Chinese characters originated in the Middle East - also on the cultural interpretation of the origin of oracle bone inscriptions
Article source: Chinese World Ancient History Research Network Article author: Su San
1. Starting from "speaking from the West"
If you want to truly decipher the origin of Chinese characters, you must first break down all ideological barriers and emancipate your mind, especially giving up the premature "independent origin of Chinese civilization" in the past. Conclusion”. It is said that as of today, the origin of Chinese writing has not yet been determined. In fact, there is not even a clue. I think everyone has been misled by the "independence theory of Chinese civilization" when exploring the origin of Chinese characters, so it has been delayed for more than 100 years without a clue. Because everyone is wandering around China under the shadow of "independence theory," at least in recent decades. If we are willing to look at the vast external world, everything will suddenly become clear and become very simple.
Many people in the once prosperous "Xi Lai" do not understand its origins or its demise, so any remarks or findings that are suspected of supporting "Xi Lai" will appear to be arrogant. It's so big, and the origin of Chinese characters cannot cross this threshold. Therefore, I believe that re-understanding “Western speaking” and understanding my “global civilization origin” are the key to unlocking the origin of Chinese characters. Otherwise, it will never be possible to reveal the origin of Chinese characters.
Archaeology is a young subject in China, with a history of less than 100 years, and it was founded by a foreigner named Andersen, who was an amateur. The official occupation in China is engineer. This origin seems to presuppose something else. China's history is so closely linked to Westerners. It was this person who formally proposed the concept of "speaking from the west" based on the characteristics of painted pottery of Yangshao culture in China. This happened more than 80 years ago. It is necessary to point out that the "West" in "西来" has nothing to do with today's concept of "West". It refers to the geographical "West", specifically Central Asia and West Asia.
The study of prehistory has its own rules. With the continuous excavation and updating of archaeological materials, it is normal for various conclusions to be overturned and rewritten at any time. "Xilai" also faces the same fate. But the difference is that "speaking of the West", a study that may involve Chinese people's emotions, happened to run into the complex political movements of the last century. Opposing the "West" became a clear political task at some point. In the era of "discoloration", along with its own limitations and weaknesses, "Xi Liao" disappeared unexpectedly in the 1970s of the last century, and was replaced by the "independent theory of the origin of Chinese civilization" quietly It has become a "final conclusion".
It is true that the "independence theory" is not unreasonable. For example, China's own scholars have discovered more and more cultures that can confirm the correlation with each other in the vast area of ????China. The more people seem to be doing a series of closed games of A=B, so B=A, B=A=C=D when explaining the connection between these cultures, Chinese scholars who are confused actually think that Chinese civilization The source should be within these A, B, C, and D. It completely ignores the premise that the Neolithic Age in China originated later than the West, and does not consider that there were a large number of unexplainable "Silk Road" in China. There is evidence of cultural exchange between the East and the West, and the "independence theory" has been "concluded" like this. No one knows how or who made the conclusion. It is probably the most common "quote from the public" in the old times. It should be said that the reason why this "Western-speaking" has been ignored is due to both internal reasons in the archaeological and historical circles, as well as external reasons in China's academic environment at that time. But it most directly illustrates the Chinese academic Due to the fragility of world scientific concepts, Chinese academic circles have hastily made the theory of "Chinese civilization independence" without certain evidence, and instilled it into the minds of all Chinese people. If someone calls it "pluralism" in Chinese history. Don't be mistaken. He means "diversity" within China. For example, there is the theory of northwest China, the theory of the Yellow River of China, the theory of the Yangtze River, the theory of eastern and western China, which is related to the self-generated and other parts of China. The "pluralism theory" of the parallel import of regional civilizations is completely different. In China, any large-scale public exploration of the origins of civilizations is suppressed by this "conclusive conclusion", or can only be based on this premise. You can only explore it, otherwise it will be regarded as evil.
The jade in the Yinxu Tomb comes from the Karakoram Mountains in Xinjiang. This is the most daring exploration I have seen in recent years, because their perspective is almost the same. It goes beyond the Central Asian region referred to by "Xi Li". Today, people generally accept that Xinjiang is indeed connected with the Central Plains during the Shang Dynasty, because the jade stones clearly tell this fact. I measured it with a meter ruler. After a while, the distance from Xinjiang to the hinterland of China is basically the same as that from Xinjiang to Rome, and from the perspective of geographical and climatic conditions, the road from Xinjiang to the hinterland of China is more difficult. These conditions explain a lot of problems. If it cannot be proved that there is a direct connection between the Shang Dynasty and ancient Egypt, then we can already infer that the connection between the Yin merchants and ancient Egypt is not a problem at all, or that the connection between the Xinjiang people and the ancient Egyptians is certain. Archeology has found that Xinjiang people in ancient times had a large number of shell coins from the southeastern coast of China. This distance was enough to exchange for Xinjiang people to go to any area in the Middle East.
Archaeological expert Mr. Chen Xingcan said: "As for the changes in the interpretation of ancient Chinese civilization, in addition to the influence of the traditional Chinese history view in the Central Plains and nationalism, the more direct reason is the change of archaeological materials. Everything The explanations all change as the materials change. Mr. Zhang Guangzhi has said this on many occasions: Past archaeological experience tells us that "new materials will definitely appear in the near future, and hypotheses based on old materials will definitely collapse." Destruction'. This is also true for the study of the origin of Chinese civilization. "I think this understanding is objectively correct. Today happens to be the time for "the hypothesis based on old materials to collapse", because enough has been accumulated from the time when "Western Language" was denied more than 30 years ago to today. Of course, we must first thank many unknown archaeologists and historians for their unremitting efforts. Although many of them still adhere to the "independence theory of Chinese civilization", they carefully and deliberately avoid giving the possibility of "speaking to the West" The supporting materials still allowed me to find some accurate data on "speaking from the west", such as the excavation of some major sites, but almost all the racial aspects were avoided.
2. Two stages and stratifications
I think that the stages of Chinese prehistory are roughly divided into the Yangshao culture, which originated 6 or 7 thousand years ago, and the Xia, Shang and Zhou culture, which originated about 4,000 years ago. The reason why we focus on these two major stages of culture is because their characteristics are obvious, and the others will not be mentioned for the time being. The connection between the two occurred around 4,000 years ago. And because they themselves come from a large civilization system - the Middle East, it can be said that they are so closely connected that they are almost inseparable. Occasionally, some people even say that they have a direct inheritance relationship. The main feature of Yangshao culture is painted pottery, and its religious symbols are mainly the double fish on Banpo. Its development area is mainly in northwest China, distributed in Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, and parts of Shanxi and Henan. Its development trend is obviously tilted from west to southeast. Its source channel can be considered to enter from Xinjiang, or it can be considered to enter from South Asia across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Qinghai. Astronomy in the ancient Mesopotamia was very developed. The Pisces Cult most likely comes from the astronomical Pisces Cult. The Pisces constellation is closely related to the solar term of the Spring Equinox.
The text symbols of the Yangshao period should mainly consider the hieroglyphics and cuneiform characters of the Mesopotamia in the Middle East, which are mainly based on the symbols on Ganqing and Banpo painted pottery. In addition to the general hieroglyphic characteristics of the Lianghe area, its main features are the arrangement of many dot symbols, several ancient Chinese tiles, such as the arrangement of black and red dots on Pai Gow, and the "tube" on Mahjong. "Card" symbols, etc. can all be considered as some kind of inheritance. One thing that should attract the attention of relevant researchers is that Pai Gow, an ancient gambling device that seems to only exist in Chinese tradition, actually still exists today among the people in the Arabian Peninsula, which is very close to the two rivers, such as Yemen. There are not many studies on the hieroglyphs in the Mesopotamia region, but since the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt were inherited from Mesopotamia, the situation in ancient Egypt can be referred to for other aspects. The pottery text symbols and shapes evolved from triangles, mainly the Banpo Culture of Shaanxi, should be compared with the cuneiform writing of the later Mesopotamia - which was developed from hieroglyphics. Of course, since Pisces itself is a triangular shape, it is also possible that the large number of triangles appearing in the Yangshao culture are just dual depictions of the astronomical constellation Pisces. Triangle and hexagon are both symbols of Pisces. Pisces is often abstracted into a shape similar to "H" to represent the connection between "Western Fish" and "Northern Fish". This figure can be found in Yangshao painted pottery (pictured) ). In the latest census, it is said that Chinese people were found to have the surname "H". If possible, tracing their origins might yield some unexpected results. Many experts have made transitional and gradual relationships between "fish" and "triangle symbols" on the symbols on painted pottery, and I also believe that there is indeed such an organic connection between them.
