God in Ancient China

Posts Tagged ‘History Of Development’

The Chinese symbols, also known as Chinese characters, are one of the oldest known written symbols in the world. The evolvement of Chinese symbols have been through three stages, they are oracle and Bronze Inscriptions, bamboo Inscriptions and modern Chinese writings.

Oracle Bone and Bronze Inscriptions

The earliest Chinese symbols were carved by the ancient Chinese of the Shang Dynasty (1200-1050 BC) on tortoise shells and ox scapula (shoulder blades), also known as Oracle Inscriptions (Jiaguwen) which were found at the site of the last Shang capital near present-day Anyang, Henan province. On the oracle inscriptions, one finds many pictographs in their primitive picture forms. The pictographs, the earliest forms of Chinese written symbols, already possessed the characteristics of a script. As is well- known, written Chinese is not an alphabetic language, but a script of ideogram.

Another type of early Chinese symbols in its long history of development is Bronze Inscriptions (Jinwen). These are texts either cast into bronze vessels or carved into the surface of an already carved vessel. These vessels became widely used during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (ca. 1150-771 BC) but there are examples from late Shang as well. The ancient bronze inscription may well be regarded as “books in Brozne” which fill important gaps left by the scanty written history of that remote.
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