Master Archaeologist

Chapter 371 Liangzhu Carving Talisman
Liangzhu's animal-faced god-human pattern can be said to be the spiritual symbol of Liangzhu ancient country.

There are many opinions about what this symbol means specifically.

Some say it is the portrait of Chiyou Benyou, some say it is the hero of Liangzhu, and some say it is the god worshiped by Liangzhu people. There is no agreement, but one thing is generally recognized.

This pictorial symbol is spread all over the Liangzhu culture area.

This again confirms a very important fact, that is, Liangzhu is a complete country!

The Liangzhu capital controls the population and land in the entire Liangzhu culture area. Regardless of whether it relies on the centripetal force generated by force or soft power, it is obvious that everyone is proud to use Liangzhu culture.

It is precisely because everyone in the area under the rule of Liangzhu is proud of Liangzhu, that's why animal-mask god-human patterns can be found all over Liangzhu.

The purpose of this thing is similar to the national flag, but it is more of a symbol of theocracy or royal power.

This is the material evidence and ironclad evidence of kingship in a wide area, and it is the earliest manifestation of divine right of kings. Therefore, we assert that Liangzhu is not just a city-state, but a country that rules a huge area.

The country represents - civilization!
And the beast-faced god-human pattern is the "divine emblem" of this country!
Moreover, this divine emblem also appeared in the later Shijiahe culture in Hubei and Longshan culture in Shandong.

This means that after the destruction of Liangzhu, the descendants also moved north and south, fled to Shandong and Hubei respectively, and continued to live.

It is just the destruction of a huge country, and it will be difficult to revive it after all.

Regardless of whether it was destroyed by natural disasters or man-made disasters.

Just like ancient Rome, like ancient Egypt, once destroyed, some descendants may have escaped, but they can no longer rebuild the once glorious civilization, and can only survive with some glory in the past.

The descendants of the Liangzhu ancient country, after fleeing to Shandong and Hubei, also chose to integrate into the local tribes. Although they still kept their own country's divine emblem, it was more of a spiritual symbol.

Engrave it on your belongings as a souvenir.

Liangzhu culture, but most of it really died out.

As for the Liangzhu culture that was passed down, such as jade wares, Liangzhu was at its peak and had already spread to other parts of China.

This is also the reason why there are "artifacts" left in Liangzhu, but there is no history or legend left, because the items they used were once spread throughout China at their peak.

But their culture and spirit were annihilated with a great flood.

Of course, through archaeological excavations, modern people can glimpse a corner of Liangzhu culture.

Especially engraved characters.

Five or six hundred Liangzhu engraved talismans have been discovered. Apart from this animal-faced god-man pattern, there are many other ideographic engraved talismans with similar characters.

This is also the reason why academic circles doubt that Liangzhu had developed a rudimentary writing.

It is possible that it is the original text of one of the predecessors of the oracle bone inscriptions.

These symbols appear in various parts of the pottery, with no regularity.

The reason why it survived on pottery is because the material of pottery is relatively stable, and the possibility of it being preserved on wood or bamboo is very, very small.

Liangzhu has a lot of abstract symbols, and many of them are engraved on the bottom of the pottery.

It's hard not to let people think of the habit of ancestors engraving their surnames on the bottom of the bowl to indicate the ownership of the utensils.

If you engrave your name on it, then this thing belongs to me.

This habit can even be said that humans have existed since primitive tribes.

When the concept of "private possession" is popularized, human beings urgently need a way to prove that these items are their own.

It is obviously the easiest way to leave your own mark on the item.

Chen Han still remembers that when he was in college, everyone needed to go to the hot water room to get hot water in winter.

At that time, thousands of people in the whole school used thermos bottles to get water. Because the thermos bottles in the school canteen were all similar in shape, nothing more than different colors, so some students often took other people's thermos bottles by mistake.

In order to avoid taking the wrong thermos bottle with each other, everyone will write their names and classes with a marker on the cork of the thermos bottle later.

This way there will be no more mistakes.

Come to think of it, the ancient people in Liangzhu 5000 years ago had not much different ideas from those of modern people.

For the ancients in the Liangzhu period, pottery was already one of the few "daily utensils" at home, and not every household could have a complete set.

In the past, these things were often borrowed from each other. Today I borrow a bowl from your house, and tomorrow I borrow a pot from his house.

This kind of thing was often found even in the poverty-stricken period of the 60s and [-]s of the last century.

Then, as long as a word is engraved, there will be no mistake where it was borrowed from.

Of course, there is another possibility, which is "the craftsman leaves his name".

Engraving a symbol on the bottom of the utensils made by oneself represents who made the pottery. This is also a common method used by the ancients.

Especially for well-known craftsmen, the things they make are naturally more popular, so they need to have their own unique imprint.

At present, 554 pieces of pottery, stone and jade with engraved symbols have been found in Liangzhu cultural sites such as Bianjiashan, Miaoqian and Zhuangqiao Tomb, with a total of 656 symbols.

Most are found at the bottom of objects.

This shows that these symbols, first of all, cannot be randomly scribbled, there must be some rules, and they are behaviors made by the subjective consciousness of Liangzhu people.

but!

They are still carved characters, not words!
why?
Because a single character, or one or two engraved characters, is not enough to form the concept of "text".

What is text?

Whether it is Chinese square characters or various Western letters, they all satisfy a concept, that is, they can be combined to form sentences and articles.

Only complete sentences and articles can contain or carry information.

Why are oracle bone inscriptions considered the first Chinese language?

It is because the oracle bone inscriptions engraved on the oracle bones are complete sentences.

The sentence on each piece of oracle bone records a complete event, which can be translated.

For example, offering sacrifices to the heavens, going to war, the death of a king, succession to the throne, and so on.

This is the text.

However, most of Liangzhu's engraved talismans, whether on jade wares, pottery fragments, or stone implements, consist of a single engraved talisman or two.

There are rarely more than two engravings.

Such engraved characters cannot form a complete sentence.

There is no complete sentence. To be honest, the current philologists have no way to translate what these engraved symbols mean.

In fact, the requirements for philologists are not high.

You are not required to leave an article composed of dozens of words.

But at least four or five words, right?
Even if it is an engraved talisman composed of four or five characters, it can barely be counted as proving the birth of characters.

Because four or five characters, according to the freehand writing tradition of the ancient Chinese, can already carry a lot of information.

For example, most of the idioms in our country are not all four characters.

The idioms composed of four square characters can already carry a lot of information.

Unfortunately, most of the inscriptions found in Liangzhu are monads or two characters, which cannot form complete sentences at all.

This makes all archaeologists very sorry.

(End of this chapter)