Posted on 05/18/2007 10:33:37 AM PDT by Renfield
Chinese archaeologists say they have found more than 2,000 pictographs dating back 7,000 to 8,000 years, about 3,000 years before other texts that are believed to be the origin of modern Chinese characters.
The pictographs are on the rock carvings in Damaidi, at Beishan Mountain in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which covers about 450 square kilometers with more than 10,000 prehistoric rock carvings.
Paleographers claim that the pictographs may take the history of Chinese characters back to 7,000 to 8,000 years ago.
Previously, scholars believed the earliest Chinese characters included 3,000-year-old inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells, known as the Oracle Bones, and 4,500-year-old pottery-born inscriptions, both found in central Henan Province, one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization.
"We have found some symbols shaped like both pictures and characters," said Li Xiangshi, a cliff carving expert at the North University of Nationalities based in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia.
"The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters," said Li.
The Damaidi carvings, first discovered in the late 1980s, cover 15 square kilometers with 3,172 cliff carvings, featuring 8,453 individual figures such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing.
"Through arduous research, we have found that some pictographs are commonly seen in up to hundreds of pictures in the carvings," said Liu Jingyun, an expert on ancient Oracle Bone characters.
"The size, shape and meanings of the pictographs in different carvings are the same," Liu said.
Liu believed the meanings of all the pictographs could be deciphered on the basis of certain classifications such as gender.
Ping
Shopping lists from ancient cave woman to cave man..........Bring this: #$%&* home, or you don’t eat!........
Is there any resemblance to Egyptian heiroglyphs?
related:
Prehistoric Oriental ‘Venus’ Carved On Cliff Discovered In Ningxia
Peoples Daily | 12-23-2003
Posted on 12/23/2003 5:43:09 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1045703/posts
‘Earliest Chinese Characters’ Unearthed
Xinhua News | 10-19-2006
Posted on 10/20/2006 1:51:02 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1723033/posts
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Of interest, the oldest petroglyphs/pictoglyphs in Northern Finland and Karalia are fairly close in age to these found in China.
Might be interesting to compare them. It's noteworthy that today's Sa'ami languages, as a group, are clearly related to ancient Sumerian, and it's the Sumerians who developed the "first writing" (in the Middle East it would now appear).
A linguist at Indiana University who specialized in Uralic-Altaic, and other Central Asian/North Asian languages (ancient and modern) was also able to demonstrate that an American Indian language in California, and an ancient written language in China were also related to Sa'ami and Sumerian.
It's possible all these languages, as well as these ancient pictoglyphs and character systems have a common source ~
okay
For 4 persons add egg flower soup.
Do you have a link?
Incedible. I never knew that. Thanks.
The Mother Tongue.
This report gets the kind of dates we already had for many of the ancient Northern Scandinavian petroglyphs, and that's kind of a validation of the idea that these guys weren't "alone".
Be interesting to see what kind of interpretations the Chinese have for some of the story boards. The Keralian materials clearly have several stories about a fellow and his wife who had the same experiences as Lot and his wife (as recorded in the Bible).
and don’t forget the egg rolls this time!........
Was he a Mormon?.........
It’s possible all these languages, as well as these ancient pictoglyphs and character systems have a common source.
_____________________________________________________
Why would this be surprising?
There's going to be a problem if Chinese characters much older are found. Stephen Oppenheimer says the oldest Mongoloid skeleton ever found is only 10,000 years old.
They were probably made by the people from the Clan Of Ina.
BBC version of the same story:
Yahoo is seeing if it can provide information.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.