Chinese writing '8,000 years old'

BBC ^ | Friday, May 18, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Chinese archaeologists studying ancient rock carvings say they have evidence that modern Chinese script is thousands of years older than previously thought.

State media say researchers identified more than 2,000 pictorial symbols dating back 8,000 years, on cliff faces in the north-west of the country.

They say many of these symbols bear a strong resemblance to later forms of ancient Chinese characters.

Scholars had thought Chinese symbols came into use about 4,500 years ago.

The Damaidi carvings, first discovered in the 1980s, cover 15 sq km (5.8 square miles) and feature more than 8,000 individual figures including the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing.

"We have found some symbols shaped like both pictures and characters," Li Xiangshi, a cliff carving expert at the North University of Nationalities in Ningxia Hui autonomous region, told Xinhua news agency.

"The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters."

Until the discovery, the earliest characters included 4,500-year-old inscriptions on pottery from Henan province in central China.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

If this writing is actually writing rather than just proto-writing, this would make Chinese the oldest recorded written language in existence. However, stereotypes are that Chinese archaeologists often fudge their data and findings--though, personal opinion, they do it less than India.

Also, this would make Chinese writing the oldest writing still in use (as in traceable; obviously, this writing isn't the same as modern Chinese), beating out the other main writing system based on Egyptian (including this alphabet--Phoenician based on Egyptian).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

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[bkepley]

obviously, this writing isn't the same as modern Chinese

Obvious to you maybe.

[arderkrag]

Yeh, it's all Greek Azn to me.

[SuperSonic]

Translated it said 5993 B.C.? How do they know it's that old?

[ConservativeMind]

Ping for you.

[massgopguy]

“Hop Sing Was Here!”

[ASA Vet]

Ping

[Larry Lucido]

“Choose one dish from column A, and one dish from column B”

[Holicheese]

“I drank the scorpion bowl at Wangs and woke up in this lousy cave”

[Red Badger]

Translation of writing:

Wan-Fu’s Hunan Style
Chinese take-out
Open 24 Hours
No MSG..........

[Red Badger]

“Here I sit, broken hearted............

[Dumpster Baby]

"I Big Wang"

[Red Badger]

“For a good time, go to third cave by the big tree..........

[Retired Greyhound]

the same way they know that Iceman was 70,000 years old and that the Andromeda Galaxy is 220 million light years away.

(There is only One who truly knows, and He no longer walks the earth.)

[Sergei Andropov]

Anyone have any ideas about what was going on in the intervening 35 centuries? That’s a pretty long period of time separating the two scripts.

[fishtank]

[MHGinTN]

Are there any photos of the writing in question which we may take a look at?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Some of that book seems ‘fishy’ personally. (fishy used neither in reference to your username or to the Flood).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Here's a picture, but it doesn't look as though it is a character. Will look for more: