BabelStone Twitter Archive : 2020

Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:15

There are many examples of broken type pieces recurring multiple times in this text. For example the broken 𘞙 (U+18799) in the right image of the above tweet also occurs on folio 34B.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:16

And a different 𘞙 (U+18799) with two broken strokes occurs on folios 15B, 34A, and 37B.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:22

Broken type pieces like this seem to be one of the main characteristic feature of movable type made from baked clay, which is easily chipped; they do not seem to occur (or at least not nearly as frequently) in texts printed with wooden movable type.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:32

On the other hand, rotated type pieces cannot really be considered to be a characteristic feature of movable type because they are so rare, not occurring a single time in this text, and afaik only once in the Chinese pagination of the Auspicious Tantra twitter.com/incunabula/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 14 January 2020 at 10:49

Individual type pieces for the same Tangut character are not made from a single master but are individually created, with the result that the same printed Tangut characters can vary considerably in appearance, as seen in this example where the line "𗋚𗾫𗐱𗌭𘓐𗥒𗀩" is repeated.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 19 January 2020 at 18:32

Bronze sitting dragon (18.5cm, 1.96kg) found at the bottom of a well at the site of a Jin dynasty summer palace at Taizicheng 太子城 in Hebei, one of the skiing venues for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The dragon is thought to be an imperial carriage ornament. bjd.com.cn/a/202001/18/WS…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:06

Song dynasty brick tomb discovered during construction work at Zhuanglang County in Gansu. xkkx.com/lishi/1299942.…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:14

The tomb has now been dismantled and moved to the county museum for preservation and display.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 January 2020 at 17:18

A Neolithic pottery kiln discovered at the site was also wrapped up and moved to the county museum.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 28 January 2020 at 17:31

Copy of the seal of the Dalai Lama in Chinese, Tibetan and Manchu, from a letter of 1734; in Hunter MS 395 "Numophylacium sinicum" by Theophilus Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), photographed by @HelenWangLondon chinesemoneymatters.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/67-…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 28 January 2020 at 17:54

@HelenWangLondon And here is the actual gold seal of the Seventh Dalai Lama from 1723 (mirrored for ease of comarison) in the collection of the Tibet Museum livingbuddha.cn/en/view-106a64…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:49

@HelenWangLondon Below are transcriptions of the seal text in Chinese, Tibetan, Manchu, and Mongolian (in my originally tweet I accidentally omitted Mongolian), with thanks to @cosmicore for some corrections to my readings. I leave English translations as an exercise for the reader.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:50

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Chinese:

西天大善自在佛所領天下釋教

普通瓦赤拉呾喇達賴喇嘛之印

xī tiān dà shàn zì zài fó suǒ lǐng tiān xià shì jiào

pǔ tōng wǎ chì lā dá lǎ dá lài lǎ ma zhī yìn

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:51

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Tibetan:

ནུབ་ཕྱོགས་

མཆོགྟུ་དགེ་

བའི་ཞིང་གི་

རྒྱལ་དབང་ས་

སྟེང་གི་རྒྱལ་

བསྟན་ཡོངས་

ཀྱི་བདག་པོ་

ཐཾད་མྱེན་པ་

བཛྲ་དྷ་ར་ཏཱ་

ལའི་བླ་མའི་

ཐམ་ཀ་།

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 11:53

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Tibetan romanization:

nub phyogs

mchogtu (= mchog tu) dge

ba'i zhing gi

rgyal dbang sa

steng gi rgyal

bstan yongs

kyi bdag po

thaṃd ? (= thams cad) myen (= mkhyen) pa

badzra dha ra tā

la'i bla ma'i

tham ka

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:02

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Manchu:

ᠸᠠᡵᡤᡳ ᠠᠪᡴᠠᡳ ᠠᠮᠪᠠ ᠰᠠᡳ᠌ᠨ ᠵᡳᡵᡤᠠᡵᠠ ᡶᡠᠴᡳᡥᡳ ᡳ ᠠᠪᡴᠠᡳ ᡶᡝᠵᡝᡵᡤᡳ ᡶᡠᠴᡳᡥᡳ ᡳ

ᡨᠠᠴᡳᡥᡳᠶᠠᠨ ᠪᡝ ᠠᠯᡳᡥᠠ ᡝᡳᡨᡝᠨ ᠪᡝ ᠰᠠᡵᠠ ᠸᠠᠴᡳᡵ ᡩᠠᡵᠠ ᡩᠠᠯᠠᡳ ᠯᠠᠮᠠ ᡳ ᡩᠣᡵᠣᠨ

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:03

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Manchu romanization:

wargi abkai amba sain jirgara fucihi-i abkai fejergi fucihi-i

tacihiyan be aliha eiten be sara wacir dara dalai lama-i doron

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:07

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Mongolian next (the Mongolian Unicode text fills the whole tweet with only one character to spare):

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:08

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore ᠥᠷᠥᠨ᠎ᠡ ᠵᠦᠭ ᠦᠨ ᠶᠡᠬᠡ ᠥᠯᠵᠡᠶᠢᠲᠦ ᠡᠷᠬᠡᠲᠦ ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ ᠤ ᠣᠷᠣᠨ ᠳᠡᠯᠡᠬᠡᠢ ᠳ᠋ᠠᠬᠢᠨ ᠤ ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ ᠤ

ᠱᠠᠰᠢᠨ ᠢ ᠡᠷᠬᠢᠯᠡᠭᠴᠢ ᠬᠠᠮᠤᠭ ᠢ ᠮᠡᠳᠡᠭᠴᠢ ᠸᠴᠢᠷ᠎ᠠ ᠳ᠋ᠠᠷ᠎ᠠ ᠳᠠᠯᠠᠢ ᠪᠯᠠᠮ᠎ᠠ ᠶᠢᠨ ᠲᠠᠮᠠᠭ᠋᠎ᠠ

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:09

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore Mongolian romanization:

örön-e ǰüg-ün yeke ölǰeyitü erketü burqan-u oron delekei dakin-u burqan-u

šasin-i erkilegči qamuγ-i medegči včir-a dar-a dalai blam-a-yin tamaγ-a

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 12:21

@HelenWangLondon @cosmicore The Manchu and Mongolian text may not render correctly on all systems (for me it only looks good on Firefox) — NNBSP and/or MVS may be treated as ordinary spaces — so here is a screenshot of what it should look like (with lines in visual order).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 January 2020 at 15:03

知道了! twitter.com/RichardScottMo

February

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:01

This gold pendant with Khitan Small Script inscriptions on one side in regular script and on the other side in seal script was published in "Radiant Legacy: Ancient Chinese Gold from the Mengdiexuan Collection" 金曜風華: 夢蝶軒藏中國古代金飾 (ISBN 978-962-7055-21-1) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:24

... it looks too good to be true, and in my opinion it is a fake, an example of the many unbelievable [mostly gold] Khitan-inscribed objects that have mysteriously appeared in recent years. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/01/f…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:40

But the Khitan inscriptions do make sense. The regular script inscription reads:

𘱚𘲜 𘱊𘲚 𘱇 [gi.m ŋ.u ui]

𘬥𘰆 𘰷𘭏 𘱚𘱕 [ś.aŋ s.iáŋ g.ün]

which transcribes Chinese 金吾衛上將軍 "general of the imperial insignia guard", a title attested in Khitan epitaphs.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 18:55

The seal script inscription reads:

𘲼𘱆𘱦 [au.ui.er] = "her royal highness"

𘭝 𘬮𘲦 [hoŋ di.en] = "of the emperor"

𘱰𘱀𘱄𘱯𘬜 [d.em.le.ge.ei] = "was granted the title"

although hoŋ and di.en are in the wrong order.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 19:03

Khitan Small Script (KSS) is included in Unicode 13.0 coming in March 2020, but will currently display as boxes for almost everybody, so here is the Unicode KSS text of my tweets in linear layout.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 February 2020 at 22:06

And here is a web page showing the gold pendant text using a prototype Khitan Small Script font with cluster formation babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KSS_Test…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:17

And this Jin dynsty hand mirror with double fish design that I saw at the British Museum today.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:24

Ming dynasty ceramic mortuary models of dishes of food, including a whole lamb, a pig, a rabbit, a fish, a goose, pomegranates, peaches, water chestnuts, shaobing (fried cakes), and mantou (steamed bread) at the British Museum.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 5 February 2020 at 00:27

And here are some tasty ceramic dumplings and delicacies unearthed in 1972 from a Tang Dynasty tomb at Turpan, on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 00:30

I've just had to decline an interview with the excuse that "I do not have sufficient academic expertise in the poop emoji" #ShitAcademicsSay 💩

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 16:28

@csen_nomads I have just updated my blog post with details of this fragment inscribed with the gilded characters 備物 from Bai Juyi's "Text for the Investiture of the New Khagan of the Uighurs" shown in "The Ruins of Kocho" babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2019/10/k…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 6 February 2020 at 16:42

And I nearly forgot about this fine Jin dynasty double fish mirror that I saw at the Inner Mongolia Museum in 2017.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 9 February 2020 at 18:09

.@MarcMiyake discusses some of the graphic and grammatical errors in the pendant that indicate that it is a fake. amritas.com/200208.htm#020…

To his points I would add that 𘭏 is written like Chinese 並, whereas the two ears should be extensions of the two vertical strokes.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 11:36

"Proposal to add LATIN LETTER THORN WITH DIAGONAL STROKE to the UCS" by myself and @Evertype updated with additional examples from 1698 and 1824 babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/N4836R…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 11:38

@Evertype Our proposal was repeatedly rejected by the UTC; but for Unicode 13.0 (March 2020) the code charts are being changed to show U+A764 Ꝥ and U+A765 ꝥ with diagonal strokes instead of horizontal strokes unicode.org/Public/13.0.0/… We consider this to be a bad solution to the issue.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 13:48

Um, that's news to me ... twitter.com/MarshsLibrary/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:02

For 窈窕 yǎo tiǎo Google translate gives "Get Fit"; Bing translate gives "Slim"; Baidu translate gives "gentle and graceful (of a woman)". Google fails big time; Baidu wins by quoting "A Chinese-English Dictionary" 汉英词典 (Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1980).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:23

This is from the opening words of the first entry in Book of Songs (詩經):

關關雎鳩，在河之洲。窈窕淑女，君子好逑。

which Legge 1871 translates as:

Kwan-kwan go the ospreys,

On the islet in the river.

