甲骨 · jiǎgǔ · oracle bones
Oracle Bones
The oldest divination we have a written record of. In the Shang dynasty, around 1250 to 1050 BCE, a named diviner scraped an ox shoulder-blade or a turtle shell smooth, drilled rows of small hollows into its back, and posed a yes-or-no question. A heated bronze brand pressed into a hollow split the thinned bone with a sharp crack shaped like the character 卜. The diviner read the angle of its branch for the omen, and carved the question, the verdict, and sometimes what later came to pass beside the scar. Those carved cracks are the earliest Chinese writing. Here the crack is yours to make, and the reading is offered as reflection, not as a settled fate.
Pose one yes-or-no proposition. The bone answers binary questions, the way the Shang diviners did: a thing will be, or it may not be.
the brand
Choose a hollow, then press and hold the brand. When the heat is full, the bone cracks.