my pleasure
Oracle bone script was considered to be the cradle of Chinese writing till discovery of Yangshao culture in early 20th century. Today we know that Chinese characters is the oldest writing system on Earth, 1500 years older than Sumerian cuneiform.
Oracle bone goes back to Shang dynasty (1600-1046BC) and it was used mainly for divination purposes, although not exclusively. Its unique form can be attributed to the surface it was incised on - hard bones and turtle plastrons.
That is also why the lines that characters are composed of are thin, with pin-like ending s and canoe shape structure. Also curved lines are often composed of short straight cuts.
Oracle bone was linguistically immature, but thanks to that its raw and pure. Its highly pictographic nature also shows how close to nature and its untamed forces humans once lived.
I am considering specializing in seal script in the future (seal script is further divided into great seal and small seal scripts, where great seal embraces oracle bone script, kinbun (incisions on bronze ware) and great seal sensu stricto). I find it most fascinating.
海闊 wide sea
(clerical script)