The modest, retiring, virtuous young lady:—

For our prince a good mate she.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 12 February 2020 at 16:26

... I guess in the end the prince was just looking for a beautiful mind.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 February 2020 at 14:25

Clay seal impression with Chinese inscription 滇國相印 "Seal of the Minister of the Dian Kingdom" (contemporary with Han dynasty, c. 2000 years ago) recently found at the Hebosuo site on the southwest edge of the Dian lake in Yunnan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 17 February 2020 at 14:40

It and several other clay seal impressions ("王敞之印", "田豐私印") were found about 700 metres north of where a gold seal inscribed 滇王之印 "Seal of the King of Dian" was excavated from a royal tomb in 1956. zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BB%87…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 13:24

Today I gratefully received from Prof. Arakawa Shintarō 荒川慎太郎 a copy of his wonderful book on the Tangut Lotus Sutra 𗤓𗹙𗤻𗑗𗖰𗚩 volume (vol. 4, chs. 8-11) held at Princeton University Library. A valuable addition to my Tangut book collection!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:03

I gave Prof. Arakawa a copy of Gerard Clauson's Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary (babelstone.co.uk/CTT/CTT01/inde…) published by @Evertype in exchange, which he also received today.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:23

@Evertype The contents are pretty cool as well. Here is the large annotated image at the front of the volume, covering four concertina pages, and reproduced as a folding plate in Arakawa's book.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:40

@Evertype And here is the opening page of the text, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:41

@Evertype ... and Arakawa's transcription, phonetic reconstruction, and translation of the opening lines.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 14:47

@Evertype For comparison, here is the illustration covering six concertina pages from the lost vol. 1 of the Berlin copy of the Tangut Lotus Sutra twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 17:29

Report on the excavations of the Dian Kingdom 滇國 site at Hebosuo in Jinning Yunnan, where 200+ urn burials (瓮棺) for infants have been found on what was at the time an island kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 at 17:32

All the urn burials examined so far have been for infants under 1 year old. It is not yet clear whether these are burials or ritual sacrifices.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 12:27

Five Western Zhou and three Warring States period tombs excavated at a construction site 600m from Baoji South Station in Shaanxi after a bronze vessel was found in the backfill of a trench in November 2018. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 12:30

Among the 211 items dug up are ten ritual bronze vessels, four of which have inscriptions.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:39

This is big news to me! In May 2015 the National Library of China acquired 18 bundles of Tangut documents in a very poor state from a book dealer in Yinchuan who had contacted eminent Tangutologist Prof. Shi Jinbo. culture.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0221/c…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:44

After four years of work, 12 of the bundles comprising 80+ documents have been conserved, and it is planned to complete the conservation of the rest by the end of this year.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 20:56

The hoard of documents comprises eight largely complete fascicles and hundreds of fragmentary pages. In addition to Buddhist works, the texts include Grains of Gold in the Palm of the Hand (𗵒𗭧𘃎𘐏𘝞), Miscellaneous Characters (𗏇𘉅), and Precious Dual Maxims (𗆧𗰖𗬻𘜼𘋥𘝿).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:34

The article does not mention provenance, but the suspicion has to be that the documents come from a large Western Xia site called Green City (緑城遺址) in a remote and inaccessible corner of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:46

In November 2014, just six months before the National Library of China acquisition, nine lots of Tangut printed texts and manuscripts of unknown provenance were sold at auction in Beijing. babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2015/08/t…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 24 February 2020 at 21:54

It surely cannot be a coincidence that two separate mixed bags of Tangut texts and fragmentary pages mysteriously appeared on the market within the space of six months. I suspect that these were both looted from the same Western Xia site by a gang of treasure hunters.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 25 February 2020 at 18:13

There is a brief report on the Tangut acquisitions (入藏西夏文古籍回顾) in the March 2016 edition of the National Library of China journal 文津流觞 (Visible Traces) nlc.cn/newhxjy/wjsy/w…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 25 February 2020 at 18:37

The library also acquired 37 tsha-tsha (small clay Buddhist relief figures or sculptures of stupas) and five Buddha crown ornaments along with the Tangut texts, confirming that they must have come from a Western Xia Buddhist site.

March

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 6 March 2020 at 10:35

Pottery vessel with incised "sun-cloud-mountain" symbol from the late Dawenkou culture 大汶口文化 (c. 3000-2600 BCE) recently excavated from a site in Ningyang County Shandong. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:04

BabelStone fonts support a wide range of the 5,930 characters added to #Unicode13 which is due to be released in a few days time ... babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/index.ht…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:05

... including 2,447 out of the 4,939 characters added to CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G on the new Tertiary Ideographic Plane (TIP) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:35

... and the Khitan Small Script (one of two scripts used to write the extinct Khitan language during the Liao dynasty, 10th-12th centuries in Northern China) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:50

... and additions of 13 Tangut components and 9 Tangut ideographs (unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5064…) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 21:51

... and 212 symbols for legacy computing ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 22:00

... and various other letters and symbols that I helped propose for encoding, including 1F9A3 Mammoth 🦣, 1F9A4 Dodo 🦤, 2E52 Tironian Sign Capital Et ⹒, A7F5/A7F6 Latin Capital Letter Reversed Half H Ꟶ/ꟶ, and 1019C Ascia Symbol 𐆜 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 8 March 2020 at 23:20

Oh, and a gentle reminder that if you do find BabelStone fonts useful you are welcome to make a small donation to me at paypal.me/babelstone

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 9 March 2020 at 20:21

My simple guide to the nine Tangut disunifications introduced in #Unicode13 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Disunif…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:20

Two Song dynasty tombs uncovered (and partially destroyed) during construction work at Luzhou city in Sichuan, one tomb with three chambers (pictured) and one with two chambers news.china.com.cn/2020-03/10/con…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:26

Some of the relief sculptures on the tombs 1/2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 19:27

Some more 2/2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:53

BabelMap and BabelPad for #Unicode13 have now been released:

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:57

In the first significant UI update in 18 years, BabelMap now has separate tabbed views for each Unicode plane ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 22:58

... and now allows the option to show unassigned Unicode ranges ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 at 23:05

... and even an option to show reserved Unicode planes, giving you access to over a million code points!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:41

Large tomb dating to the early Warring States period (5th-4th century BCE) excavated at a site in Wenxi County, Shanxi 2018-2019. This is one of five large royal tombs at the site, and is thought to be for the wife of a ruler of the State of Jin 晉. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:46

This tomb has been robbed many times over the centuries (and was chosen for excavation because a tomb robber had been caught in the act), so there are no large ritual bronzes remaining. But 1,700+ small items have been recovered from the tomb, such as these beautiful jades.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 11 March 2020 at 17:54

And this bronze bird and stone (?) animal.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:41

Four tombs with boat-shaped coffin burials thought to belong to the Cong people (賨人) of the Ba culture, dating to the late Eastern Zhou (?), uncovered during excavations at the Chengba site (城坝遗址) in Qu County Sichuan carried out since October 2019. sichuan.scol.com.cn/sczh/202003/57…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:50

The largest burial (M45) has a pit containing 11 bronze ritual vessels, bells, and drums; and a total of 70+ bronze, pottery, and jade items were found in the tomb, indicating the high status of its occupant.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 09:56

Bronze drum (錞于) and bronze bells from the tomb.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 10:09

Article in English about the Chengba site which was occupied from the Warring States period (c. 475-221) through the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) up until the Jin dynasty (266-420). kaogu.cssn.cn/ywb/news/new_d…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 March 2020 at 10:20

Pottery roof tiles inscribed with the Chinese characters 宕渠 (dàng qú) found at the Chengba site suggest that it was the the recorded Han dynasty city of Dangqu.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 13 March 2020 at 10:08

I've just released an experimental SVG version of my BabelStone Flags font if anyone wants to test it babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/FlagsTes…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:26

A rather special addition to my library of Middle Cornish literature: The Charter Fragment and Pascon agan Arluth (The Passion of our Lord) transcribed and prepared for publication by @Evertype, and translated into English by Nicholas Williams amazon.co.uk/Charter-Fragme…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:27

With colour facsimiles of both texts

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:44

The text is made available in a close palaeographic transcription, an expanded transcription, normalized to Standard Cornish, and translated into English.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 16:53

Here's @Evertype examining the Charter Fragment when we visited the British Library together in June 2018 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 17:03

And here is a better I photograph I took when we revisited the British Library in February 2019.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 23:45

The remains of eight Song dynasty pottery kilns at Phoenix Village (凤凰村) near Yixing in Jiangsu packaged up and moved to various museums and other institutions for further research (three more preserved in situ). ourjiangsu.com/a/20200315/158…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 March 2020 at 23:49

This is Kiln Y11 which weighed 18 tonnes after it was packaged up.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 18 March 2020 at 11:10

The character after 答問 is sách (= 册 or 冊) which Vietnam recently proposed for encoding, but IRG decided to unify it with 𠕋 hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2017/app… which I think was a bad decision. twitter.com/incunabula/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 March 2020 at 19:28

Picture bricks dated to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589) recovered from six tombs found while building a road near Langzhong in Sichuan culture.workercn.cn/32875/202003/1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 March 2020 at 19:31

Bricks showing a door god and servants.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 20 March 2020 at 16:58