Sun worship was the most important and common belief in the Neolithic period throughout the Middle East. Ancient Egypt, the Phoenicians and the Hebrews all followed this tradition, whether in Mesopotamia or along the Red Sea. The "conclusive conclusion" that "China's swastika comes from Buddhism" that was widely circulated in orthodox history books can be said to be completely wrong. China had the swastika during the Yangshao culture period. It is a trace of sun worship. In ancient China, it not only had "Ten Thousand Words", and there are various other variations of the sun symbol. This worship appeared not only in China's Yangshao culture, but also in China's Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.
However, China's Xia, Shang and Zhou culture is obviously different from the Yangshao culture. It is characterized by being good at bronze and jade carving, and pottery is not their specialty. These are in line with the characteristics of ancient Egypt and its surrounding countries. Although the Mesopotamia in the Middle East already had bronze about 5,000 years ago, the geographical feature of lack of stone inhibited the development of their jade and bronze crafts. Instead, pottery became their specialty, which is also a symbol of Yangshao. The cultural characteristics, not to mention the pottery from the two regions are so similar, from shape to color to pattern, everything is like the same mother's womb. Although the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties also had pottery from the Longshan Culture, it can be clearly seen that they have different characteristics from the Yangshao Culture, and their pottery making is not as developed as the Yangshao Culture. From the excavations at the Yin Ruins, it can be seen that their pottery was mainly gray pottery instead of red pottery (that is, painted pottery), and the decorations were also completely different.
The birthplace of Xia, Shang and Zhou should focus on the North Africa area, and although their landing place in China does not rule out the possibility of coming from the west like the Yangshao people, because the exploration of the "Jade Road" seems to have shown this possibility. But there is also a possibility that cannot be ignored. For example, the Yin people probably came from the sea, landed near Shandong, and then grew stronger and began to attack the Xia people. It is also possible that the Xia entered from the west, and later the east and west of the Xia and Shang merged into the Central Plains. Many experts have mentioned that the relationship between several cultural layers in China is like an "uncle-nephew relationship", which is both unified and differentiated. This feature can be inspired by the relationship between several regions in the Middle East, especially in my book "Xiang Xiang". "East to East and East Again", even though what is described is not an exact reproduction of history, that complex relationship has made a suitable analogy for the complex connections between cultures within China. The religious symbols on the Xia, Shang and Zhou utensils are obviously consistent with those of ancient Egypt. In addition to the worship of the sun, cattle, sheep, beasts, birds, and snakes are the gods that are worshiped in both ancient Egypt and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. .
If the origin and popularity of the 12 constellations in later generations represent the influence of Mesopotamia civilization, then the 12 constellation system represented by Pisces is likely to be transformed into the 12 zodiac signs during the three generations of China. If this is the case, it means that the Egyptian culture in the central and southeastern regions finally achieved a decisive victory in China. This transformation of civilization in China is also in line with the historical development of the Middle East. The two river basins gave way to ancient Egypt as the most powerful ancient civilization around 4,000 years ago. The Mesopotamia had 12 constellations of astrology at least 4,000 years ago. Its operating symbols and representatives are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Celestial Constellation, Scorpio (also called Capricorn), Sagittarius, Goat, Aquarius, Pisces (February 20-March 20 ). The 12 Chinese zodiac signs are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. This change marked the decline of the Mesopotamian civilization with its glorious astronomical history in China, and was replaced by the agricultural civilization of ancient Egypt. In addition, these 12 zodiac signs are all land animals (including amphibians such as snakes and dragons); symbols such as Pisces and Aquarius that mark the two rivers have completely faded from mainstream society. Starting from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese no longer paid as much attention to the sky as the Yangshao people did wonderful. In fact, this may also reflect other more information. The abandonment of astronomical constellations indicates that large-scale human global migration activities are basically coming to an end, and the countries and nations in various regions are basically in place. The characteristics of the above two systems are reflected in the Yangshao Culture and the Three Dynasties Period. Therefore, it can be seen that the engraved symbols on ancient painted pottery and ritual vessels are inseparable from astronomy and belief systems.
