Oracle bone script, also known as the inscription, oracle bone script, and Yinxu script, is a script engraved on tortoise shells or animal bones used by the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty for divination records, and is the earliest mature writing system in the known era of East Asia. It is generally believed that Wang Yirong, a late Qing dynasty epigrapher, discovered oracle bone inscriptions on oracle bones in Anyang, Henan.
At present, the era of oracle bone inscriptions is mainly from the Pangeng migration to Yin and the 273 years of the 8th and 12th kings of the Zhou Dynasty. The oracle bone inscription was mainly used for divination, and its inventor may have been a Zhenren who was in charge of divination during the Yin Shang period. Dong Zuobin divided the 273-year-old Yin Shang oracle bone inscription into five periods based on ten criteria, each with its own unique style of writing. The carving materials of the oracle bone inscription mainly include the tortoise's belly carapace, the tortoise's back carapace and the shoulder blade of the cow, and the writing content is mainly divination, and there are also a small number of memorabiliary inscriptions and table inscriptions. Later writings recorded the contents of the oracle bone inscriptions in rubbings, **, and facsimiles.
The oracle bone inscription has a strong pictographic nature, and the font writing method is uncertain, and it has great flexibility. On November 24, 2017, Oracle successfully passed the review of the International Advisory Committee of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme and was successfully inscribed on the Memory of the World Register.