Spring walk. Cows. In a field near where I live.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 21 March 2020 at 09:10

Alpacas. Two of them. On the way home.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 12:01

Today I am mostly updating my Khitan web pages to use Unicode-encoded Khitan Small Script which was added to the Unicode Standard version 13.0 earlier this month unicode.org/charts/PDF/U18…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 12:08

First thing I've done is update and publish the Source Mappings for Khitan Small Script in Unicode originally created by myself and @cosmicore babelstone.co.uk/Khitan/KSS_Map…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 24 March 2020 at 21:27

And now I've finished updating my PUA-mapped Khitan Small Script linear font with Song-style glyphs (it's not great, but nor is the code chart font), and have remapped it to the Unicode 13.0 code points babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KhitanLi…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 11:57

A roll of Chinese 10 yuan commemorative coins for the year of the Gold Rat (2020)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:03

... cunningly packaged so that you cannot see the special design on the reverse!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:48

Going back 12 years, this is the Chinese commemorative stamp for the year of the earth rat (2008)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 12:58

I don't seem to have the commemorative stamp for the year of the year of the fire rat (1996), but here is a gift card with commemorative charm for that year.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

(reply to @GBLee)

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 13:14

@GBLee @HelenWangLondon @CraigClunas @bickers @britishmuseum I've just found this sheet of 60 Guangxi 1984 ration tickets for six feet of cloth ... you could make quite a few Mao suits with that!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 13:34

1996 was the year when I published my first book (based on my PhD dissertation), which I wrote in Chinese when I was sojourning at Yale University (hence my sobriquet 赤岩居士) babelstone.co.uk/Publications/B…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:03

Going back another 12 years, this is the stamp booklet for the commemorative stamp for the year of the wood rat (1984)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:09

And these are a set of 1984 year of the rat matchbox labels from Tonglu in Zhejiang

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 14:32

1984 was the year that I first arrived in China as a mature 2nd-year SOAS student, studying Chinese at the great Beijing Languages Institute 北京语言学院 (photo by @apbbeijing is me on the streets of Lhasa in Spring 1985)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/James_A_Benn/s…

Tuesday, 31 March 2020 at 21:45

April

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 April 2020 at 22:04

I've just released an update to BabelPad that allows you to convert Unicode Tangut text to your preferred system of reconstructed readings (and also now shows the reading for Tangut characters on the status bar) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:16

And now if you update to the latest version of my Khitan Small Script fonts (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/KhitanSm…) you can view various of my web pages in glorious Unicode with combining clusters ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:17

"A Chronology of Khitan Inscriptions" babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2014/01/c…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:18

"Khitan Geography Part 2" (Khitan Small Script) babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/05/k…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 April 2020 at 15:20

And of course Today's Date in Khitan Small Script babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Khita…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 11 April 2020 at 15:05

Rock Mill waterfall in Farnham. I've walked past here a hundred times but never realised that it was originally a waterfall until I read this (farnhamherald.com/article.cfm?id…)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 11 April 2020 at 15:09

It was originally very impressive, as shown in these postcards from 1903 and 1905, but it is a mystery as to where the water to power the watermill which fed the waterfall came from.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:10

The most glorious Easter day I can remember, but I didn't really have the heart to photograph my Easter walk this year. But here is some beautiful blossom near the old mill over the River Wey.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:15

And here are a pair of Mandarin ducks in the adjacent field.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:19

And (if you look closely) here is an iridescent glimpse of one of a pair of kingfishers that were darting up and down the River Wey.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 April 2020 at 15:29

And no walk in the English countryside would be complete without at least one alpaca gazing soulfully at you.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 April 2020 at 17:49

Excavations of high status burials and sacrificial pits at the late Shang dynasty site of Chaizhuang (柴庄遗址) at Jiyuan in Henan have uncovered a number of human sacrifices where a headless kneeling body with arms tied in front faces north inside a pit kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 April 2020 at 18:18

The sacrificed body is said to resemble the shape of the Oracle Script form of the character 坎 kǎn, a type of sacrifice recorded in oracle bone inscriptions. If I understand correctly 坎 (kǎn) =埳 (kǎn) = 陷 (xiàn) = 臽 (xiàn) which looks like a kneeling human figure in a pit.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 April 2020 at 18:28

It is a bit confusing because the article does not show the oracle script form of the character 坎, and 坎 is normally the modern reading for the oracle script character 凵 meaning 'pit' which is surely not what the archaeologist quoted had in mind. Cf. sohu.com/a/387721816_63…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 14:55

OK, what the world's been waiting for, here is my anime self via waifu.lofiu.com/index.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 23:06

"Mozilla urges the Unicode Consortium not to adopt the QID Emoji proposal" unicode.org/L2/L2020/20110…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 15 April 2020 at 23:16

In April 2019, I myself urged the Unicode Technical Committee to firmly reject the proposal by Mark Davis (founder-president of the Unicode Consortium) to devise a mechanism to infinitely extend the scope of emoji using Wikidata IDs (QID) unicode.org/L2/L2019/19124…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:10

Today I learned that the Liao Upper Capital Museum at Lindong (Baarin Left Banner) in Inner Mongolia 巴林左旗辽上京博物馆 relocated to a new site on the west side of the Liao capital site in August 2019. sohu.com/a/336501723_12…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:14

I visited the old Liao Upper Capital Museum in 2016 and 2017.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 April 2020 at 10:21

The museum has a fine collection of Khitan-script epitaphs, but they were not on public display when I visited in 2016 and 2017. But it does seem that they are on display in the new museum. kuaibao.qq.com/s/20200104AZOY…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 19 April 2020 at 14:58

For those of you who want to learn more Tangut, I've started tweeting one Tangut character a day at @TangutSea, giving its character construction from the Tangut dictionary 'Sea of Writing' 《𘝞𗗚》

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 19 April 2020 at 15:12

The readings are @MarcMiyake's system for the phonetic transcription of Tangut (not phonetic reconstructions as such) which is described at amritas.com/150207.htm#020…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 April 2020 at 00:10

I've just released a new version of my BabelStone Han font, with 363 additional CJK unified ideographs (giving a total of 52,887 characters, including 41,246 CJK unified ideographs). The font now covers all encoded U-source characters. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 April 2020 at 00:14

My thanks to Michael Bauer (@LowRisingTone) for helping me greatly improve coverage of encoded and unencoded Cantonese usage characters given in Roy T. Cowles' 'A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese' and 《简明粤英词典》 [A Concise Cantonese-English Dictionary].

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 23 April 2020 at 23:01

I am greatly saddened to hear of the death last month of Mr Ping-cheng T’ung 佟秉正先生 ("Tóng lǎoshī") my first teacher of Chinese at SOAS from 1983 to 1988 bclts.org.uk/news/news1.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 24 April 2020 at 15:13

I forgot to update my javascript Unicode tools for Unicode 13.0 released last month, so I did it this morning. My Unicode character identification tool is probably the only one that gives meanings for Tangut and Khitan characters babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatis…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 09:43

Mouse trap ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:25

... mouse trapped!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:40

I have a shop-bought humane mouse trap that works a treat normally. I caught five mice in a week with it, but this wily critter refused to be taken in by it. The trap would be triggered but empty every morning; and late at night he would dance around the living room mocking us.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 10:46

After a two-week struggle of wits I finally enticed him into my homemade mousetrap, and then took him for a long drive far away. There are no signs of any more mice.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 26 April 2020 at 11:31

It's not a common house mouse, but a yellow-necked mouse I think, which really does not belong in the house mammal.org.uk/species-hub/fu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:10

Announced today, the discovery of the sunken treasure (over 10,000 items, mostly gold & silver) of Zhang Xianzhong 張獻忠, King of the Great West dynasty in Sichuan between 1644 and 1647, from the Min River at Jiangkou in Sichuan (50 km south of Chengdu) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Previous in Thread | Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:19

The most important find is the gold seal of Zhang Xianzhong, weighing 8 kg and now broken into four parts, which has the seal text 蜀世子寶 "Treasure of the Shu (Sichuan) Son of the World"

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:31

Here is the gold seal with turtle knob next to another gold seal of Zhang Xianzhong with a tiger knob (less than 4 kg, and only 70% purity) that was found nearby during archaeological excavations a few years ago

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:40

Here is a better photo of the gold tiger knob seal, with the seal text Yongchang (ever-flourishing) Grand General 永昌大元帥, which is inscribed "Made on an auspicious day in the 2nd winter month of the guiwei year [1644]" 癸未年仲冬吉日造) (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E8%…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:51

Many gold and silver ingots were found, marked with the era name Dashun 大順 and place names Lezhi 樂至, Renshou 仁壽, Deyang 德陽, Guanghan 廣漢, and Anxian 安縣.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 10:56

A special gold coin inscribed "The King of the West reward for meritorious service" 西王賞功

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:09

Aerial view of the archaeological site, thought to be the location of a battle where Zhang Xianzhong's ship was sunk. In the 2018 season three hand cannons (火銃) were discovered, and this year large numbers of lead cannon balls were found, taken as evidence of a battle.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:33

In my haste to tweet, I failed to read the discussion of this gold seal (95% purity) with the seal text 蜀世子寶. This was not Zhang Xianzhong's seal, but the seal of the eldest son of a Ming dynasty Prince of Sichuan, and was probably taken as loot and broken in four by Zhang.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 29 April 2020 at 11:44

Please see my correction to this tweet twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

May

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 1 May 2020 at 09:44

"Ethnic Unity" = "Chinese culture is the centre of all culture in Tibet" twitter.com/dolmadeutsch/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 1 May 2020 at 22:38

One of my favourite things — people playing the ancient board game of liubo 六博 inside a model three-storied tower from an Eastern Han tomb in Shaan County, Henan (My photo at the National Museum of China, August 2011)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 1 May 2020 at 22:53

