Oracle Bone Inscriptions refers to the characters carved on tortoise shells and animal bones (mainly cattle bones and deer bones) in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties about 3,000 years ago.
2. Jinwen
The pre-Qin dynasty called copper "gold". Bronze inscriptions are words cast on bronzes. Bronze is an alloy of copper and lead. Bronze is the product of the great development of smelting and casting technology in ancient China, and it was the luxury of emperors and nobles at that time. Bronzes are mostly from Zhong Ding, so the bronze inscriptions are also called Zhong Dingwen. The application of bronze inscriptions lasted for more than 1200 years from the early Shang Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's destruction of the Six Kingdoms.
3. Xiao zhuan
Xiao Zhuan, developed from Da Zhuan, is the national standard font adopted as the product of "the same script" after Qin unified the six countries.
4. Official script
Official script can be divided into Qin official script and official script.
Qin Li, also known as Guli, began in the Qin Dynasty, and is a provincial variant of Xiao Zhuan, which is suitable for urgent use in daily life. In Qin dynasty, seal script was also used as official script, which was the standard style and the official script was the emergency custom style.
Han Li, also known as Jinli, further evolved from the Qin Dynasty and prevailed in most of the Han Dynasty.
5. Regular script
Regular script is also called original script and official script, and "regular script" means model and standard. Regular script flourished at the end of Han Dynasty and in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
6. Simplified characters
Simplified characters originated from cursive script and began to spread among the people in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties.