Oracle bone inscriptions (around 1300-1100 B.C.), the earliest Chinese writing scripts, were the ancient Chinese characters carved on tortoise shells and animal scapulas.Many Chinese basic characters are developed from here.The earliest symbols in the development of Chinese writing were pictographic,the symbol for the word "bird" was a picture of a bird, the symbol for the word "fish" was a picture of fish, etc.So it isn't hard to guess their meanings.File Size: 921KB.