Here's my unfortunately bad photo of the whole green-glazed pottery model tower (I blame the museum lighting). It was excavated from the early Eastern Han tomb M73 at Liujiaqu (河南陕县刘家渠73号东汉墓) in 1956.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 1 May 2020 at 23:00

This is an illustration from the 1965 excavation report in 《考古学报》 which shows the inside of the second storey from above. The distinctive "TLV" liubo board markings can be seen very clearly.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 2 May 2020 at 21:22

This could only be one person, the amazing, multi-talented Guillaume Jacques! twitter.com/ThomasPellard/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 3 May 2020 at 13:31

Talking of Guillaume Jacques ... twitter.com/TangutSea/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 10:58

Posted from China at the end of February, and finally arrived today: "The Tangut Manuscripts — Lotus Sutra Collected by the Guimet National Museum of Asian Art in France" 法國吉美國立亞洲藝術博物館藏西夏文獻 (2018)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:05

356 pp., mostly comprising glossy colour photos of the three volumes of the 8-vol. Tangut Lotus Sutra in gold ink that are held at the Musée Guimet in Paris.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:17

These three concertina volumes belonged to Fernand Berteaux who together with Georges Morisse and Paul Pelliot found the set of eight vols. of the Tangut Lotus Sutra outside the White Stupa in Beihai Lake Beijing in August 1900 during the chaotic aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:32

Photos of the Guimet Tangut volumes (vols. 2, 6, 8) are available (art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/art…) but they are too low resolution to be able to read comfortably. Here is the silk case for v. 2 with the label 𗤓𗹙𗤻𗑗𗖰𗚩𘐳𗍫𗡪

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:38

The other five volumes ended up in the Prussian State Library in Berlin, and were thought to have been lost or destroyed during the war. Only photos of a few pages of the lost Berlin volumes exist twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:42

Then in June 2017 one of the lost Berlin volumes (vol. 5) came to light when Dr. Darui Long was doing research on Buddhist texts held at Jagiellonian University Library in Kraków Poland, as I discuss in this blog post babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2018/04/r…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:55

The illustrations from the Berlin volumes of the Tangut Lotus Sutra were published by Anna Bernhardi in her "Buddhistische Bilder aus der Glanzzeit der Tanguten" (1917/1918), but apparently the illustrations are no longer present in the Jagiellonian volume twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 11:57

In February last year when I was in Lyon, I attempted to take a day trip to Paris to see the Tangut Lotus Sutra at the Musée Guimet in person, together with @incunabula, but I was thwarted by a TGV meltdown twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 12:02

It goes without saying that @incunabula has already got a copy of this book, so I am a bit late to the party! twitter.com/incunabula/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 12:18

And at about the same time that I was ordering this book, I received a copy of Prof. Arakawa Shintarō's edition of the volume of (a different edition of) the Tangut Lotus Sutra held at Princeton University twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 4 May 2020 at 14:20

I hear that it is cool to post pictures of your bookshelves. Here is mine updated for my latest Tangut acquisitions. Hopefully nothing too offensive!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 May 2020 at 09:46

U+2B9BF 𫦿 (CJK Ext. E) in the wild. Now I've got to add it to my font! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 5 May 2020 at 13:20

This is one of three bookshelves made about 17 years ago by my late father-in-law, a keen amateur carpenter. Only one of the books on the shelves is devoted to his native language (although the anthology next to it also includes a chapter on it).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 09:39

Murals from a Liao dynasty tomb discovered at Aohan Banner in Inner Mongolia. Musicians and monkeys shown chinanews.com/cul/2020/05-01…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:32

Some of my favourite cows ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:33

They came closer to have a drink ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:35

Then lined up to examine me ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 18:37

The white ones (what breed are they?) seem to have grown bigger since I lasted visited them in March. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 22:22

Short video about the discovery of the tomb in early April by local villagers building a road ixigua.com/i6821027088468… (the murals have now been moved to a museum for conservation and restoration)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 6 May 2020 at 22:33

Mural of the musicians shown in the first tweet after conservation at the museum.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

academia.edu/42322090/Recen…

Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:04

A Khitan Large Script bronze seal discovered in Uzbekistan in 2019 — study by Vladimir Belyaev et al. in Revue de la Société de Numismatique Asiatique No. 33 (March 2020)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:23

The most important feature of this seal is the inscription in 20 Khitan Large Script characters crudely engraved around the edge of the top surface.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:35

The inscription starts (on the right side reading down) with the date "3rd month of the 20th year of the ??? era". The 1st character means 'Heaven' and 5 or 6 known era names start with this character, but the following two characters do not occur in any known KLS era names.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:52

There are only two Liao dynasty eras that lasted 20+ years, and their KLS era names are known but do not match the era name on the seal. The Jin dynasty Dading 大定 era (1161-1189) is long enough but it is very unlikely that Khitan script was used for official seals at this date.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 9 May 2020 at 23:56

Given the location of the find on the Ustyurt Plateau in Uzbekistan, the most plausible explanation is that the unknown era on the seal refers to the Tianxi 天禧 era (1178-1211/1218) of the Western Liao (aka Qara Khitai) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 10 May 2020 at 00:00

... so 20th year = 1197, which makes this the latest dated inscription in the Khitan Large Script or the Khitan Small Script (aside from this seal the latest dated inscriptions are 1176 and 1171 respectively).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 11:23

In response to @TangutSea's latest tweet (twitter.com/TangutSea/stat…), I was up last night until 3 am transcribing the unique manuscript copy of the Tangut translation of the Sāgara-nāgarāja-paripṛcchā (Question asked by the Dragon King of the Sea) [T599] (Or.12380/3621)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 11:47

So for your edification here is the [almost] complete Tangut text of the Question asked by the Dragon King of the Sea, with the Chinese text in parallel (perhaps the shortest text in the Chinese Buddhist canon), complete in five tweets ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:39

1/5

《𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘒣𗖰𗚩》

《佛為海龍王説法印經》

𘌽𗍊𗔘𗧓：

如是我聞：

𘃞𗿳𗣧𘀺𗏆𘜶𗗚𗵃𘟙𗎭𗅁𗫻，

一時薄伽梵在海龍王宮，

𘜶𗁡𗳷𗫔𗡞𗍫𘊝𗏁𗰗𘓐，

與大苾芻眾千二百五十人俱，

𗅉𗱕𘏞𗢈𗓚𘄽𗢈𗫔𗄭。

并與眾多菩薩摩訶薩俱。

𗉘𘝨𗦗𘀺𗓽𗵃𘟙𗶠𘏚𗈪𗢵，

爾時娑竭羅龍王即從座起，

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:40

2/5

𗢳𗺌𗗙𗍺𘐔，𗢳𗗙𘒣𘘥：

前禮佛足，白言：

「𗯨𗖻！𘓊𗰣𗹙𗒐𗧯𘔼，𗮅𗧸𗼕𗱱𗈪𗉘𘜘？」𘘣

「世尊！頗有受持少法，得福多不？」

𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𘘥：

佛告海龍王：

「𗥃𘋠𗠁𘍳𗹙𘟣，𘎤𗓱𗒐𗧯、𗗈𘆖、𗧘𗖵𗄻𗥤𗌭，

「有四殊勝法，若有受持、讀誦、解了其義，

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:41

3/5

𘟏𗪺𘙌𘜶□□𗢼，𗮅𗼕𗣼𘜘，

用功雖少，獲福甚多，

𘉋𗕑𗥃𗡞𗹙𗔇𗗈𘆖𗣼𘉐𗑠𗈪𗅲𗅋𘁟。

即與讀誦八萬四千法藏功德無異。

𗥃𗫂𘓇𘙌𘟂？

云何為四？

𘌽𗫂：

所謂念誦：

𗱕𘝦𗅋𗏹、𗄑𗄑𗄊𘍔、

諸行無常、一切皆苦、

𗱕𗹙𗧓𗤋、𗘺𗈞𗴴𗨻。

諸法無我、寂滅為樂。

𗆫𘆖𗦇𗵃𘟙！

龍王當知！

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:41

4/5

𘌽𗫂𗥃𘋠𗠁𘍳𗹙𘟂，

是謂四殊勝法，

𘏞𗢈𗓚𘄽𗢈𘌽𘕾𗅋𗋃𗹙𘄡𘜘，

菩薩摩訶薩無盡法智，

𗉮𘃛𘎳𗤋𘕥，𘜤𘍞𗘺𘕿𗫡，

早證無生，速至圓寂，

𘌽𘔼𗍳𘆄𗏹𗆫𘆖𗦇。」

是故汝等常應念誦。」

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 12:52

5/5

𗉘𘝨𗯨𗖻□𗥃𗣃𗹙𘟩𗖰𗚩𘎪，

爾時世尊説是四句法印經時，

□□□𗓁、𘜶𘋢𗥤𗫔，

彼諸聲聞、大菩薩眾，

𗅉𘓱𗵃𘉋𗴮、𗠝𘏱𗓽、𘀺□□□，

及天龍八部、阿蘇羅、揵達婆等，

□□□□，□□□□，□□𗡶𗭍。

聞佛所説，皆大歡喜，信受奉行。

𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘎪𗖰𗚩　𘃪

佛為海龍王説法印經　畢

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 13:38

If you are unable to read the Tangut text in these tweets, I just threw up a web page with the parallel Tangut and Chinese text babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/DragonK…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 22:59

I've now updated my blog post on (actually catalogue of) seals with Khitan script inscriptions to include the possible Western Liao seal discovered in Uzbekistan last year babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2012/10/k…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 23:11

The back inscription on the Uzbekistan seal (left) has striking similarities with a Khitan large script seal found in Xinjiang (right, characters in common highlighted in red) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 11 May 2020 at 23:14

... the first two characters of the unidentified era name on the Xinjiang seal correspond to Chinese fú 福 'good fortune' (*qudug) which leads me to suppose that it is the Chongfu 崇福 era (1164–1178) of the Western Liao, and that the seal dates to Chongfu 2 (1165).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 12:16

I was waiting for somebody to point out that my transcription of the Tangut title 《𗢳𗗚𗵃𘟙𗗙𗹙𘟩𘒣𗖰𗚩》 does not seem to exactly match the manuscript text. Can you spot the *significant* difference (i.e. not just cursive simplification) in one of the characters?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:01

As @edwardW2 was quick to observe, it is the third character from the bottom, 𘒣 [²daq₁] 'speech' which seems to be written with the 'person' component 𘢌 instead of the 'skewer' component 𘡡 on the inside left ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:12

There is no Tangut character as written in the manuscript, and Nishida transcribes the character as 𘒣, and translates the title as 《佛海龍王之法印言經典》 with the noun 言 'speech' rather than the verb 説 'to speak' that is in the actual Chinese title 《佛為海龍王説法印經》.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:17

Here is the character 𘒣 'speech' written correctly in the body of the text. You can clearly see the difference to the character in the title.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:23

Now this is where it gets really interesting. If you look at the end title (on the left), we see that the character is now written (slightly damaged) as 𘎪 'to speak' which matches the Chinese title (which uses 説 'to speak').

