Some of us may have heard about the Oracle Bones of the early Shang and Zhou dynasty of ancient China. (For those who haven't, Oracle Bones were the first written record of Chinese history. They're usually written on turtle shells or oxen shoulder blade. And they have "spiritual" cracks on them).

Supposedly, the Shang priests bake the shells and read the cracks as signs from heaven. There are also writing on the shell, but archeologist found absolutly no relation between what's written and the cracks on the shells. Sometimes the writing sound relevant (ie, we should attack this territory next year or crop yields were good). Other times they're completely irrelevant, (ie, the king pooped three times today).

Some scientists claimed that the priests actually listen to the crack instead of reading it. However, I have a theory also. What if the cracks and writing are completely independent of each other? The ritual is done, why record it? But they may be thinking, "hey, why waste a perfectly good shell. Let's write stuff on it"

Maybe it was for good luck? The king may have had diarrhea(spelling?), or they may want a good harvest next year.