Predicting the future was serious business during China’s Shang dynasty, when ‘oracle bones’ helped kings make big calls.

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 ...

Oracle-bone inscriptions were excavated from Yin Ruins in Anyang City, Henan Province, China. They were records of making divination and praying to gods by late Shang people from 1400 B.C.-1100 B.C..

Excavations at the Erlitou site, touted by some scholars as the capital of China’s earliest dynasty, the Xia, have also found signs of the practice. But it was during the Shang that human sacrifice ...

A Shang Dynasty oracle bone housed in the National Museum of China in Beijing. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily] Growing collections. Oracle bones were believed to be first unearthed in Xiaotun ...

Shang Dynasty oracle bones with inscriptions of ancient Chinese characters Photo: VCG. Editor's Note: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee ...

Oracle bones are a primary source which means they are from the time of the Shang Dynasty. Today, by knowing what questions the priests asked the gods, we can understand a lot about people’s ...

They date from the late Shang Dynasty, (circa 1250 B.C. to circa 1050 B.C.), although the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty ruled most of northern China from about 1600 B.C. — the earliest traditional ...

The recordings are helping researchers date the oracle bones and understand the course of the Shang Dynasty, and they can be used as references for further study of the sun-Earth-moon system.