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 13:31

So maybe the scribe got a little confused when writing the initial title, and unsure whether they were writing 𘒣 'speech' or 𘎪 'to speak' ended up writing a nonce character which combined elements of both characters. It happens to us all when writing Tangut!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 00:51

Announced today, the excavation since 2015 of a 10 km² site in the south of Chengdu in Sichuan which has revealed neolithic dwellings and more than 6,000 burials spanning two millennia from the Warring States period to the Ming dynasty sc.people.com.cn/n2/2020/0514/c…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 00:57

More views of the Han dynasty tomb (五根松 M94) shown in the first tweet.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:02

Close-up of some of the items in this tomb, including a pottery figurine of a performer, a colour-painted multi-storey pottery house, and an iron money tree.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:12

A late Warring States period dagger-axe (戈) from Tomb 红花沟 M358, inscribed with the character 郫 pí — an ancient place name in the State of Shu, later a county, and currently Pidu district 郫都区 of NW Chengdu.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:19

Wang Mang era (9–23 AD) knife coin inscribed 一刀平五千 "One Knife Worth Five Thousand" with the two characters "一刀" inlaid in gold.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:27

Another (Han dynasty?) tomb figurine (from news.china.com.cn/2020-05/15/con…)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 01:30

An aerial view of the site. Many more exciting discoveries from the site yet to be seen, including an Eastern Han picture stone coffin (东汉时期画像石棺) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:20

Another interesting find is a (or some?) Western Han "dragon pattern cake coin" made from lead-tin alloy (龙纹铅饼) with "foreign" writing on it — no photos available yet, but here is one of 26 such coins which were found in a Han tomb at Yangzhou in 2015 zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/23767955

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:34

See "Recognition and Interpretation of Inscriptions on Bai Jin San Pin" by Zhou Yanling (issuu.com/jeandigitala1/… pp. 30-34) for discussion of these coins and their undeciphered inscription ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 15 May 2020 at 09:39

... various suggestions have been made: corrupted Greek or Bactrian, Kharosthi, or indigenous Chinese script such as Nuosu (Yi). I'm sure my twitter friends can solve the mystery.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 17 May 2020 at 21:31

Photos of the front and back of the "dragon pattern cake coin" (龙纹铅饼) from the 新川大山坡 M7 tomb. Unfortunately, the writing is not very clear.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 17 May 2020 at 21:50

More pottery tomb figurines from the well-preserved and unrobbed late Han or Three Kingdoms period 五根松 M94 tomb: a shield bearer figurine (持盾俑) and a figurine of an exorcist holding a snake (操蛇方相俑) izhct.com/dili/2020/0515…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 18 May 2020 at 08:19

The official 2nd stage simplification (二简) for 建 was 迠, but as I recall ⿺廴占 (unencoded!) was the more usual form people (myself included) used informally. twitter.com/GBLee/status/1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:41

This is a bronze Western Xia official seal for a military commander (Tangut 𗥦𗖅 = Chinese 首領) held at the Musée Guimet in Paris.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:43

Source: "The Tangut Manuscripts — Lotus Sutra Collected by the Guimet National Museum of Asian Art in France" 法國吉美國立亞洲藝術博物館藏西夏文獻 (2018) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 18:47

About a hundred Western Xia seals with the simple two-character seal text 𗥦𗖅 'commander' are known, but I think this is the only one in a European collection. I discuss these seals in more detail in this twitter thread twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 19:09

Like most such seals, the year of issue and the name of the person it was issued to are engraved on the back, in this case the year 𗣼𘇚𘕕𗤒 (=正德三年) [1129] and the name 𘔜𗌷𗰞𗵒 (Tangut transcription of the Chinese name Chen Bao (陳寶?) with the Tangut given name Black Gold).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 at 19:36

Tangut inscriptions on the back of official seals can often be quite hard to read as the characters seem to have been made by hammering a series of straight lines with a chisel in order to produce the rough shape of the character but lacking in subtle calligraphic distinctions.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 20 May 2020 at 11:39

Just for fun, here is a chart of the dates inscribed on the back of 73 Western Xia official seals (all but one are 'commander' seals), spanning just over a hundred years from 1095 to 1201.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Next in Thread 1 | Next in Thread 2

Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 01:14

And finally, I have managed to find a provenance for the Western Xia seal at the Musée Guimet (no provenance is given in the book): from the collection of Paul Vérondart, interpreter and vice-consul in China (Nanjing) circa 1906-1913. art.rmngp.fr/fr/library/art…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 25 May 2020 at 10:02

Bronze vessel with a bent neck and swan head (鹅首曲颈青铜壶) among the items found in a late Qin or early Han tomb at Sanmenxia in Henan kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200… (inside the vessel there are 3 litres of unidentified yellowish-brown liquid)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:08

This is one of 602 ancient tombs (about half dating to Qin-Han (221 BC–220 AD), rest mostly Tang, Song, Ming, Qing) that have been excavated over three seasons since October 2017 at a site about 500m south of the Yellow River at Sanmenxia in Henan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:18

Some of the Qin-Han pottery vessels are stamped with "陝市" Shǎnshì (left image) or "陝亭" Shǎntíng (right image), indicating that this site is near the location of the ancient city of 陝州 Shanzhou (preserved in the name of 陕州區 Shanzhou District in Sanmenxia).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 27 May 2020 at 09:37

It is worth noting that this group of 600+ tombs is only 2-3 km west of the extensive Guo State Tombs (虢國墓地) dating to the late Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%99%A2…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 31 May 2020 at 15:52

I've just released version 200 of my BabelStone Han PUA font with exactly 4,000 unencoded hanzi/kanji babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html

June

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 2 June 2020 at 17:27

I've spent the best part of the last 2 months upgrading the Tangut Yinchuan font (v. 13.001 released yesterday) to better reflect our current understanding of Tangut glyph forms. This has involved corrections and improvements to about 2,000 characters babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 20:49

David Helliwell has set up his own web server to host sinological material of his that were softly and suddenly vanished away from the Bodleian web site — "There they will remain until I'm touched by the cold hand, which draws closer with each passing day" serica.ie

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 20:52

Of particular interest is his page on "Chinese Books in Europe in the Seventeenth-century" serica.ie/17thcent/17the…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 4 June 2020 at 21:06

After a hiatus of over a year, David Helliwell makes a welcome return to his Serica blog with a post on the "Four Great Song Stelae of Suzhou" 蘇州四大宋碑 serica.blog/2020/06/04/fou…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:10

One of two surviving Han dynasty sundials, both of which have been repurposed as Liubo game boards by engraving the distinctive "TLV" liubo design over the original sundial markings ... twitter.com/HistAstro/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:22

This is the other one babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2011/01/l…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 10 June 2020 at 11:25

And this is a rubbing of the above sundial showing the Liubo game markings more clearly

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 11 June 2020 at 19:18

"On the History of the Formation and Processing of the Collection of the Tibetan Texts from Khara-Khoto Kept at the IOM, RAS" by Alexander Zorin and Alla Sizova orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 11 June 2020 at 19:34

And Zorin and Sizova's study of the earliest dated (mid-12th century) block print in the Tibetan script and language, in the Collection of the IOM RAS orientalstudies.ru/rus/images/pdf…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 June 2020 at 16:47

This is not Takamatsu 高松 in Japan (where I was meant to be all this week) #dailywalk

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 16 June 2020 at 23:07

Sixteen rock-carved stupas provisionally dated to the Western Xia have been found at Yongchang County in Gansu. The stupas, ranging from 1m to 3.5m in height, incorporate a niche for holding the bones or cremated remains of Buddhist monks gs.chinanews.com/news/2020/06-1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 17 June 2020 at 11:49

BTW, the article says that the rock-carved stupas were recently "discovered", but I'm sure that the local people were perfectly well aware of the existence of these carvings! The interesting question is whether the associated Buddhist monastery can be located and excavated.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 17 June 2020 at 12:12

It seems to have been common practice during the Western Xia to inter the bones of monks in stupas. At the Western Xia Monastery of the Two Pagodas at Baisikou in Ningxia, 62 stupa bases were found on the terraced hillside above the pagodas (model shown) babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 18 June 2020 at 18:31

A picture of one of the Tangut items acquired by the National Library of China in 2015 guoxue.com/?p=42679

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 18 June 2020 at 20:32

Another view of the same of Tangut book -- hoping that this collection of texts will be published soon.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 21 June 2020 at 10:15

Only 12 out of these 39 are in Unicode (噯䕐𢯘𨧟𨫤𩵹𪟧𫦿𫪛𬧣𬧬𮛒). twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 09:42

Does anyone have any idea what this script is? I am totally stumped. I'll give the details tomorrow, but all I'll say for now is that it is from China in a c. 12th century context.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:03

@kgro1024 notes that it looks as if it is composed from Tangut components, and it is true that a few of the signs do look Tangutesque (e.g. last sign on 2nd row), but most signs do not seem to be related to Tangut twitter.com/kgro1024/statu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:24

We can compare the signs on this manuscript fragment with the "thirty letter signs" derived from Tangut components which are listed in the Tangut Homonyms, and the obvious difference to me is the lack of any diagonal strokes which are ubiquitous in Tangut script.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 27 June 2020 at 10:26

... but compare the similarity between the 26th Homonyms letter sign and the last sign on the 2nd row of the manuscript fragment.

