CARL
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‘First script’ found on axe
Jul 11, 2013, 13:06
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Article in today’s Metro:
Primitive writing dating from 5,000 years ago has been found on stoneware dug out in eastern China, archaeologists have revealed. The inscriptions are about 1,400 years older than the oldest known written Chinese language and roughly the same as the oldest writing in the world. There was not enough to indicate any developed writing but there is evidence of words on two broken axe pieces. The incisions were found on 200 pieces excavated from the Neolithic ear relic site south of Shanghai.
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Rhiannon
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Edited Jul 11, 2013, 14:25
Re: ‘First script’ found on axe
Jul 11, 2013, 14:23
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Might be the oldest chinese script. But cuneiform was going before that, surely? I wonder if there's a political element one has to consider. ie "we've got the oldest writing so there".
(also the article sounds a bit muddled, isn't stonewear ceramics? but then the axe is mentioned? I liked your neolithic ear typo though :)
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Littlestone
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Re: ‘First script’ found on axe
Jul 11, 2013, 14:59
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The earliest Chinese script (until this announcement) is the Oracle Bone Script. Wiki says it dates from 1,200-1,050bce though I thought it was earlier. The pic in the link shows a fairly developed script and there are much more primitive, hence earlier ones. The very nature of the script (heating the bones until they cracked and then ‘seeing’ a script in the cracks much like seeing signs in tealeaves) suggests that the Oracle Bone Script could stretch way back. Have you got a link to the article CARL?
Cuneiform, Rhiannon, dates from around 4,000bce.
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Littlestone
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Re: ‘First script’ found on axe
Jul 11, 2013, 15:13
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Littlestone wrote: Have you got a link to the article CARL?
Just found this. Looks like a pic of a fish or something, although at the top right there’s a pictogram that could be the one for ‘woman’.
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CARL
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Re: ‘First script’ found on axe
Jul 12, 2013, 07:12
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Sorry Littlestone I just copied what was written in the paper.
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