Chinese script older than previously thought.

by grimgraphix May 18, 2007 1:09AM PDT

Chinese writing '8,000 years old'

Chinese archaeologists studying ancient rock carvings say they have evidence that modern Chinese script is thousands of years older than previously thought.
State media say researchers identified more than 2,000 pictorial symbols dating back 8,000 years, on cliff faces in the north-west of the country.

It is interesting to see some of the timelines comparisons between civilizations in China versus the Mediterranean area. We think of Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia, and other middle eastern cultures heralding advanced thought and technology but Chinese cultures just seem to have been around longer, with more continuity, and seem to have made many crucial advancements before we think of their western competition of making the same developments. Yes, the Chinese cultures were not the huge stone monument builders that the Mediterranean's were... but compare the fine detail found in the 2,200-year-old clay army of 8,000 soldiers, 300 horses and 200 chariots that guards the tomb of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China with piling huge stones on top of each other.. Now it appears that their written language had continuous roots back thousands of years longer than anyone thought. Just think what knowledge would never have been lost from ancient times if we still were able to read middle eastern writings from 8000 years ago with the same basic written script we use today. Still, this does remind me of how important finds such as the Rosetta Stone were.

I'm sure that you can't just pull a person from the street who can read all this ancient text right away but it still makes you think of just how long the east asian civilizations have actually been around when one finds out their basic script is 8000 years old.

grim

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You'd be surprised.
Many years ago I read an article about "dragon bones" (as the country folk called them). They were actually pieces of turtle shell, written on and then burned by shamans. After the burning they were shattered; the belief was that the pieces could be "read" for fortunes etc. (Like other cultures looking into entrails.) Anyway, modern scientists had no trouble identifying many of the characters - very little change. (Others were completely different, and their meanings long lost.)

Related: Spoken Chinese has several "dialects" that are more like separate languages, but the written language is universal. (I've seen Chinese diners in Chinese restaurants in the US write their orders for the waiters for that reason.)

Don't lose too much sleep over 'lost knowledge'. The Bible claims to go back to the beginning of human history (whether written or oral), is readily available in almost every modern language, and in more of them every year, yet people still steal, kill, envy, etc. etc. In fact, 1 Tim 3:1-5 looks less like prophecy and more like plain news each passing day.

Back to the Chinese: Look up a guy named Joseph (?) Needham. He wrote several volumes on ancient Chinese technology; firecrackers ain't the half of it.

Chinese script older than previously thought.

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