Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries


Visitors' Forum

Asian Art  Forums - Detail List
Asian Art Forums

Message Listing by Date:
Message Index | Back | Post a New Message | Search | Private Mail | FAQ
Subject:Translation
Posted By: Rogério Cezar de Cerqueira Leite Tue, Aug 04, 2015 IP: 179.159.135.126

Dear Forum Members;

We would like to ask for your help with the translation of these marks present inside a ritual vessel.

Sincerely,
Prof. Rogério



Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: Rogério Cezar de Cerqueira Leite Wed, Aug 05, 2015

We send a picture of the original vessel, too.

Best regards,
Prof. Rogério



Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: rat Wed, Aug 05, 2015

oho, here is a challenge. Few people work in this area, I only know a few of these characters; you might try for ideas the following, as my guess is that this is a Zhou inscription:

Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1991). Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford. ISBN 0-520-07028-3.

The following is an excellent tool, but will only help you indirectly: you need to start with a potential answer and seek its confirmation.

http://www.internationalscientific.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%BB%8A&submitButton1=Etymology

Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: mikeoz Thu, Aug 06, 2015

Well, here's perhaps a start.

Two of the characters were particularly problematic: the third, which I finally identified as Zha 摣 once I recognised the element in the top right was the Tiger; and the fourth, which may be nothing more than Rain, but may otherwise be Mai 霾 as being the only character I could find nearly similar.

Now for others to explore.

Good luck!



Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: rat Sun, Aug 09, 2015

As usual, I am amazed and impressed. You are way ahead of me on this, mikeoz. I can't find my copy of _Shuowen_, and am not sure it is a good source anyway, but I went through 故宫博物院, _古玺文编_ (文物出版社, 1981/1994), which is what I think is the book I have with the oldest characters in it and found partial confirmation of several of the trickier characters, but no "smoking gun" examples.

From that book I post three images of characters on seals in the Palace Museum collection, including 乙, 老 (see the final impression in that column: with 寸 below it I think you've got 壽 correct),and 虘, though I'm not sure how you got to 摣 exactly.

There is no entry in this book for any characters containing 矛, but my 篆刻字典 has one entry that looks plausible. I can't find anything that identifies the entire character though, as my dictionaries don't go back that far, but this one does seem the most problematic. I agree that the radical is unlikely to be 雨 despite the apparent similarity; I'm just not sure what to make of the characters' bottom half if we take 矛 to be the top half.

The other characters all look correct to me.







Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: Rogério Cezar de Cerqueira Leite Thu, Aug 06, 2015

Thank you for your help.

Our analysis about the characteristis of this vessel also indicates us that this is probably from Zhou period.

Best Regards,
Prof. Rogério

Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: mikeoz Sat, Aug 08, 2015

How dangerous it is to assume!

I 'assumed' that the upper element of the two characters with the ? mark was the rain radical 雨. But I was wrong, the element is in fact mao 矛:

Looking through dictionaries for characters under that radical, I found 柔, 矜,務,矞,蟊. Perhaps the most appropriate for this inscription is yu 矞, which carries the meaning of 'auspicious'.

However, I cannot find a record of this character in bronze script that matches the example in the inscription.





Subject:All these bronze script may be mumble jumble
Posted By: Super Sun, Aug 09, 2015

These scripts appear to be Bronze script 金文 or zhōng bells and dǐng script 鐘鼎文. The problem is:
"Early bronze inscriptions were almost always cast (that is, the writing was done with a stylus in the wet clay of the piece-mold from which the bronze was then cast), while later inscriptions were often engraved after the bronze was cast."

Not trying to pour cold water on your excitement but based on these scripts and the manner they were executed inside your piece, I am extremely suspicious with their ages and I do not believe any attempts to have them translated would lead you anywhere because I had seen similar oracle bone scripts 甲骨文 being added to many fake archaic jade pieces to make them appear to be archaic but most of these scripts were basically mumble jumble. Interestingly, oracle bone script was not discovered till 1970s. Now some said bronze script even preceded the oracle script by 100 years, "The oldest bronze artefacts ever unearthed, date back to the last years of the Xia dynasty (夏朝, 2070 – 1600 B.C.E.). The initial length of the phrases at that period was very short, usually one to maximum three characters. They stood for and represented a clan, or the owner of a given bronze item, but also related to their power or status (owners of such vessels were mostly kings and wealthy rulers). Characters were of highly pictographic nature, often depicting clan symbols in conjunction with the name of the clan leader."

Please understand that since I am neither an expert on oracle bone script/bronze script nor an expert on early Chinese bronzes. Therefore I can be wrong. If you genuinely believe your piece is an authentic archaic piece, I would contact large auction houses to authenticate your piece or faculties of renown Chinese universities such as the Hong Kong University or the Chinese University in Hong Kong, Peking University in China, etc. where there would be many experts on this type of scripts who can assist you in translating them if they believe it has merit. Cheer.

Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: Rogério C. C. Leite Mon, Aug 10, 2015

Dears rat and mikeoz,

I am very much thankful for your help. I should be receiving a visit from a professor in antiquities from Peking University shortly. He is not coming for this specific purpose but to examine the entire collection. I will submit to him your point of views. If he comments on them, I will let you know.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Rogério

Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: rat Tue, Aug 11, 2015

Much obliged. Your expert likely has better experience with this script than the rest of us. Given the ubiquity of fakes in the Chinese art market, Super's point is understandable, but your visitor may be best able to offer a view on how accurately the characters in your bronze conform to archaic Chinese syntax. (Though the bronze may be wrong for reasons other than the inscription!)

For additional views you may also want to post full photos of the bronze on the Gotheborg discussion forum, which includes archaic bronzes as one of its topic areas.

Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: ctyam2003 Thu, Jul 06, 2017

Dear All,

I was wondering if any of you could help me out in translating the bronze script found in a bronze sculpture which belongs to my family.

It is a griffon most probably from the Eastern Zhou or Warring States Period.

Thanks!

BR,

CT







Subject:Re: Translation
Posted By: rat Fri, Jul 07, 2017

I can't make out most of the characters, so that doesn't help you much, but those I see don't seem stylistically similar to Shang and Zhou bronzes to me. Have you found similar examples in museums etc?


Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |