Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 6, 2023

 

The Written Symbols and Ritual Civilization of Erlitou Culture

(Abstract)

 

Yuan Guangkuo

 

In recent years, a relatively large number of symbols with ideographic characteristics have been unearthed in sites including Erlitou in Yanshi and Nanzhai in Yichuan, Henan Province. The form of these symbols shares similarities with the bronze inscriptions of the Shang dynasty. At the same time, the discovery of complete sets of pottery and bronze ritual vessels in the Erlitou culture gives evidence that this period witnessed the gradual maturity of the early Chinese ritual system. Some ideographic bronze inscriptions carved in the late Shang dynasty are substantially different from the artifacts of the same era in terms of configuration, but akin to the artifacts of the earlier Erlitou culture in terms of style, suggesting that ideographic inscriptions of this type were created as early as the Erlitou period. This early ideographic script was a product independently nurtured in ancient Chinese civilization, and its discovery and interpretation have witnessed a close relationship between Chinese ritual vessels and script, as well as the inheritance of a ritual system which was central to ancient Chinese civilization.