The Qin Clerical Script 秦隶

The inscription on bamboo slips in the Qin and Han dynasties was a transitional form between ancient and modern Chinese characters. In its early stage, there were more ancient characters, and in its later stage, the characters were closer those used in clerical script, cursive scripts and regular script which are popular today. Although those inscriptions were not as abstruse as ancient characters, there were unique in their own way.

Many of the inscriptions on wooden or bamboo slips or silk in the Qin dynasty are in clerical script. Qin Shihuang acknowledged small seal as the standard script but clerical script would be used as well. Bamboo slips of the Qin dynasty unearthed in Shuihudi near Yunmeng in Hubei province showed the Qin’s way of writing. It is believed that those inscriptions are real Qin clerical acript with its origin in the Zhou dynasty. In the time of Qin Shihuang, both seal script and clerical script were used and it is difficult to tell which is official and which is not in that period.

Qin clerical script is also known as ancient clerical script, which is a transitional form between ancient script and modern script.

Many excavations testified that there was clerical script before Qin dynasty. The first Emperor’s character renovation measurement was to ban those ancient characters in the other six states. The inscriptions on silk and wooden or bamboo slips, which were closer in clerical script, were untouched. On the contrary, Qin Shihuang ordered that the simplified form of characters be collected and made into a new font, and this is the origin of clerical script in the Qin dynasty. The presence of clerical script which is much simpler than previous scripts not only met the political requirement but also revealed people’s pursuit of efficiency in the Qin dynasty.

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秦汉简牍文字处于古今文字的过渡阶段，前期有较多的古文成分，后期渐近于现今流行的隶书、草书和楷书。它虽然不如古文那样深奥，但却有特别之处。

秦简帛书中有大量的秦隶。秦始皇以小篆为标准字体，同时也以隶书为辅助字体。湖北云梦睡虎地秦简的发现，展示了秦人的墨迹。有人认为此秦简是真正的秦隶，秦隶远祖可推到周朝。

秦隶也称古隶，是汉字从古文字变到今文字之间的一种字体。

大量出土的实物证实，秦以前就有隶书。秦文字改革的禁令是针对六国古文字，并未涉及正在隶化的简帛文。相反，秦始皇下令将民间汉字简约写法的新因素整理出来，加以系统化。于是初步形成了一种新的字体，这就是秦隶。它的出现是为了适应政治的需要，避繁难、趋简易是它的基本特征，也反映了秦人省事讲效率的时代风尚。