Chinese and Sumerian

INTRODUCTION XV

of the old Chinese forms, vary considerably, may be supposed to represent the visible markings or spots on the disk of the orb of day.

The ambiguity and perplexity arising from the vagueness of the attenuated and impoverished remnants of what once were outlines of visible objects, sufficiently clear and determinate for immediate perception of the thing intended, will continue to baftle the would-be interpreter, until more material of a still more primitive character, such as the inscription published by Scheil (De Morgan, Délégation en Perse, ii. 130), has been discovered and satisfactorily deciphered and explained. A system of writing which has come to represent the oval of a bird’s body by a scalene triangle (see Sign-list, No. 32) and rounded figures by rhomboidal or square outlines (z4., Nos. 39; 45), has undoubtedly arrived at a stage of formal simplicity where confusion and misunderstanding become inevitable. The character <7, meaning food, may be the simple Food-sign '¥’ (which in its oldest shape appears as a bowl or basin with something in it), augmented by the addition of < a cover (see D. 337; 277; Signfist, No. 24). But what looks like a cover may have been intended, in the original figure, to suggest a bowl pzled high with catables, especially as the character denotes also a food-offering; while there is a third possibility that both the simple and the augmented characters were originally meant to depict bread-cakes of different shapes. Indeed, if we compare the linear forms of the Eye-symbol <]$& (D. 253; Stgn-Uist, No. 50) and the Food-symbol ¢Y (D. 277; Sign-dist, No. 24), we shall see that the one almost resembles a mere inversion of the other; and we might, accordingly, suppose that the apparently composite Food-symbol originally contemplated food as something Jooked at wistfully and longed for, something eminently desirable (Gen. lil. 6); a solution which, however little we may be inclined to acquiesce in it, will not appear violently improbable to those who have any acquaintance with the speculative attempts of the Chinese literati to analyse and explain their own characters, But I pass on to another group of similar and seemingly related signs.

The word URU-DU, ‘copper’, §<], is represented by the linear figure ms (D. 362), which certainly suggests some kind of vessel or utensil. Hommel thought it was a crucible or melting-pot (Schmelztiegel) ; but smelting is hardly distinctive enough (¢f. the bilingual Hymn to the Fire-god, 4 R. 14. 16 ff., which mentions the smelting or refining of copper, lead, silver, and gold, successively). It seems more probable and more accordant with analogy that the figure is that of some copper vessel or implement, familiar from everyday use at the time of the invention of the symbol; perhaps a ‘bronze’ bucket with a looped handle (¢ the illustrations, PerrotChipiez, AC. ii. 325), or a bowl with a ring, or even a dish with a ladle, or something similar (¢/ the symbol for the pestle and mortar or hand-mill, D. 374 f.). Whatever the precise vessel intended, it is certain that great similarity is observable between the oldest known forms of the cuneiform signs #}—]]J, S=JYVY, EL and that of this