July

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:13

Here is a Tangut medicinal recipe titled "Powdered medicine for ten thousand ailments" (𗩩𗦮𘋅 = 萬病散), although the first line says that it is a cure for green and white phlegm (taking 𗣩 as a transcription of Chinese 痰).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:23

Ingredients

• Yellow morning glory [seeds] 黄牽牛 : 4 ounces

• Ink fragrance 墨香 (?) : 5 drams

• White morning glory [seeds] 白牽牛 : 2 ounces

• Dodder vine [seeds] 門菟 (?) : 3 drams

• Black pepper 胡椒 : 2 drams

• Taro 芋 : 6 drams

• White mulberry bark 桑白皮 : 3 drams

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 14:27

Instructions:

Take these amounts and grind them together into a fine powder. Before going to sleep, put five drams in a cup of wine, then stir vigorously and drink up. Four or five doses [should be sufficient] (or enough for four or five doses).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 15:24

I'm hoping that experts in Chinese medicine will help me correct the translation where necessary. The ingredient 𗐺𘊴 men thu is particularly vexing. The Chinese translation gives 門土 mén tǔ 'doorway dirt' which is not an ingredient of Chinese medicine as far as I can tell ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 1 July 2020 at 15:29

... perhaps 𗐺𘊴 men thu is a transcription of Chinese 燜菟 'braised dodder vines' -- is that a thing? Thinking about it, 'braised rabbit' 燜兔 would also fit, but I think that would be for a different recipe!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:16

While we are waiting for my blog post on the Shanzuigou site to be ready, let's look at a third interesting piece: the end page from a Tangut Buddhist text printed using baked clay movable type (you can tell at a glance!). It lists the people involved in the printing process.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:53

Listed first are those who checked the pages for printing (𘟩𘅞𘜏𗇋 = 印面校者):

𗃛𗷅𗡝𗥰𗏵 = 梁釋迦喇嘛 = Li̯on Śākya Lama

𗼨𗏡𗊠 = 嵬古竭 = Ngwe Kụ-ngɪn

𘟛𘇚 = 慧治 = Wisdom-governs

Judging from the first name it was an important job ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 12:59

... but did it involve proof-reading the source copy before it was typeset or checking the first printed page for errors before a hundred copies were printed off?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:13

Next is a list of 13 people who selected the type pieces for printing (𘟩𗏇𘏲𗇋 = 印字取者). These are all ordinary monks with matching religious names, distinguished by family name where necessary.

𗃛𘟛𗮔 = 梁慧照 = Li̯on Wisdom-shines

𗃛𘟛𗹡 = 梁慧勇 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-brave

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:14

𗌔𘟛𗮔 = 段慧照 = Thwan Wisdom-shines

𗣆𘀄𘟛𗯿 = 錢玉慧盛 = Tsha-ngi̯u Wisdom-flourishes

𗃛𘟛𗵆 = 梁慧成 = Li̯on Wisdom-accomplishes

𗼨𗆟𘟛𗩴 = 嵬名慧善 = Ngwe-mi Wisdom-is-good

𗭴𘟛𗩱 = 楊慧能 = ꞏi̯on Wisdom-is-able

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:15

𗶣𘏤𘟛𗯿 = 米勒慧盛 = Me-ldi̯ẹ Wisdom-flourishes

𘃣𘟛𗩴 = 魏慧善 = Vi̯e Wisdom-is-good

𗱈𘟛𘉍 = 勒慧明 = Lde Wisdom-is-bright

𗬢𗤂𘟛□ = 甲狄慧□ = Ngwɪ-ndi Wisdom- [?]

𗗧𗙴𗳩𘟛𘏨 = 賈羅訛慧寶 = Kâ-rạ-ꞏo Wisdom-is-precious

𗃛𗹏𗘦 = 梁那徵 = Li̯on Ndon-ndźɪn

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:17

Thirteen seems like an excessive number of people to pick the type pieces, but they may have had different tasks (including setting the type pieces in the printing frame), and it is likely that more than one page would be set up at a time.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:27

Then come two people who made the the type pieces (𗏇𗶦𘄱𘃡𗇋 = 作字兼丁者):

𗃛𘟛𘏨 = 梁慧寶 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-precious

𗤂□𘟛𗮔 = 狄□慧照 = Ndi-[?] Wisdom-shines

The exact interpretation of the Tangut heading is not certain, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:28

... but it seems unlikely that only two people would be needed to make the type pieces, although maybe they only made additional type pieces occasionally when the existing stock of type pieces was not sufficient.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 13:36

Finally, apparently only a single monk was required for the job of actually printing the typeset frame onto paper (𗺉𘟩𗇋 = 印本者):

𗃛𘟛𗕎 = 梁慧安 = Li̯on Wisdom-is-peaceful

The End

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 19:08

These are some examples of the Kuṭākṣara in Mr Upendra Bhakta Subedi's Collection of Texts on Hindu Rites and Rituals (Nepal) [1690-1982] recently digitised thanks to @bl_eap eap.bl.uk/project/EAP945

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 00:36

68 fragments of this edition titled "Annotated Mirror on the Essential Collected Meanings of the Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra" were found. Here is the start of Part 12 (you can see this particular page on display at the Ningxia Museum in Yinchuan).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:00

Three different movable type editions of Tangut Buddhist texts were found at the Shanzuigou site in Ningxia. This one (with a woodblock-printed title slip) shows uneven inking which is a common feature of editions printed with baked clay movable type.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:12

14 fragments of this text, titled "Brief Explanations on the Exegesis of Complete Enlightenment" 𘍞𗫨𘋓𗗙𘓋𗔡, were found. The inverse characters are 𗡺 'note' and 𘃪 'end', and are used to delimit the commentary.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 14:37

Incidentally, here is a fragment of a Tangut movable type edition that I saw at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 2018 (they may seem common, but they are actually quite rare compared to woodblock editions and manuscripts) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:05

What are the distinguishing features of 12th-century Tangut movable type editions?

1. The edges of the frame enclosing the text do not meet at the corners (this is actually the most reliable indicator);

2. The characters do not line up neatly within a vertical column;

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:06

3. Some of the characters are slanted at an angle;

4. Characters vary in size, and have varying stroke thickness;

5. The same characters do not all have consistent glyph forms (because they may have been written and/or carved by different people);

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:09

6. Some characters are only lightly inked, and in some cases only half of the character has been printed due to the type piece not being level;

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:10

7. Some characters are very heavily inked, which is supposedly a particular feature of printing with baked clay type, and is said to be due to the clay type pieces being over-baked, resulting in glazing which causes the ink to spread out;

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:24

8. Some characters show tiny white spots which are supposedly caused by air bubbles forming at the surface of poor quality clay when it is baked;

9. Thin vertical lines where bamboo separators have been inadvertently inked may be seen, especially in blank spaces;

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:26

10. Some characters have missing parts of strokes where the brittle clay type piece has been damaged during handling.

See this example I wrote about in 2017 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:36

I didn't mention upside down characters due to the type piece being put in wrongly. It is a certain indicator of movable type, but I have never seen this phenomenon in Tangut text, but only extremely rarely in Chinese page numbers in Tangut movable type editions.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 3 July 2020 at 15:48

Tomorrow let's explore the differences between baked clay movable type editions and wooden movable type editions, and how you can (or maybe can't) distinguish them.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:19

The intact family graveyard of Wang Shao 王韶 (d. 593 in 68th year; biography in Sui History vol. 62), comprising seven tombs inside a square enclosure bounded by a ditch, were excavated in Xixian Shaanxi between November 2019 and May 2020 kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:23

Look at the perfectly preserved tomb epitaphs for Wang Xian 王顯 (M6) and Wang Hong 王弘 (M4) !!!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 00:26

They found some nice pottery tomb figurines as well ... but really all I want to see are those tomb epitaphs!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 13:24

This is the third movable type edition of a 12th-century Tangut Buddhist text from the Shanzuigou site. It is a translation from the Chinese text 占察善惡業報經 "Sūtra of Divination to Examine the Karmic Retribution" [T839]. Only this page and a very small fragment were found.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 13:59

This one is identified as having been printed with wooden movable type rather than baked clay movable type used for the previous two editions I tweeted about recently. But how can you tell?

