The First Chinese Written Characters 原始汉字

At a range of Neolithic sites in China, small numbers of symbols of either pictorial or simple geometric nature have been unearthed which were incised into or drawn or painted on artifacts, mostly on pottery but in some instances on turtle shells, animal bones or artifacts made from bone or jade. The question of whether such symbols are writing, primitive or proto-writing, or merely non-writing symbols or signs for other purposes such as identification is a highly controversial one, and the debate still continues today.
Inscription-bearing artifacts from the Dawenkou culture in Shandong, dating to 2800 – 2500BC, have drawn a great deal of interest amongst researchers, in part because the Dawenkou culture is believed to be directly ancestral to the Shang, where the first undisputed Chinese writing appears.
There is clear similarity in style between these signs and pictographic Shang and early Zhou symbols. Both types of symbols also have multiple components, reminiscent of the compounding of elements in the Chinese script, thus eliciting claims of a relationship.
The pictograph shown here resembles the sun and a crescent moon above a cloud or fire or a mountain. It is said to be the Chinese character for ‘dawn’, 旦 dan, or for ‘bright’, 炅 jiong, and so on.
This symbol is significant to the Chinese calligraphers because it has all the elements that are needed to make Chinese word structurally beautiful. The lines that form the graph are symmetrically arranged so as to give one a sense of good balance, fine proportion and harmony. An imaginary line is at the centre which vertically divides the graph into two halfs.
The Dawenkou pictographs undoubtedly can be viewed as the forerunners of Chinese primitive writing.
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在一系列的中国石器时代遗迹中，少量刻、写或画在史前物上的图画或简单几何的符号出土了。这些史前物主要是陶器，少量是龟甲、动物骨，或由骨或玉制成的史前物。关于这些符号是不是文字系统、原始或原型文字，或有其他目的（如标记）的非文字符号或记号，具高度争议性。这个辩论至今还在进行。
距今4500至4800年（公元前2500年至2800年）山东的大汶口文化有铭刻的出土物引起学者极大兴趣，部分原因是一般认为商朝直接承继了大汶口文化，而商朝出现中国文字是不争之事实。
这些记号与象形与商朝及汉初符号有明显相同之处。两种符号都有多元成分，犹如汉字的 多元组合，导致它们之间关系的说法。
这里所示的形象像日与新月在云或火或山之上。有人认为是个旦字，或炅字，等等。
对书法家来说，这个符号很重要，因为它具有汉字结构美的所有构成元素。组成图像的线条对比的排列，达到均衡、相称和协调的感觉。中间一条想象线把字分两半。
毫无疑问的，大汶口象形符号可说是原始汉字中的先行者。