Digital scanning to revolutionize study of oracle bones

The 3,300-year-old Yinxu site, which is also known as the Yinxu Ruins, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 and is the location of the remains of the ancient city of Yin, one of the capitals of the late Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC). Yin is the first capital in Chinese history to have been documented and also substantiated by archaeological evidence.

In addition to its wealth of exquisite bronzes, the site has yielded a trove of oracle bones that were used to tell fortunes and record events. The bones are considered to be the oldest-known Chinese writing system, highlighting the endurance of Chinese civilization.

Unlike other famous ancient writing systems, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Babylonian cuneiform and Mayan glyphs, the character precursors on oracle bones eventually evolved into modern characters over the course of thousands of years.

Currently, some 160,000 oracle bones have been unearthed and around 4,500 characters identified, of which, about 3,000 have yet to be deciphered.

Since 2022, technology giant Tencent, Anyang's cultural heritage bureau, Anyang Normal University's oracle bone script information processing lab and other parties have launched a digitalization initiative to promote human-machine collaboration to aid in the deciphering and vitalization of oracle bone scripts.