Shang China and the Oracle Bones

Along China's Yellow River, the Shang dynasty founded the first Chinese state we can confirm from written records — and those records are extraordinary: questions to royal ancestors scratched onto ox bones and turtle shells, then cracked with heat to read the gods' replies. This 'oracle bone' script is the direct ancestor of the Chinese characters still written today, making it the world's oldest writing system in continuous use. Here writing was invented independently, a second time, half a world from Sumer — for talking not to accountants but to the dead.