| In the 1920 s and 1930 s,with the rise of the suspicious ancient movement as the background,generations of scholars participated in the debate on ancient history and the reconstruction of ancient Chinese history.Over the past century,with the development of Chinese archaeology,The nature of Shang Dynasty’s trustworthy history the has been determined,and whether the Xia Dynasty was a trustworthy history has become one of the most concerning issues for archaeologists.The key to solving this problem lies in whether there were written characters in the Xia Dynasty,which has always lacked direct evidence.The oracle bone inscriptions of Yin Ruins,as the earliest existing systematic written materials in China,have been extensively studied.The "utensil characters" in oracle bone inscriptions are mostly created through pictographic means,and the objects they represent are often unearthed,which provides important clues for us to deeply explore the evolution process of characters.This article selects the characters "Jue" 爵 and "You" as the research objects,and comprehensively organizes and classifies the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of "Jue" 爵 and "You" 酉.Based on existing archaeological excavation results,a typological arrangement is made for the related artifacts of "Jue" 爵 and "You" 酉.In the research process of the creation time of the character "Jue" 爵,this article compares and analyzes the oracle bone inscriptions and inscriptions of "Jue" 爵 with the shapes of pottery and bronze vessels of "Jue" 爵 during the Xia and Shang dynasties.It is found that at least a portion of the oracle bone inscriptions of "Jue" 爵 resemble the bronze vessels of "Jue" 爵 in the Erlitou culture,and the bronze inscriptions of "Jue" 爵 are completely similar to the pottery vessels of "Jue" 爵 in the early Erlitou culture.It can be inferred from this that some of the characters of "jue" 爵 should have been created during the Erlitou Culture period and continued to be used until the late Shang Dynasty.In the research process of the creation time of the "You" 酉 character,the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of the "You" 酉 character were compared and analyzed with the small mouth pointed bottom bottle during the Yangshao Culture period and the Tao Dakou Zun during the Xia and Shang periods.It was found that at least some of the "You" 酉 characters were similar to the small mouth pointed bottom bottle during the late Yangshao Culture period,and another part of the characters should be similar to the Tao Dakou Zun during the Erlitou Culture period.This proves that some of the glyphs of the "You" 酉characters were created in the late Yangshao culture and have been passed down until the Xia and Shang dynasties;Some characters were created in the Xia Dynasty and continued to be used until the Shang Dynasty.After the above analysis,this article believes that characters already existed in the Xia Dynasty.Some of these characters were created during the Xia Dynasty,while others appeared earlier,such as during the Yangshao Culture period,and have been used throughout the Xia and Shang dynasties until they were discovered through oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions during the Shang Dynasty.This also confirms the irreplaceable important role of Erlitou culture in the development of ancient Chinese characters,and its cultural influence has continued throughout the formation and evolution of Chinese characters. |