There are various mysterious connections between the Shang Dynasty, which moved to the hinterland of Henan Province during the "eighth migration", and Shandong, which is near the sea. The "Yi" in "Dongyi" is particularly suspicious of its suspicious connection with the "Egypt" in "Egypt". At the same time, the other three members of Rong, Di, Man, and Yi must also have a great relationship with the origin of the clan. Can we even roughly correspond to the four ethnic divisions in ancient China and the racial divisions that everyone knows today? If Yi is a yellow Mongolian, Di is a white man, and Rong is a red man, then Man can be a black man. Of course, this division is very subjective, but the differences between ancient ethnic groups must be mainly related to race, so some considerations can be made from these aspects. The connection between the Rong people and the Xia can only show that they may have come from the west, but it does not mean that they have completely different origins with the merchants. It is generally believed that the word "Yi" means "from Gong", but I think it is suspicious to be interpreted as "from Snake". Whether in ancient Egypt or ancient China, there are patterns of snakes entwining people or snakes entwining the sun. This is what they are called. "Dongyi" or "Easterners" is what people called them after they came to the Central Plains. However, there is another possibility that these people's ancestors had reached the Americas around 3900 years ago, and some of them later returned to the Americas for unknown reasons. They came to China and settled here in Shandong, so they seem to fit the meaning of "Dongyi".
In any case, there is no doubt that Xia, Shang and Zhou as a whole eventually integrated the Yangshao civilization, whether it was friendship or war. In short, the Chinese were born on the basis of these two civilizations. The civilization of the Chinese nation is just like writing. It is not a complete copy, but a process of gradual acceptance and integration, and finally forms its own unique civilization system with distinctive colors. It can be said that they have both inheritance and originality in China. This is a long and complicated process.
3. The production process of writing
From the Mesopotamia and Mesopotamia to the coast of the Red Sea and even the eastern Mediterranean region, they are all in a large cultural environment and have always had close exchanges with each other. . It is generally believed that the ancient Egyptian civilization came from the Mesopotamia. Therefore, it is normal to find cultural connections between Yangshao culture and Xia, Shang and Zhou in China, but it is more important to admit that there are indeed differences between them, which constitutes significance. At the same time, although there are further family origin connections between Xia, Shang and Zhou, it is not difficult to see by referring to the decomposition model of "Eastward, Eastward and Eastward" that these families originally belonged to one big family, and later they were divided into several As a small family, there are some unclear grievances and grievances between them, and when it comes to time, it is understandable that they also have certain differences and oppositions.
Judging from the existing Yangshao painted pottery, its symbols are closely related to the hieroglyphics of the Mesopotamia and Mesopotamia (picture, painted pottery one, cuneiform number one).
But most symbols should be regarded as artistic processing or variations of words or symbols, rather than direct words. The large number of fish totems shows that this civilization does not belong to ancient Egyptian culture, but can only be a Mesopotamian civilization, because fish worship is rare in ancient Egyptian culture (but fish worship may not be absent in Jewish culture). I have always been unable to find a basis for the Pisces worship that is popular in western China. One day I went to an American English website that introduced Mesopotamia cuneiform writing. On their homepage, there was a portrait of a Babylonian carrying a Pisces, and I suddenly realized: This website would not have chosen Pisces as the primary symbol of the Two Rivers people if it were atypical or unfounded. (With pictures)
(Picture explanation) The symbols of the nine stars in astrology. The order above is the sun, moon, mercury, Venus, and Mars, and the descending order is Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. It is not difficult to see their connection with hieroglyphics. The sun and the moon are among them, rather than strictly following the arrangement of the nine planets, which illustrates the "ancientness" of this observation system. The fact that the moon is ranked second because of its brightness obviously better illustrates the primitiveness of the system. . The origin of astrology is in the Mesopotamia. Evidence of this can be found about 4,000 years ago. Advanced astronomy is its theoretical basis.
