Plastromancy is a form of Divination is the occultic practice of ascertaining information by supernatural means. If a distinction is to be made with fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Divination is often... divination using the The plastron is the nearly flat part of the shell structure of a tortoise, what we would call the belly, similar in composition to the carapace; with an external layer of horny material divided into plates called scutes and an underlying layer of interlocking bones. In certain families there is... plastron, or undershell of a turtle. It was mainly used in ancient China, but gradually fell out of use during the The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese characters: 漢朝, Simplified Chinese characters: 汉朝, pinyin Hàncháo 202 BC - AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. During the Han Dynasty, China officially became a Confucian state and prospered domestically: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished... Later Han dynasty. The plastron was removed by the diviner on an auspicious day and then consulted by applying the tip of a hot metal bar to the shell and examining the crack marks caused by the hot metal. The conclusions were then inscribed in one or two lines beside the spot. Thousands of these inscribed shell fragments have been found in archaeological sites, particularly from the Shang Dynasty (Chinese: 商朝) or Yin Dynasty (殷代) (1600 BC - 1046 BC) followed the legendary Xia Dynasty and preceded the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC) in China. Information about the Shang Dynasty comes from bronze artifacts and oracle bones, were turtle shells or cattle scapula on which... Shang dynasty. The inscriptions on the fragments have taught scholars much about the early development of The Chinese written language consists of a writing system stretching back nearly 4000 years. Its logographic writing system employs a large number of symbols, known as characters, to represent individual words or morphemes. The writing system is considered to have also been a unifying force for much of Chinese history... Chinese writing.