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Oracle Bones Also Known As: Jia Gu Wen (in Chinese Pinyin) What an Oracle Bone with Answers and Questions is. • Oracle bones are pieces of bone or turtle plastron having the answers to answers and questions during the late Shang Dynasty. • They were heated and cracked, then typically inscribed using a bronze pin in what is known as oracle bone script. • The oracle bones are the earliest known significant body of ancient Chinese writing, and contain important historical information. About the Oracle Bones • Oracle bone inscriptions were the earliest Chinese writing scripts, are the ancient Chinese characters carved on tortoise shells and animal scapulas. • The oracle bone inscriptions were mainly used for divination and keeping records of events happened in the late Shang Dynasty, and for talking to their ancestors (in 1300 BC - 1046 BC). How it worked. • Here's how it worked: • The king or emperor would ask a question. • The priest would carve the king's question on an oracle bone, which was just an animal bone or turtle shell. • Then, the priest would heat a bronze pin and hold the hot pin to the bone. • This created a pattern of cracks over the bone. • The priest would study the cracks to find the answer to the question. Interesting Facts • They are called oracle bones because the writing deals with divination and is carved on bone -- ox scapula and tortoiseshell. • The oracle bones have taught scholars much about the Shang Dynasty. • About 150,000 of these were found in AnYang, in the northern province of Henan, China, beginning in 1899. • Archaeologists have found over 100,000 oracle bones. • Since many questions were asked about daily life, we know something about this civilization. • Oracle bones say things like: "If we sacrifice 10 men or 5 oxen, will it rain tomorrow?" Sources http://china.mrdonn.org/oracleb ones.html http://chineseculture.about.com/ library/weekly/aa_oracle02a.ht m http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracl e_bone