A collection of 3,000-year-old oracle bones fetched 48 million yuan in Shanghai yesterday in the first public auction of such relics on the mainland.
Bidding for the 20 bones, which were used for fortune-telling by early Chinese, started at 5.8 million yuan.
The buyer, a middle-aged man who refused to be identified, said he was collecting the relics on behalf of the nation.
'I will provide the bones to a museum for study or exhibitions,' he said upon leaving the Garden Hotel, where the sale was held. Shanghai Chongyuan Art Auction had estimated it would sell the bones for at least 20 million yuan.
Li Xiandeng , an archaeologist with the National Museum of China, said the sale price was reasonable. 'These are invaluable relics, considering that this is the only known privately owned collection of oracle bones of such a standard,' he said. 'I believe that its value could rise even higher.'
The bones date from the Yin period in the latter part of the Shang dynasty, from roughly 1600 BC to 1100 BC. They were unearthed in 1898 in Anyang , Henan province , site of the final capital of the period.