In ancient times, the decorative patterns on ceramics in Greece and China were different, indicating some differences in their religious beliefs. Today, most of the world's major religions oppose idolatry and do not allow animals and humans to appear as decorations on their objects, so their artists can only develop in plants and geometric patterns. I think these religious thoughts should have existed among some tribes in ancient times. They also influenced the people who came to China to avoid the appearance of animals on their main utensils, but only had lines and geometric patterns. However, due to being biased to one end, these potters made these geometric patterns so perfect that people today are amazed by their exquisite geometric patterns when they see these works. The pottery I am talking about obviously refers to the painted pottery culture represented by Qinghai and southern Gansu about 4,000 years ago. People are often surprised by the exquisite patterns and at the same time suddenly ask: Why don't these ingenious craftsmen depict animals and people? Islam, the main religion of Arabs today, still adheres to the habit of depicting only geometry and plant leaves. They reject any idol worship and refuse to allow animals to appear on their objects and buildings. However, the human-faced fish pattern on the pottery pots concentrated in Banpo, Shaanxi seems to be an exception. However, the later reduction of animal patterns can also be understood as a prohibition, and gradually only geometric and plant patterns can be depicted. At the same time, regional differences must also be taken into consideration. For example, there are differences between Banpo and Gansu and Qinghai due to their geographical span.
The head of Xia, Shang and Zhou culture is Xia culture. Judging from the symbols found in archaeology, they are mainly "eyes" and some symbols similar to Phoenician letters. The legend of the "eye" symbol is mainly popular in ancient Egypt. There are two famous clues. One is the goddess Hater, who is the eye of the sun god, and she often appears as a cow; the other is the eye myth. From Hater's husband: Horus - who gave rise to the famous "Eye of Horus" myth during his mortal struggle with his uncle. These two myths about eyes had a profound influence on ancient Egypt. The simplest use of eye symbols in people's daily life is as amulets. And all the Egyptian pharaohs believed that they were the reappearance of the god Horus on earth. This cultural feature also solves the problem of the origin of the Sanxingdui site, because a large number of "eye" symbols also appeared there. Therefore, whether Sanxingdui originated from Shandong or the Shang Dynasty, its original civilization roots should still be in the Middle East.
Xia culture should have more connections with Shang in terms of the shape and texture of the artifacts and other traces. However, the closeness of Xia characters and Yangshao cultural symbols is also very confusing. It can be said with certainty that they almost used the same character symbols. Therefore, Xia is an obvious transition between Yangshao culture and the "Three Generations Civilization". Some hieroglyphic characteristics have appeared in Xia's text symbols, not just Phoenician letters. The combination of both characteristics of Xia seems to make it most appropriate for us to place its origin in the east coast of the Mediterranean. It is most convenient to use "Hagar" in the book "Eastward" to explain this phenomenon: As for the husband's male family, they do have a closer relationship with the Mesopotamia, and they live on the east coast of the Mediterranean. However, due to the "Xiagar" The characteristic that "A" himself is an Egyptian determines that the culture represented by Hagar has the characteristics of several cultures. But generally speaking, Xia tends to have the same characteristics of the "three generations".
According to orthodox theory, Phoenician writing should have matured about 3,800 years ago, so the appearance of Phoenician letters in the late Xia Dynasty and the late Banpo period can be logically explained. The emergence of a kind of writing requires a process, which may take hundreds of years of long-term incubation, and it is not impossible for people in different regions to participate in this incubation process at the same time. At least we can prove this from the appearance of a completely different symbol in Banpo, Xia and the Phoenicians at the same time.
