Also Known As: Jia Gu Wen (in Chinese Pinyin) 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/oraclebones.html http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa_oracle02a.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone