On December 10, Tencent SSV Digital Culture Lab and Tencent YouTu Lab joined forces with Anyang, home of the oracle bone scripts and the site of Yinxu (a UNESCO World Heritage site), to build an open innovation platform for oracle bone scripts, in an effort to tackle challenges in deciphering, reinvigorating, and inheriting the scripts.

　　Yinxu is recognized worldwide as an important remnant of early human civilization and one of the most critical sites in exploring the origins of the Chinese civilization. Among the numerous artifacts unearthed at Yinxu, the oracle bone scripts are undoubtedly of great importance. So far, more than 160,000 oracle bones have been unearthed at Yinxu and about 4,500 characters have been found, of which about 1,500 have been deciphered but other 3,000 remain to be identified.

　　In this collaboration, Tencent and Anyang will work together on character-matching, a barrier in the textual explanation and research of oracle bone scripts, through the in-depth co-creation of “technology + oracle bone scripts”. Moreover, through methods such as building WeChat mini apps on the inheriting of oracle bone scripts, the two sides will attract public participation in the problem. They intend to facilitate human-computer collaboration for the textual explanation and research of oracle bone scripts, public participation and innovation for exhibition and preservation, and open innovation for flexible application. All the efforts are expected to preserve Chinese characters and bring cultural heritage to life. (source from Guangming Net)