Brief history of Chinese writing

The origin of Chinese writing is commonly placed around the XIV century b.C., around 3400 years ago. The first real "characters" are those found on the bones used for divination under the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which form the so-called jiagu wen ( ). On the right, an example of oracular inscription on ox bone. The study of this language began at the beginning of this century, but hundreds of symbols among the 4500 found on oracular bones haven't been translated yet.