Shang king Pan Geng is traditionally credited with moving the Shang capital to Yin (in the Anyang area), establishing the setting in which late-Shang oracle-bone divination flourished at what is now the Yinxu site.
At Anyang (Xiaotun/Yinxu), divination practices using cattle scapulae and turtle plastrons developed into a regularized procedure: surfaces were prepared, heat was applied to produce cracks, and divination records were inscribed—forming the earliest large corpus of Chinese writing known.
During the reign of King Wu Ding (commonly dated to the mid-13th century BCE), Anyang divination inscriptions became especially abundant and detailed, recording the date, diviner, divination topic (“charge”), prognostication, and sometimes outcomes.
Oracle-bone inscriptions from Anyang mention Fu Hao as a significant royal figure associated with Wu Ding’s court; the later discovery of her tomb at Yinxu provided material confirmation connecting named individuals in the inscriptions to excavated elite burials.
Most inscribed oracle bones from Anyang date to the last Shang kings; later scholarly periodization (e.g., by Dong Zuobin) groups inscriptions into sequential phases tied to reigning kings, supporting relative dating within the Anyang corpus.
Anyang divination inscriptions record questions on warfare, sacrifices, weather, harvests, illness, royal travel, and ritual schedules—making oracle bones a primary source for late-Shang political and religious life at Yin.
By the time of the final Shang rulers (commonly dated to the 12th–11th centuries BCE), divination practice and inscription content show shifts toward greater regularization and, in some accounts, a narrower range of recorded topics compared with earlier Anyang material.
The Shang dynasty ends around 1046 BCE; the royal divination tradition preserved in the Anyang oracle-bone corpus belongs to the late Shang period leading up to this political transition.
In 1899, Qing official and scholar Wang Yirong identified unusual marks on “dragon bones” sold for medicinal use as ancient writing, catalyzing modern study of oracle-bone inscriptions.
Early 20th-century investigations traced many oracle bones to the Anyang area, especially Xiaotun, helping connect antiquities-market finds to the archaeological landscape of the Shang’s last capital.
In 1928, official excavations at Yinxu/Xiaotun began under the Institute of History and Philology (Academia Sinica), launching large-scale archaeological recovery of inscribed bones and associated palace, workshop, and cemetery remains.
In 1936, excavators uncovered pit YH127 at Xiaotun North, yielding over 17,000 inscribed pieces—one of the largest single-context discoveries of oracle bones at Anyang.
Archaeologists discovered the Tomb of Fu Hao at Yinxu in 1976; as an intact elite burial, it strengthened links between oracle-bone names and excavated Shang material culture at Anyang.
In 2006, Yin Xu (Yinxu)—the Anyang site complex associated with late Shang kings and oracle-bone inscriptions—was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, recognizing its global significance for early urbanism, ritual, and writing.
Oracle bone divination at Anyang (Yin) (c. 1250–1046 BCE)
