Chapter 3 Section 3 Graphics and symbols on pottery and tortoise shells

Regarding Cangjie’s creation of characters, if we put aside its mythological color, it can give us two hints on the positive side: first, it goes without saying that it shows the self-originated nature of Chinese characters; second, it provides the earliest origin of Chinese characters age information.According to ancient Chinese historical records, the Yellow Emperor was a figure around 2500 BC.This is equivalent to the Longshan culture (discovered in Longshan Town, Zhangqiu, Shandong, about 4300-4800 years ago) of the late primitive society referred to by Chinese archeology.Archaeological excavations of the Yangshao Culture (discovered in Yangshao Village, Mianchi, Henan, about 5,000-7,000 years ago) of this period or even earlier found that some graphic symbols were carved or painted on some pottery (Figure 4, 5), many ancient philologists believe that this is already a symbol of character.

For the understanding of the origin of Chinese characters, of course, we must first rely on the confirmation of underground archaeological materials.In recent years, my country's archaeological excavations have obtained a lot of materials related to the origin of Chinese characters, some of which are exciting.For example, during the excavation of the Jiahu Neolithic site in the north of Wuyang County in central Henan Province from 1983 to 1987, engraved symbols were also found on tortoise shells, bone tools and stone tools buried in several tombs.The shapes of some of the inscribed symbols are strikingly similar to some of the oracle bone inscriptions we will introduce below in Anyang, Henan. The technology shown in Figure 6 has determined the age of the Jiahu site, which is about 7,000 years ago. -8,000 years, more than 1,000 years earlier than the Yangshao culture, and also earlier than the sources of ancient characters found in other places in the world so far, such as complex depictions in South Mesopotamia (about 5,400 years ago), Egyptian hieroglyphs (about 5,400 years ago), 5000 years ago) and so on are earlier.Although the inscriptions on the Jiahu site are too few to be recognized as a kind of script, if it is considered that these symbols also have the nature of some kind of primitive script and have a certain degree of relationship with the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins, there should be no Too big of a problem.At the very least, it should be regarded as strong evidence to refute the so-called fallacy that "Chinese characters originated from the West".

The world-famous oracle bone inscriptions at Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan Province began to appear after the 20th Shang king Pan Geng (reigned from about 1324 BC to 1297 BC), and it has been more than 3,000 years ago.When the oracle bone inscriptions are introduced in detail below, we will know that it is already a fairly mature text, and this cannot happen suddenly.If the inscriptions on the inscriptions of the Jiahu site and the graphic symbols of the Longshan culture are considered to be the prototypes of Chinese characters, then there must be some transitional links between them and the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins.

Unfortunately, the materials and researches found in this area are very limited.Among the relevant materials that have been discovered, because the understanding of the origin of characters is not consistent in theory, there are still some differences in the identification of the nature of those materials in the process of forming Chinese characters (limited by space, it cannot be introduced and analyzed here).Therefore, the origin of Chinese characters is still a mysterious mystery that needs to be enriched with archaeological materials and deepened in theoretical understanding.

One of the earliest ancient books in my country - "Shangshu Toshi" has a saying: "Only the ancestors of Yin had books and codes." The books and codes referred to here are all written records about history.The ancestors of the Yin people had books, which shows that before the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, Chinese characters had formed a system and entered the practical stage.Based on this, a relatively conservative guess is made: Chinese characters were formed in the middle of the previous Xia Dynasty, that is, about 4,000 years ago, so it should be possible to establish it.