Inventions & Discoveries · Writing and counting
Oracle bone script
The oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, carved mostly on ox shoulder bones and turtle plastrons for the Late Shang royal family from the 13th century BCE; inscriptions of King Wu Ding's reign are radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BCE. Most of the estimated 150,000 inscriptions, found at Yinxu, the last Shang capital, near modern Anyang, record divinations. Already a mature system, with phonetic loans and phono-semantic compounds, it is the direct ancestor of the later Chinese scripts.
On the inventions tree
- First known
- c. 1250 BCE
- Where
- Anyang, China
- Credited to
- Shang dynasty
NoteIts mature form implies earlier development, but no older writing has been found.
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Oracle bone script. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/oracle-bone-script
- MLA
- “Oracle bone script.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/oracle-bone-script. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Oracle bone script.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/oracle-bone-script.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Oracle bone script’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/oracle-bone-script (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