The bone collector

Aware of how her early schooling influenced the course of her life, Liu is a strong advocate of the importance of ensuring youngsters receive a solid education.

In Anyang, considered the "hometown" of oracle bones, primary schools have calligraphy courses based on oracle bone inscriptions, she says.

Modern technology is also being employed to help inspire interest in history, with emojis depicting oracle bone inscriptions being used to get young people interested in ancient Chinese characters.

Preservation is as important as academic research, Liu says.

"There are about 150,000 oracle bone specimens scattered throughout the world (including more than 120,000 pieces in China), about 10,000 pieces in Japan, 8,000 pieces in Canada, and others in the UK and the US."

Institutions are being encouraged to improve the ways bones are preserved.

Oracle bone inscription is one among four ancient writings in the world that has been preserved.

The other three are hieroglyphics from Egypt, Sanskrit from India and cuneiform from Mesopotamia.

In 2017, oracle bone inscription was added to the Memory of the World Register by UNESCO.

"Oracle bone inscription is the gene of Chinese culture," Liu says.

"To learn the past is to better understand the present and to prepare for the future."

Since the first oracle bone inscriptions were discovered about 121 years ago, about 4,500 different characters have been found, but just one-third has been deciphered.

"The charm of archaeology is that you never know what will appear next," says Chen Xingcan, head of the Research Institute of Archaeology in Beijing.

"Sometimes you find that something which has puzzled you for many years is answered by a new excavation. For archaeologists, new things always lie ahead."

Shi Baoyin contributed to this story.