 |
|
On average, 13,000 earthquakes are located each year. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Indecipherable Ancient Books Found in Chongqing
Posted on Saturday, March 01, 2008 (CST) by Thoth
 The Tujia have been known as an ethnic minority with its own spoken language but without a written language. Yet a succession of ancient books in the same written language have been found in the Youyang Tujia habitation straddling the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou Province, and Chongqing City. For the past two years none have been able to read the ancient books.
Chongqing Morning Post published a report on February 15 about the story of Zhou Yongle, 38, a resident in Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County. In the winter of 2006, Zhou arrived at Yiju Town to purchase antiques. He bought a pile of old books from a farmer and took them home. When he was tidying up the purchased books, an ancient book bound with thread drew his attention.
This special ancient book was made up of over twenty pieces of parchment that was commonly used in the Wuling Mountain Area. Characters vertically arranged on the parchment bear a striking resemblance to traditional Chinese characters. Written with brushes, the handwriting is neat and strong. Much to his amazement, he could not recognize any of the words. He was left dumbfounded.
With
detailed observation, Zhou Yongle found Chinese characters next to each
word that he had previously not noticed. The smaller Chinese characters
seemed to serve as footnotes or translation. According to the
translation done by the Chinese characters, the book should be titled
Ancient Three Character Classic .
Zhou Yongle consulted such
Chinese classics as the Shuowen Jiezi [1], Bronzeware script [2], and
the Kangxi Dictionary [3]. With an eagerness to figure out the meaning
of each character and the name of the writing system, he consulted
cultural experts from the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission of
Youyang County, and also local seniors, but to no avail. None were able
to read the strange characters.
That's not the end of
story. In the spring and summer of 2007, residents in the ancient town
of Gongtan were all evacuated due to construction on the Wujiang
Hydropower Station. Zhou went to an old house to again purchase
antiques. Suddenly, a coverless old book caught his eye: characters on
this book were exactly identical to those on his first discovered book.
After buying the book, Zhou
thoroughly examined it and found that it was an ancient book used as a
dictionary, with pages combined with thread and characters vertically
arranged. Written with brushes, it was composed of big characters
similar to those of his previous ancient book. Smaller Chinese
characters beneath the content words served as footnotes. Comparison of
the two books revealed that characters of the two books belonged to the
same writing system, along with footnotes presented in Chinese
characters. Based on the resemblance, Zhou concluded that the two books
were written in the same language.
Zhou commented, "The Tujia
are widely recognized as an ethnic minority with its own spoken
language, but without its written language. If we could unravel the
mystery of these undecipherable books discovered along the Wu River,
and if we could prove they are words used by the Tujia, that would be a
great discovery for the Tujia culture. Then the history of ethnic
minorities would be revised."
So far, this kind of
mysterious writing system, said Zhou, has been found only in Youyang
County. Traces have never been spotted in any other areas.
[1] The Shuowen Jiezi was
an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. It was
the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary.
[2] Bronzeware script is a family of scripts found on Chinese bronze such as zhong (bells) and ding (tripods)
[3] The Kangxi Dictionary
was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710
and it was published in 1716. The dictionary is named after the
Emperor's era name.
Copyright: The Epoch Times
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No Comments Allowed for Anonymous, please register |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
