynasty China, bearing the earliest known Chinese writing.
Oracle bones are the oldest surviving evidence of Chinese writing and one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. These are turtle plastrons (belly shells) and ox scapulae (shoulder blades) inscribed with questions, heated until they cracked, and interpreted by diviners to determine the answers of ancestors and spirits. Tens of thousands of oracle bone fragments, dating primarily to the late Shang Dynasty (c. 1250–1046 BCE), have been recovered from the royal capital at Anyang.
The inscriptions reveal a society deeply concerned with the will of ancestors and nature spirits. Questions covered a wide range of topics: Will the harvest be good? Should the king go to war? Is a royal pregnancy auspicious? Will it rain in the next ten days? The king himself was the chief diviner, and the practice of oracle bone divination reinforced his role as intermediary between the human and spiritual worlds.
Oracle bones are invaluable to historians not just as religious artifacts but as historical documents. They provide the earliest written records of Chinese history, confirming the existence of Shang kings mentioned in later texts, recording military campaigns, astronomical observations, and details of daily life. The script used on oracle bones is a direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters — a continuous writing tradition spanning over three thousand years.