Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文; pinyin: jiǎgǔwén; literally "shell bone writing") refers to incised (or, rarely, brush-written) ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which were animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China. The vast majority record the pyromantic divinations of the royal house of the late Shang dynasty at the capital of Yin (modern Anyang, Henan Province); dating of the Anyang examples of oracle bone script varies from ca. 14th -11th centuries BC to ca. 1200 to ca. 1050 BC. Very few oracle bone writings date to the beginning of the subsequent Zhou Dynasty, because pyromancy fell from favor and divining with milfoil became more common. The late Shang oracle bone writings, along with a few contemporary characters in a different style cast in bronzes, constitute the earliest significant corpus of Chinese writing, which is essential for the study of Chinese etymology, as Shang writing is directly ancestral to the modern Chinese script. It is also the oldest member and ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts.

Oracle bones (Chinese: 甲骨; pinyin: jiǎgǔ) are pieces of shell or bone, normally from ox scapulae or turtle plastrons, which were used for scapulimancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding future weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and other similar topics. These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文; pinyin: jiǎgǔwén) using a bronze pin. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece, as well. By the Zhou dynasty, cinnabar ink and brush became the preferred writing method, resulting in fewer carved inscriptions and often blank oracle bones being unearthed.

The oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing, and contain important historical information such as the complete royal genealogy of the Shang dynasty. When they were discovered and deciphered in the early twentieth century, these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, which some scholars had until then doubted.

Peter Hessler (b. June 14, 1969) is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of three acclaimed books about China and has contributed numerous articles to The New Yorker and National Geographic, among other publications. In 2011, Hessler received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in recognition and encouragement of his "keenly observed accounts of ordinary people responding to the complexities of life in such rapidly changing societies as Reform Era China."

Peter Hessler grew up in Columbia, Missouri and graduated from Hickman High School in 1988. He went on to study English and creative writing at Princeton University, where, during his junior year, he took John McPhee's renowned writing seminar, which Hessler describes as a "revelation." Hessler graduated in 1992 and won a Rhodes Scholarship to study English language and literature at the University of Oxford.

The summer before graduating from Princeton, Hessler worked as a researcher for the Kellogg Foundation in southeastern Missouri. He wrote an extensive ethnography about a small town called Sikeston, which was published in the Journal for Applied Anthropology.