Master Archaeologist

Chapter 104 Deciphering (please subscribe!)
At 10:30 in the evening, the entire excavation project site has fallen into silence.

But in the cultural relics preservation room at the far end of the mobile prefabricated house, there was a lot of noise.

The researchers belonging to the Xia, Shang and Zhou Research Office were discussing intensely around a few inscriptions rubbed from chime bells.

The predecessors planted trees and the descendants enjoyed the shade.

Chinese archaeology has developed for nearly 100 years, and there are countless bronzes from the Eastern and Western Zhou unearthed.

In addition, there are also many historians who studied the inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties in history, and left explanatory works.

For bronze inscriptions, especially those of the Eastern and Western Zhou dynasties, domestic archaeologists and philologists are still very experienced.

After all, there are many examples of bronze inscriptions.

Unlike oracle bone inscriptions, the number of unearthed oracle bones is small, and many of them are orphans. The fonts are too primitive and it is very difficult to decipher.

The bronze inscriptions that have been recorded by Chinese scholars now have more than 3722 characters, of which more than 2500 characters have been completely deciphered.

As long as you are willing to take the time to compare the inscriptions on the chime bell with the "Jinwenbian" one by one, you can at least decipher the general content.

At this time, Professor Li is holding a copy of "Jin Wen Bian" published in 1985, and is constantly comparing it.

While checking, he also said in amazement: "The inscription font on this chime is between Zhao Wei Han Dazhuan and Chu Zhuan, and it is quite special."

"However, it is basically the same as the bronze inscriptions unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, and there are precedents to follow."

Chen Han, who was helping him at the side and identifying the inscriptions with him, echoed with a smile: "Yes, after all, tomb No. M1 is also a high-level tomb of Zeng Guo."

"If Zeng Guo is really Sui Guo, as a vassal state with the Ji surname defending against Chu State for the Ji Zhou royal family, it is normal for the writing to have the characteristics of both the Central Plains and Chu State."

Suizhou, Hubei, borders the Central Plains of Henan in the north, and connects with Jingchu in the south.

Whether it is geographically or culturally, it is unavoidable to be influenced by the Central Plains and Jingchu culture at the same time.

The characters used by Zeng Guo are based on the Western Zhou Dynasty seal script and incorporate the elegant and slender writing style of Chu State.

To put it vividly, Zeng Guo's characters are like the elongated and thin version of the seal script, and the font structure tends to be neat.

However, the characteristic of seal script is that this kind of writing is between pictographic writing and stroke writing.

It is very difficult to distinguish this kind of characters.

To be honest, although everyone is a professional archaeologist, there are really not many who can read seal characters.

Only philologists who specialize in seal script can discern the meaning of these complex characters.

Even now, in the unearthed seal inscriptions, one-third of the characters still have no clear meaning.

In the cultural relics storage room, more than a dozen archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Social Sciences have gathered.

But there are less than five people who dare to say that they have researched seal characters, and all of them are from the Xia, Shang and Zhou research labs.

And their "research level" of seal characters is limited to being able to take the book "Jin Wen Bian" and compare it with the inscriptions on the bronzes to find out the characters that have been deciphered.

The level is similar to using a Chinese dictionary to translate a piece of classical Chinese.

There are only two people who can understand part of the seal characters without the help of the "Jin Wen Bian", and can even decipher and interpret the seal characters.

One is Professor Li, half is Kong Jianwen, and half is Chen Han.

Although Professor Li's main direction is the archeology of the Qin and Han Dynasties, his research on characters such as Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan is one of the best in the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences.

The level is not inferior to those philologists who specialize in seal script.

Kong Jianwen is because his main focus is Xia, Shang and Zhou archaeology, and he has been exposed to various bronze inscriptions. After decades of archaeological work, he naturally has a deep understanding of seal script.

This is also the highest level that archaeologists who mainly focus on Xia, Shang and Zhou archaeology can achieve.

If you want to be more powerful, you must specialize in the field of seal characters.

But front-line archaeologists whose main job is to do field archaeology must not have this skill.

After all, there are no rules. Archaeologists must be able to read and understand the unearthed inscriptions.

This job should be left to professional philologists.

So Kong Jianwen can only be regarded as half.

As for Chen Han, thanks to the blessing of the system, his reading level of Xiaozhuan was full.

Although the Qin seal script and the seal script of the six eastern countries are not in the same system, they both come from the same source and are both inherited from the Western Zhou script.

Chen Han, who can basically understand Xiaozhuan, is not completely incapable of deciphering Chuzhuan in reverse.

It's like a person who understands Chinese characters, even if he doesn't understand Japanese at all, can guess most of the meanings correctly by reading Japanese Chinese characters.

The current Chen Han is in such a state of guessing.

However, compared to other researchers who couldn't even deceive, Chen Han was indeed half-capable of deciphering seal characters.

The cultural relics storage room has now been divided into two teams.

Most people are holding the "Jin Wen Bian" and comparing it with the inscription on the chime bell, trying to find out the deciphered seal script that has been recorded, and then register it.

For example, "Heaven", "Earth", "Man", "King", "Sun", "Moon" and "Star" are relatively simple words with sufficient samples for comparison.

Professor Li, Kong Jianwen, and Chen Han gathered together, trying to decipher and interpret some of the more complicated characters on the inscription, which were more surprising than the Central Plains seal.

"I think this word is the word "正"!"

"Don't you think, let Professor Li think!"

"Look at these two characters. One means the person wearing the crown faces to the left, and the other means the person wearing the crown faces the right. These two characters should mean "left and right"!"

"This character should be Wang character, it is in the unearthed inscription before!"

"There are also these two characters, which must be "Marquis Zeng". These two characters were found on the chime bell inscription unearthed from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng before!"

Not to mention, the effect of this division of labor is still very good.

With the concerted efforts of everyone, among the 1 inscriptions on the front of the No. 20 chime, which is the most conspicuous position, 16 common characters were quickly translated.

Among the remaining 4 uncommon words, 2 words were quickly determined under the deliberation and argumentation of Chen Han and Professor Li.

There are only the last two words, one is so rare that Chen Han and Professor Li can't decipher it, and the other can be interpreted in several ways.

However, the two words are vague, which does not affect the interpretation of the entire sentence.

Thus, a line of 20-character inscriptions was translated by them.

"Only the first month of the king, the auspicious day is Jiawu. Marquis Zeng (??) said: Bai Kuo Shang (yong? Tong?), left and right civil and military."

"Jiawu Year, the first month. Marquis Zeng said: Bai Kuo once assisted King Wen and King Wu."

As soon as this sentence was translated, everyone immediately cheered up.

The inscription on this chime, the content recorded, is not simple!
This is a record involving King Wen and King Wu!

These two are the founding emperors of the Western Zhou Dynasty!
There is no trivial matter related to them!

However, the 20 inscriptions on the front are just the beginning, and then there is no more text!
Isn't this tantalizing!

Chen Han quickly picked up another 30-character inscription that was also engraved on the front of the chime, and continued to decipher.

(End of this chapter)