Oracle Bones

In 1899, Wang I-jung, a Chinese minister, went to a traditional pharmacist for medicine. He was given a piece of "dragon" bone with instructions to pulverize it. Instead of grinding it to a medical powder, he examined it and noticed it bore odd drawings, so he took it to a scholar for analysis. It wasn't until 1928 that the first official excavation for oracle bones, under the Academia Sinica, began.

It was discovered that these bones came from various animals, but chiefly ox and turtle, and that they were used for divination. They are the earliest known form of written Chinese. About 10,000 pieces of oracle bone have been unearthed, revealing about 4600 characters, of which about 1000 have been deciphered.

Read more about oracle bones.

China Travel Guide writes:

Now, over 100,000 pieces of oracle shells or bones have been unearthed from the ruins of the Shang Dynasty at Anyang in Henan Province, which was the latter capital of Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago. Though smaller in number, additional discoveries of oracle script in Shangcheng in the neighborhood of Zhengzhou offer valuable insights into the study of the Shang Dynasty.