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:13

It is not as unevenly inked as the other two baked clay editions we have looked at, but we can certainly see heavy inking on some characters, which is supposedly a feature of over-baked clay type. So let's say that that feature is not conclusive.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:14

And if you look very closely you can also see lots of tiny white spots inside the characters, which are supposedly caused by air bubbles in the clay. So let's say that that feature is not conclusive either.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:17

What about those short vertical lines next to many of the characters? (Supposedly caused by raised edges of type pieces being getting inked, but I don't believe that.) We can see one example in a baked clay movable type edition (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…) so that's not conclusive.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:26

OK then, what are the positive features of wooden type? Well one is the presence of long thin lines where the bamboo separators, used for setting wooden type but not baked clay type, have been inked. Except that we also see them in baked clay editions! (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:37

OK, so it turns out that there may not be any certain distinctive features that can be used to distinguish editions set with wooden movable type from editions set with baked clay movable type! Instead, subjective criteria relating to the appearance of the printed characters ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:39

... are used to make the call. Characters in editions set with baked clay type are supposedly less well-defined with coarse, blunt strokes; whereas characters in editions set with wooden type are supposedly neat and well-defined, with smooth and sharp strokes.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 5 July 2020 at 14:47

I think that these are not good criteria on which to make the decision. There are other factors that could influence the appearance of the printed characters, such as the quality of the materials, the skill and experience of the type makers, and wear and tear of the type pieces.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 14:32

Near where I live hampshirearchaeology.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/har… twitter.com/Roman_Britain/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 15:33

I went to the nearby All Saints Church at Crondall recently, and sitting in the middle of the Paulet tomb (1558) is the marble head reputed to have come from the Roman villa at Barley Pound, and discussed by Linda Munday in the article linked to above.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:08

The Tangut discoveries at the Shanzuigou caves (山嘴沟石窟) in Ningxia, a blog post in collaboration with @cosmicore babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:16

In 2005 a small team went to photograph and document the Buddhist murals dating to the Western Xia (1038-1227) that are preserved on four out of the six caves at this site ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:21

... but they unexpectedly discovered hundreds of pages and fragments of mostly Tangut Buddhist documents lying beneath the centuries of accumulated detritus in and around the caves.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 17:31

Estimate of 5 000 - 8 000 EUR -- who on earth came up with that valuation?! Presumably someone who had not the slightest idea what they are, and what Chinese collectors are willing to spend. twitter.com/JAHBookseller/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 19:23

But I rather like this medieval looking head on the right.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 21:28

Also seen at Crondall parish church, this brass for John Eager who died March XX 1641:

You earthly impes which here behold this picture with your eyes, Remember the end of mortall men and where their glory lies.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 7 July 2020 at 22:31

I have already tweeted about some of the interesting finds from Shanzuigou over the last week, such as this handwritten medicinal recipe in Tangut twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:15

I have also already discussed the three editions of Tangut Buddhist texts printed using movable type that were found at the site: twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:16

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:16

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 09:27

Something I haven't already mentioned here is half a page of a woodblock printed edition of the Tangut lexical text Synonyms 《𗧘𘙰》 which is otherwise only known in two manuscript versions held in Saint Petersburg. It is an important piece of evidence in my forthcoming book.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 8 July 2020 at 22:08

A fun exercise for us was to read and identify this dhāraṇī which is written in cursive Tangut on six oblong strips of paper. It turns out to be "Ye dharmā hetu" which exists in several other Tangut versions, but this one is rather different to any other known example.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:16

More information and pictures from the excavation of the large very high status circa Qin dynasty tomb next to the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor news.hsw.cn/system/2020/06…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:20

Gold long-sleeved dancing figurine, in situ (left) and after cleaning (right)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:27

A silver camel (right) was found in addition to the gold camel (left)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:34

View of the large number of bronze vessels, bronze bells and coins that were in the tomb

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 00:40

Many of the pottery vessels from the tomb were engraved with one or two large "yang" 楊 characters

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 15:26

The vast majority of finds at Shanzuigou were in the Tangut script, but a handful of Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit fragments were found, including ten complete and partial copies of a woodblock printed Sanskrit dhāraṇī (the Mālāmantra, known as 華鬘真言 in Chinese)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 9 July 2020 at 21:38

I forgot, here is the link to our discussion and reading of the woodblock printed Sanskrit dhāraṇī shown above babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 10 July 2020 at 13:11

Finally we come to the intriguing manuscript fragment with writing in an an unidentified script that I asked twitter about two weeks ago twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 10 July 2020 at 13:19

This received many suggestions including Chinese, Khitan, Nüshu, Yi, Geba, Phags-pa, Tibetan, but no certain identification of the script. We are are also unable to identify it, but make some general observations and analysis of the structure of the signs babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/07/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 11 July 2020 at 12:45

I love the colour scheme for the wooden enclosure for the famous Tangut dharani pillars at Baoding ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 11 July 2020 at 12:50

... zooms in on the Tangut text 🎨🤦

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:07

The two Tangut dharani pillars erected in 1502 at a Buddhist temple in Baoding spent hundreds of years half buried on their sides before they were discovered in 1962, with the result that the text on five of the eight faces is mostly clear and legible ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:14

... whereas almost nothing can be read on the other three faces which were exposed to the elements. Luckily the important parts of both pillars (1st face with title & credits and last face with list of donors) are well-preserved on both pillars.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 15:32

The text inscribed on both pillars is the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī-sūtra (Dharani-Sutra of the Victorious Buddha-Crown = 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經) which is almost exactly identical to the Tangut version of the text engraved in 1345 on the east wall of the arch at Juyong Pass in Beijing.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 July 2020 at 17:35

The Tangut text on the Baoding dharani pillars is written in neat regular script, but I've noticed that one character, 𘟛 'wisdom' (used in the names of monks), is written using a cursive form (ms example shown for comparison), as shown for the names 𘟛𗠁 (慧勝) and 𘟛𗗚 (慧海).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 13 July 2020 at 19:06

That the scribe was able to write cursive Tangut characters suggests that the script was still very much in everyday use in 1502. There have been rumours of late Ming usage of Tangut, but no concrete evidence has yet been adduced for Tangut post-1502. twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 July 2020 at 09:57

It has now been reported that more than 700 paper documents and wooden tablets have been excavated from the site of a Tang dynasty beacon in Yuli County in Xinjiang twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 16 July 2020 at 09:59

Link to the brief report (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…). No new photos yet.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 July 2020 at 12:17

Based on what Stein found at such sites, we would expect them to be mostly administrative documents, which is indeed the case for the only two pieces of writing (one on paper, one on wood) for which photos have been released twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 July 2020 at 12:28

The cursive scrawl on the paper document is not easy to read, but the wooden tablet reads (I think, but I may have misread some of the characters) "十七日第一牌送沙泥" "on the 17th day No. 1 unit sent sand and clay" (like they needed a consignment of sand in the desert!).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 17 July 2020 at 23:40

The paper document is dated the 4th day of the 8th month of the 6th year of the Kaiyuan era (718 CE), during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 July 2020 at 15:13

Western Xia painting on the southern wall of Yulin Cave 29 (榆林窟第29窟) in Gansu, showing a child with the accompanying Tangut inscription 𘃾𘝳𗥔𘀄𗈪𗤶𗖵𗨳 "grandson Mɪ-lhəɯ-ngi̯u turns to the Buddha with all his heart". 1/2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 20 July 2020 at 15:34

This is part of a mural depicting a family group of Tangut donors (grandfather on left and his two sons), all proclaiming in Tangut inscriptions that they turn to the Buddha with their whole heart. The painting of the grandson was done on paper and pasted on afterwards. 2/2

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 09:56

A group of 27 Western Han tombs were excavated at Xi'an, near the mausoleum of Emperor Wen of Han, between March 2018 and May 2019. These included four large scale tombs (photo), the largest of which must have belonged to an aristocrat of the highest order kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:18

A large number of high status goods were found in the burial chamber of the largest tomb (photo), including sets of bronze bells and stone chimes, set of pottery figurines of musicians, and 2,200 pieces from a jade burial suit. But very few photos of the finds have been released.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:27

Objects from the largest tomb (M1) had sealing clay imprints "Seal of Lujiang residence" 庐江邸印 and "Household aide of [...] Xi" □郤家丞. The latter refers to a position only allowed for the households of princes and marquises.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:29

A pottery figurine of a musician from tomb M1 and a painted pottery jar from tomb M2.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 at 10:32

A bronze basin from one of the smaller tombs (M21) with the inscription 襄城家铜鋗容三升重九斤 "Bronze xuan from the Xiangcheng household, capacity three sheng, weight nine jin".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:25

Miniature sandstone ogham stone (only 11 cm in length and 199 g in weight) dug up by a gardener in the Binley and Willenhall area of Coventry. h/t @Evertype coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:32

If genuine, this is a fantastic discovery (only 2nd ogham-inscribed stone in England proper), but I've never seen such a tiny ogham stone, and my suspicion is that it is a copy (tourist souvenir?) of a full-size Irish stone. @findsorguk database entry: finds.org.uk/database/artef…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 15:54

The PAS entry notes similarity with the ogham-inscribed red deer antler knife handle found at Weeting in Norfolk in 1950 (twitter.com/BLMedieval/sta…), but a knife handle is utilitarian, and its presence in Norfolk is explicable, whereas a tiny portable ogham stone is inexplicable.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:25

Two unusual ways of writing 寶 in Japanese era names (⿱𡧰玉 and ⿱宝缶), neither character yet in Unicode. Thanks to @JUMANJIKYO and @ehime_s_n for the images

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:28

⿱𡧰玉 image from twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 25 July 2020 at 23:28

⿱宝缶 image from twitter.com/ehime_s_n/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:40

I have spent the last week or so researching the sordid world of Chinese auctions of Tangut documents, and I have documented all I can find on this page babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:54

The first thing to say is that there are dozens of auction houses in China, and none of them have any concept of ethics. You think Christie's and Sotherby's sometimes fall short on their ethical responsibilities? In China it is ask no questions and tell loads of porky pies ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 12:58

Half the antiquities sold at auction in China are modern fakes, and most of what is genuine has been tomb-robbed or looted from unknown historical sites. Apparently this is not a problem because Chinese auction houses never give any provenance for the stuff they sell.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 13:19

Before 2014 there were virtually no auctions of genuine Western Xia Tangut documents. About the only example I could find were 6 tiny scraps of Tangut texts in a collection of about 30 miscellaneous fragments which failed to reach its asking price in 2012 babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:17

Then in November 2014 a group of nine apparently authentic Tangut Buddhist fragments and one complete linguist text of unknown provenance and ownership came up for auction in Beijing babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Auction… (disclaimer: I have published two papers on the linguistic text)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:22

Just six months later, the National Library of China bought 18 bundles of Tangut documents from a "book dealer" in Yinchuan (twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…). I suspect that these were looted by treasure hunters from the same Western Xia Buddhist site as the items in the 2014 auction.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:49

This opened up the flood waters, with 17 auctions between 2014 and 2019 including apparently genuine Western Xia items. Some pieces appeared more than once, such as this Tangut manuscript scroll which was auctioned in June 2017, December 2018, and June 2019.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 14:57

It is now known that 21 items auctioned in December 2017 belonged to the collection of Mi Xiangjun 米向军 in Yinchuan (see the excellent article by Gao Shanshan 高山杉 m.thepaper.cn/wifiKey_detail…), but where he did he get them from? That is still a mystery.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 31 July 2020 at 15:40

Only a year ago, in June 2019, 13 Tangut items came up for auction in Beijing, including illustrations of mudras which appear to belong to the same edition of the same text as two leaves in the 2014 auction (and two leaves also appeared earlier at a November 2016 auction).