Even today we can doubt: Was the so-called Phoenician alphabet really invented by the Phoenicians? Why can't we guess that the Phoenician alphabet actually developed from Banpo or Xia culture in China? This depends on archaeological evidence. Wherever it is discovered earliest, it is the real place of origin. But I think there is no doubt that the Phoenicians eventually developed this writing. All we can doubt is where these letters originated.
The fact that no mature writing system from 4,000 years ago has been found in China actually illustrates another problem: the productivity in China at that time was in a relatively backward period, and the production of writing in several regions in the Middle East was actually related to them. The degree of civilization and the level of productivity development have a great relationship. The fact that the Hebrew nation also developed its own national language shows that they once had very strong political power and were not the "small" nation that people see today. I think the origin of Chinese characters should not take shape beyond the Shang Dynasty. Of course, it can be said that it started from the Banpo period, and the symbols on the pottery can be called the origin and prototype of Chinese characters. But it cannot exceed 5,000 thousand years. It is more reasonable to set it at around 4,000 years.
The truly powerful "state" in China was the Shang Dynasty that developed from Dawenkou, Shandong. The evidence is that they developed a complete writing system. The finalization of writing is generally closely related to the degree of development of productivity, but language can develop under any conditions. The written symbols discovered in Dawenkou, Shandong Province have distinctive hieroglyphic characteristics and are most closely related to the culture of ancient Egypt. This seems to weaken the possibility that they came from the Americas. However, it is worth considering Shandong as a transit point from ancient Egypt to China and then to the Americas. There are many doubts worthy of reconsideration in this regard. The Egyptian-like hieroglyphics in Dawenkou provide us with a direct hint of the origin of oracle bone inscriptions in the late Yin and Shang Dynasties.
In fact, the replacement of "Yao and Shun culture" by Xia, Shang and Zhou means the arrival of the metal age and the replacement of the pottery age. Changes in production tools accelerated and strengthened the process of water control throughout the Central Plains. Therefore, with the arrival of new civilization, people moved from the Loess Plateau, where the red pottery culture gathered to avoid water, to the eastern plains of China. This was determined by their altitude. It can be seen from the above: the Loess Plateau is mostly around 1,000 meters above sea level, while the plain areas are mostly around 200 meters above sea level. The large fertile plains in the east were once a hot potato. 4,000 years ago, no one dared to settle there for a long time. But with the new water control tools, it immediately became a piece of fat that everyone coveted.
Before the formation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the Chinese had already integrated and developed a unique language in a specific and relatively closed area. About 5000-3500 years ago, the problem that people faced was just what kind of writing to find. Put their words into words. They were free to choose a written symbol to express a language that had nothing to do with it. That is to say, although they directly adopted Egyptian hieroglyphs, these people did not necessarily speak Egyptian. There are numerous examples in this regard. For example, the Dungan people who fled from Shaanxi, China to Central Asia more than 100 years ago now use Russian letters to mark the traditional Shaanxi dialect. Although this kind of writing is not hindered by the Dungan people, it is Neither Shaanxi people nor Russians will understand. About 3,500 years ago, merchants living in China after a period of turbulence finally chose ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as the expression symbols of the language at that time, at least on the surface. The awkwardness can be imagined. Therefore, Chinese oracle bone inscriptions or hieroglyphics will not be understood by people from other regions except those used by merchants. Even a linguist from the Middle East will definitely be helpless with Chinese characters. Because this is not their language at all, it is a special new combination that has been integrated with the local Chinese language for thousands of years, and the pronunciation of some other letters is completely different. Oracle did not copy ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, nor did it copy other Middle Eastern scripts. It should be said that Oracle Bone Inscriptions integrated at least three kinds of writings before finally reaching a preliminary practical system: Mesopotamia writings (including hieroglyphs and cuneiforms), ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Phoenician writing. To clearly distinguish them is a complex long-term task, and I can only briefly explain the connection between these three and Oracle from a cultural perspective. In fact, we can say that the oracle bone inscriptions themselves are the result of the fusion of Yangshao culture and Xia, Shang and Zhou culture.