Master Archaeologist

Chapter 373 Do Yanmoji Count as Words?

It's a pity, although Chen Han thinks that Liangzhu people should have developed primitive characters.

However, until more solid evidence is found, it is still impossible to draw a definite conclusion on whether the engraved characters on the stone tomb of Zhuangqiao Tomb, including other Liangzhu culture characters, are characters.

However, this does not hinder the importance of this batch of newly unearthed materials.

The archaeological value of the symbols themselves is extremely important. Once the hidden meaning of the symbols themselves is clarified, the question of whether they are characters or not may be resolved.

For this reason, archaeologists and researchers of the Liangzhu Culture, as well as Assyriologists gathered in Pinghu, online and offline, and held an "Academic Report on Prehistoric Symbols and Early Writing"

Chen Han also attended the meeting, sitting in the corner of the stage with Kong Jianwen and other teachers and colleagues.

“While we are discussing or focusing on early writing issues, we should pay more attention to the relationship between symbols and carriers, the relationship between symbols and relic units, the relationship between symbols and settlements, and the relationship between symbols and cross-culture.”

Yu Hongguo, an expert on ancient characters at the Zhejiang Institute, said: “During the Liangzhu period, a series of state actions such as the complex social administrative management and operation, the organization and implementation of large-scale projects, the establishment of a high-level official handicraft industry system and the payment of tribute, etc. Is it feasible without written communication tools?"

Yu Hongguo is still looking forward to discovering the complete Liangzhu script one day.

However, Zhu Xuefei, a librarian at the ZJ Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, tried to study Liangzhu's engraved symbols in a way that sounded very brainy.

"When we ask whether there are characters in Liangzhu, we should not first discuss the question of yes or no, but first look at whether we are on the same channel, how we define characters, and whether the concepts of characters we discuss are unified. "

In her own words, her research methods are based on traditional archaeological typologies.

She believes that scholars and experts can "explain Liangzhu's marking symbols with Liangzhu's marking symbols".

It sounds a bit convoluted, but it does avoid some subjective pure guesses about the meaning of symbols.

She advocates discovering the laws of engraved symbols and constructing the meaning of symbols according to the laws.

Because the regularity of the engraved character itself can be obtained through observation and analysis.

For example, most symbols will repeat at different frequencies, and the symbols in different levels of sites are highly similar and systematic.

There are many classification standards of symbols, and different researchers have different grasps of the classification standards.

Zhu Xuefei's discussion of engraved talismans is based on the three levels she distinguishes.

The first level is the difference between the three carriers of pottery, stone, and jade, because the symbols expressed on different carriers are very different.

The second level is to distinguish between engraving before firing and engraving after firing on pottery.

Because the engraved talismans before burning are mostly engraved in some hidden places, which have the nature of marking, while the engraved talismans after burning are mostly engraved in conspicuous places, which are more likely to convey meaning.

At the third level, it is the analysis of specific symbols.

In the end, she concluded: "The carving symbols have not yet entered the Chinese character system, but it cannot be ruled out that the Chinese character creation rules of later generations have inherited the construction rules of the Liangzhu culture carving symbols."

"If you want to talk about the influence of Liangzhu civilization on Chinese civilization based on the standard of 'characters', even if it does not directly provide characters, it may provide some logical rules for creating characters."

Chen Han nodded frequently in the audience.

Regardless of whether Liangzhu has directly contributed to the mature characters of later generations, that is, oracle bone inscriptions.

What is certain is that during the birth of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Liangzhu definitely provided assistance.

At least those engraved characters that look almost exactly the same as the oracle bone inscriptions definitely provided the support for the laws of logic for the later birth of the oracle bone inscriptions.

Again, it is impossible for oracle bone inscriptions to appear suddenly. The businessmen who created oracle bone inscriptions must have referred to the original text that had been born before.

When working with Li Si in seal script, he also referred to Zhong Dingwen, and it was impossible to really create a new character from scratch.

Coming all the way from the capital, Assyriologist Qiao Xiang, a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of West Asian Studies of the School of Foreign Languages ​​of Peking University, said: "The symbols of Liangzhu utensils are intricate, reflecting some different characteristics of the early symbol system, and behind these characteristics There may be a little-known cultural facet.”

"The simple engraved characters may be the potter's code, such as first name, surname or clan, or they may represent the type of utensil, such as Shengmai or rice, or they may be numbers, indicating the capacity of the utensil."

"The four or five symbols on the Guanerhu seem to be related to Chinese characters. Experts from the Capital Institute of Oracle Bone Inscriptions interpreted it as "Fang Yue Hui Shi", which seems reasonable, but it seems that other explanations can also be made."

"The 12 symbols on the black leather pot are most likely a painting of characters, which is very freehand and seems to describe the process of hunting and harvesting."

"The six characters on the stone ax may be alphabetic characters, and the high repetition rate is a distinctive feature of alphabetic characters."

"However, the currently known alphabet is not earlier than 2000 BC, and there is no tradition of alphabetic writing in this land of China, so this speculation is too bold."

"Perhaps like the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, the characters represented by these six symbols, if they are characters, are phonetic and meaningful characters, and the pictographic characters of Egyptian characters, and the symbols of the character system represented by these six Liangzhu symbols are more abstract? Just wild speculation driven by impressions."

"However, the diversity and complexity of Liangzhu symbols give people an impression that Liangzhu may be a meeting point of multiple cultures."

"In other words, it is a stage of early text creation and collision in which multiple texts are sprouting."

"Liangzhu people may have been groping for how to create a mature writing system at that time, and they have come up with many routes, all of which are being perfected or collided."

"This is a very brilliant cultural process!"

"Unfortunately, it is difficult for people nowadays to explore the frenzy of writing creation at that time. Perhaps most of the created writing has dissipated in history. The changes have survived to the present.”

Whether Liangzhu has writing is not a debate. The archaeological research on "original writing" should be considered from the perspective of materials and methods.

In the Liangzhu culture, we see so many graphic symbols, how can they accurately convey information in a broad sense?
In what social class is such a social function realized?
From an archaeological point of view, we should first consider and answer these questions in addition to interpretation.

Kong Qin, an associate professor at Peking University School of Arts and Museology, put forward an interesting idea after smiling.

"Does the kaomoji we use on the Internet count as words?"

(End of this chapter)