Title: Written Chinese
Content:  Chinese is one of the oldest continually-used writing-systems still in use. The earliest generally accepted examples of Chinese writing date back to the reign of the Shang Dynasty king Wu Ding (1250–1192 BC). These were divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones, primarily ox scapulae and turtle shells. Characters were carved on the bones in order to frame a question; the bones were then heated over a fire and the resulting cracks were interpreted to determine the answer. Such characters are called 甲骨文 jiǎgǔwén "shell-bone script" or oracle bone script. In 2003, some 11 isolated symbols carved on tortoise shells were found at Jiahu, an archaeological 
Title: Outline of ancient China
Content: Old Chinese or Archaic Chinese &ndash; ancient form of spoken Chinese ; Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese &ndash; form now known as "Ancient Chinese" in China ; History of Chinese personal names &ndash; ; Origin of Chinese surnames &ndash; ; Evolution of written Chinese &ndash; ; Oracle bone script &ndash; earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions carved on oracle bones from the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200–1050 BC). ; Chinese bronze inscriptions &ndash; ; Seal script &ndash; 
Title: Penmanship
Content:  Writing systems developed in East Asia include Chinese and Japanese writing systems. Chinese characters represent whole morphemes rather than individual sounds, and consequently are visually far more complex than European scripts; in some cases their pictographic origins are still visible. The earliest form of Chinese was written on bones and shells (called Jiaguwen) in the fourteenth century BC. Other writing surfaces used during this time included bronze, stone, jade, pottery, and clay, which became more popular after the twelfth century BC. Greater Seal script (Dazhuan) flourished during 1100 BC and 700 BC and appeared mainly in bronze vessels. Lesser Seal script (Xiaozhuan) is the precursor of modern complex Chinese script, which is more stylized than the Greater Seal. Chinese handwriting is 
Title: History of the Chinese language
Content:  Old Chinese, sometimes known as "Archaic Chinese", is genetically related to all current dialects of Chinese. The first known use of the Chinese writing system is divinatory inscriptions into tortoise shells and oracle bones in the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BC). In the later early and middle Zhou dynasty (1122–256 BC), writing which descended from the Shang is found texts of which include inscriptions on bronze artifacts, the poetry of the Shijing, the history of the Shujing, and portions of the Yijing. The phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters also provide hints to their Old Chinese pronunciations. The pronunciation of the borrowed Chinese characters in both Japanese and Vietnamese also provide valuable insights. Old Chinese was not wholly uninflected. It possessed a rich sound system in which aspiration or rough breathing differentiated the consonants, but probably was still without tones. Work on reconstructing Old Chinese started with Qing dynasty philologists.
Title: Chinese characters
Content:  are thirty to forty characters in length. The Shang king would communicate with his ancestors on topics relating to the royal family, military success, weather forecasting, ritual sacrifices, and related topics by means of scapulimancy, and the answers would be recorded on the divination material itself. The oracle-bone script is a well-developed writing system, suggesting that the Chinese script's origins may lie earlier than the late second millennium BC. Although these divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of ancient Chinese writing, it is widely believed that writing was used for many other non-official purposes, but that the materials upon which non-divinatory writing was done – likely wood and bamboo – were less durable than bone and shell and have since decayed away.
Title: Neolithic signs in China
Content: Boltz, William G. (1994; revised 2003). The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System. American Oriental Series, vol. 78. American Oriental Society, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. ISBN: 0-940490-18-8. ; Demattè, Paola (2010). The Origins of Chinese Writing: the Neolithic Evidence. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 20, pp 211–228. doi:10.1017/S0959774310000247. ; Gāo Míng 高明 (1987). “中國古文字通論” (A General Survey of Ancient Chinese Script), Bĕijīng: 文物出版社 Wénwù Chūbǎnshè (in Chinese) ; Guo Moruo (1972). 古代文字之辯證的發展. in 考古 Kǎogǔ v.3, pp. 2–13. ; Kaogu (1965). 河南偃師二里頭遺址發掘簡報 (Excavation of the Èrlĭtóu Sites at Yǎnshī, Hénán), v.5, p. 215–224. (in Chinese) ; Keightley, David. N. (1989). The Origins of Writing in China: Scripts and Cultural Contexts. In Senner, Wayne M. (1989). The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; ISBN: 978-0-8032-9167-6: pp. 171–202. ; Li 
Title: Writing system
Content:  symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that the historically earlier Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffusion. A similar debate exists for the Chinese script, which developed around 1200 BC. The Chinese script is probably an independent invention, because there is no evidence of contact between China and the literate civilizations of the Near East, and because of the distinct differences between the Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches to logography and phonetic representation. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are generally believed to have had independent origins. A hieroglyphic writing system 
Title: Written Chinese
Content:  some centuries earlier. After a period of variation and evolution, Chinese characters were standardized under the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). Over the millennia, these characters have evolved into well-developed styles of Chinese calligraphy. As the varieties of Chinese diverged, a situation of diglossia developed, with speakers of mutually unintelligible varieties able to communicate through writing using Classical Chinese. In the early 20th century, Classical Chinese was replaced in this role by written vernacular Chinese, corresponding to the standard spoken language ("Mandarin"). Although most other varieties of Chinese are not written, there are traditions of written Cantonese, written Shanghainese and written Hokkien, among others. Some Chinese characters have been adopted into writing systems of other neighbouring East Asian languages, but are currently used only in Japanese and to a lesser extent in Korean, as Vietnamese is now written using alphabetic script.
Title: Chinese family of scripts
Content:  The Chinese family of scripts are writing systems descended from the Chinese Oracle Bone Script and used for a variety of languages in East Asia. They include logosyllabic systems such as the Chinese script itself (or hanzi, now in two forms, traditional and simplified), and adaptations to other languages, such as Kanji (Japanese), Hanja (Korean), Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm (Vietnamese) and Sawndip (Zhuang). More divergent are Tangut, Khitan large script, and its offspring Jurchen, as well as the Yi script, which were inspired by Chinese although not directly descended from it. The partially deciphered Khitan small script may be another. In addition, various phonetic scripts descend from Chinese characters, of which the best known are the 
Title: Chinese characters
Content:   There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used. The Shang dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou dynasty scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the Seal Script (, zhuànshū). It evolved organically out of the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was adopted in a standardized form under the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the 

Question: what was the ancient chinese writing system?
Answer: Sino-Tibetan languages.