Some rarely seen ancient tortoise shell oracle bones have been discovered from a graveyard of commoners' tombs from the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) in the Xi Xian New Area of Northwest China's Shaanxi province. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

A dozen punches can be found inside the shells, and there are burn marks on the edges. The characters suggest that the artifacts were used by a fortuneteller for divination, according to Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology on March 19.

In ancient China, burning tortoise shells and bones and reading omens from the cracks was a popular method of divination in the Xia (c.21st century-16th century BC), Shang (c.16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (11th century BC -256 BC) dynasties.