Click-through: 3D-Rendered Oracle Bones from the British Library

Hey, this is kinda neat: the British Library’s Harry Potter-themed exhibition on the history of magic, which opened last month, features a few Chinese attractions. Among these are an ancient atlas of the night sky and an oracle bone, one of a class of artifacts used in the late Shang dynasty (~ 1600-1046 BCE) for a type of divination called pyromancy. (Not to second-guess the BL, but that seems more like a Game of Thrones thing…)

Anyway, assuming you won’t be making it to the British Library any time soon, the oracle bone in question has been digitized in minute detail by the institution, and you can get your grubby e-mitts on it right here:

The Library has plenty of other artifacts in their digital archive, all available for free viewing and downloading online. They even come with VR viewing options for both mobile and VR headset users. Pretty futuristic for an object famous for holding the earliest known evidence of Chinese script!

h/t British Library curator Sara Chiesura‏ (@gattiegirasoli)