When a desired blackness of ink is reached, the writer then uses his or her brush to lift the ink directly from the inkstone. Water is added to the shallow bowl, while the writer moves the inkstick in a circular motion to form dark, liquid ink. A writer then grinds the dry ink stick against an 'inkstone,' a polished and often decorative piece of stone with a shallow bowl carved into one end. Ink is kept as a solid, dry stick until ready for use. The basic ingredients for ink are pine soot or lampblack and glue (as a binding agent) with any other miscellaneous additives, such as gold flakes, musk, and camphor. The brush was used in conjunction with ink, a permanent black pigment that could not be washed out after being applied. Brush-point size depends upon its use in executing different styles of characters. The holder is made of bamboo, and the tip is made of wolf, rabbit, or goat hair.

The brush pen was used as early as the seventh or sixth century B.C.E. These inscriptions range from a few to as many as five hundred characters. On bronzes, inscriptions were cast on sacrificial vessels, ritual bells, and seals.

The words were carved with a stylus, some were written with brush and ink made of lampblack or cinnabar. Dated from around 1400-1200 B.C.E, the inscriptions on bones and shells-called 'oracle bones'-recorded divination used by the Shang royal house. As the writing of the ancient Chinese evolved, a phonetic component was added to the pictographic, as is true of the paired writing system of the Maya.The earliest writings in China were found on ox scapulae, tortoiseshells, and bronzes during the Shang dynasty.

Today, the earliest Chinese writing is described as pictographic (picture) or zodiographic ( graph of the name of the thing), words that for non-linguists mean similar things. Scholars in the Han Dynasty thought the earliest Chinese writing was pictographic, meaning the characters are stylized representations, while the Qing thought the first writing was of numbers. The legend developed that a scribe of the Yellow Emperor invented writing after noticing bird tracks. This speculation is based on the earliest reference to the origins of writing, which dates to the 3rd century B.C. Shaughnessy, says the likely date for the earliest oracle bones is about 1200 B.C., corresponding with the reign of King Wu Ding. The Cambridge History of Ancient China, by Michael Loewe and Edward L.

What font style denotes ancient chinese