Narrator: One of the most exciting objects or artefacts we have from the Shang Dynasty are oracle bones. They are animal bones covered in ancient writing and were used to try to predict the future.

According to Chinese tradition, Chinese civilization is 5,000 years old, though the ancient China of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou ...

There is no one "oracle bone" — about 13,000 have been found — but these relics hint at the development of writing in ancient China. They date from the late Shang Dynasty, (circa 1250 B.C. to ...