August

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 August 2020 at 08:44

#二简字 ⿰由攵 for 数 in the wild. This character is from the 2nd set of 2nd stage simplifications which were not officially used, and have not yet been encoded (all outstanding 1st set 2nd simplifications were added to CJK Ext. G in Unicode 13). twitter.com/luoshanji/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 2 August 2020 at 08:46

𰽔 added to CJK Ext. G in Unicode 13. twitter.com/L_L162/status/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 11:44

This Ming dynasty woodblock edition of the Tangut translation of the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra (𗣛𘟙𗯨𗙏𘝯𗖰𗚩 = 高王觀世音經) is one of two Tangut texts from the collection of Zhōu Zhàoxiáng 周肇祥 (1880–1954) which are now held at the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:15

How do we know it is a Ming edition? Well, it says so in a colophon:

𘜶𗭼𗤀𗋌𘋇𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊𗏁𗤒𘑲𗼑𗰭𗏁𗾞

大明朝壬子......五年正月十五日

Great Ming dynasty rénzǐ ... 5th year 1st month 15th day

(we will come back to the four elided characters shortly)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:27

Great, so which Ming dynasty 5th year of an era falls on the rénzǐ cyclical year? Unfortunately there are two matching years: Hóngwǔ 洪武 5 (1372) and Hóngzhì 弘治 5 (1492). Luckily, the text preceding the date (right three lines of the above image) provides us with a clue ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:32

... as it wishes the emperor and the crown prince long life (𘓺𘋨𗕑𗩟 = 皇帝萬歲; 𘓺𘈷𘜶𗸱𗡞𘌞 = 皇子太子千秋), and the Hóngzhì emperor did not declare a crown prince until the 3rd month of the 5th year of his reign, which rules him out.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:40

So the date given in the Tangut colophon must refer to the 5th year of the Hóngwǔ era (1372), right? Well, maybe not. Remember the four elided characters before "5th year" (𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊) — they should represent the Tangut translation or transcription of the era name in question, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 12:48

... but the four characters cannot be a translation or transcription of either Hóngwǔ or Hóngzhì. To make sense of them we need to look at the long list of subscribers for this edition, which follows the colophon. (Zhōu Zhàoxiáng's "百鏡庵藏古雕刻記" red seal at the end)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:03

The list of names uses a system of transcription for Chinese that is not normally seen in Western Xia Tangut, with slighter smaller forms of the characters 𗭊, 𗅁, 𘆄, and 𗕘 representing Mandarin -e, -u (in diphthongs), -n, and -ng respectively ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:22

... for example, the final line of the Tangut text gives the name of the block engraver as 𗄻𗕘𗕌𘆄𗤛𗅁𘘑𘆄𗥰𗕘 which corresponds to something like Mandarin ne-ŋ re-n zho-u we-n la-ŋ (...周文郎?)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:36

So the four Tangut characters 𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊 before "5th year" can be read as something like su-n d-e or xu-n d-e in Mandarin, which is very close to the name of the Xuāndé 宣德 era (1426–1435) ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 4 August 2020 at 17:42

... the only problem is that the rénzǐ cyclical year corresponds to the 7th year of the Xuāndé era (1432), so if the reading of 𗍏𘆄𗃑𗭊 as Xuāndé is correct then the date given must be a mistake for either gēngxū 庚戌 5th year (1430) or rénzǐ 7th year (1432).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

chinanews.com/cul/2020/08-07…

Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 21:53

Exciting news! A Liao dynasty inscription in Khitan Small Script written in ink above the entrance to a cave has recently been discovered at Wulandaba Sumu in Bairin Left Banner, Inner Mongolia

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:03

The apparently well-preserved inscription comprises 47 characters, and preliminary reports suggest that it includes names, official positions, and a date.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:10

Why were Khitan officials recording their visit to this cave? Some of the experts think it may be related to Khitan shamanistic beliefs. How wonderful if the cave was a repository for Khitan books and manuscripts, like the Tangut cave at Shanzuigou twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:19

The article mentions that this inscription includes some characters not found on stone epitaphs, so it is possible that we will need to encode some additional characters to the Khitan Small Script block that was added to Unicode 13.0 just five months ago unicode.org/charts/PDF/U18….

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 13 August 2020 at 22:28

If you compare the photo of the inscription in the first tweet with the code chart linked to above you can easily recognise 18B62 𘭢 (bottom left), 18C1B 𘰛 (top right), 18BCC 𘯌 (bottom right), and several other characters.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 14 August 2020 at 12:19

Video of the discovery of the Khitan Small Script inscription in a cave high up on the side of a mountain in Bairin Left Banner, with commentary by Prof. Wu Yingzhe 吴英喆. v.qq.com/x/page/c31326j…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 14 August 2020 at 12:48

Article discussing in more detail Prof. Wu Yingzhe's expedition in late July to Jialu Mountain 嘉鹿山 in Ulaan Davaa Sumu in Bairin Left Banner of Inner Mongolia in order to "survey Khitan historical sites and reveal the mystery of Khitan characters" 3g.163.com/dy/article/FJ3…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 15 August 2020 at 22:19

Banquet scene from a Khitan (Liao dynasty, 916-1125) tomb mural from Aohan Banner in Inner Mongolia showing a plate with three water melons (bottom right). Is this the earliest depiction of water melons in Chinese art? nmg.xinhuanet.com/2020-07/10/c_1… #西瓜

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 16 August 2020 at 14:00

I like round numbers.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 16 August 2020 at 20:42

Shadow selfie with cows.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:33

Earlier this month the Empress Dowager Xiao Canal Museum of Culture 萧太后河文化馆 opened to the public in Tongzhou District of Beijing, with over 1,000 exhibits relating mostly to Khitan history and culture acquired from private individuals (民间收藏品) beijing.qianlong.com/2020/0803/4517…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:38

Mostly fake I hasten to add! Pictures from 3g.163.com/dy/article/FK3…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 00:59

Here's a video introducing some of the highly dubious items that have been miraculously preserved in 'folk collections' for a 1,000 years, including drawers of movable type and printing plates in exotic languages which are staple fare on internet auctions. dayuntongzhou.com/web/ct22887

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 01:08

I can say without a shadow of doubt that all these items shown in the video are fakes. It is sad that a museum full of fakes can open in Beijing without anyone speaking up to denounce the fraud.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:06

I apologise if the first tweet of this thread misled anyone into believing that this is an important new museum, but "acquired from private individuals (民间收藏品)" was intended to be a warning that all is not as it seems ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:17

As I've said before, there isn't a huge reserve of pristine historical artefacts in ordinary private ownership just waiting to be bought up by the dozens of new private museums that have opened in China over the last 20 years, ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 10:25

... so of necessity any new private museum has to supplement the meagre source of legitimate genuine historical artefacts with fakes, reproductions, and maybe some illicit tomb-robbed items. "民间收藏" is just a flimsy cover story.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 11:29

Gruesome, sickening, evil ... twitter.com/Diplomat_APAC/…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 14:19

Sick, inhumane, shameful ... twitter.com/DMReporter/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 at 16:41

Just look how similar the little chests of storage trays for movable type pieces are to one that I discussed in my blog post about Fake Khitania in 2013 babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2013/01/f…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:06

Yesterday I bought a rather interesting copy of the Manx Bible (Yn Vible Casherick, ny yn Chenn Chonaant, as yn Conaant Noa) published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1819 ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:19

The text is based closely on (apparently identical to) the translations of the OT and NT into Manx that were published in three volumes in Whitehaven between 1771 and 1775, but omitting the footnotes twitter.com/incunabula/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:25

Yn Chenn Chonaant [Old Testament] (which omits the two Apocryphal Books printed in the 1773 edition)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:26

Yn Conaant Noa [New Testament]

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:33

I also have a copy of the 1824 reprint of the 1810 BFBS ed. of the New Testament in Manx. This edition includes the footnotes from the 1775 version that are omitted in the 1819 edition, but also incorporates a number of spelling mistakes not found in the 1775 or 1819 editions.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:42

"Manks Bible and Testament" ("Manks" looks like "Mauke" at first glance!) on the front pastedown of the 1819 Bible.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:54

But it is the facing inscription in Welsh that is of most interest (I wonder if this is the only 19th century Manx book in existence with a hand-written inscription in Welsh). Note the orthography, with Latin Letter Delta ẟ used for "dd".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 11:59

y Parch John Owen

Ysgol Llanamẟyfri

C'lerig oẟi wrth

Egerton G. B. Phillimore

Dyẟ Calan, 1887

For

The Rev. John Owen

Llandovery School (i.e. Coleg Llanymddyfri = Llandovery College)

Cleric, from

Egerton G. B. Phillimore

New Year's Day, 1887

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:05

John Owen (1854–1926) was Professor of Welsh at St . David's College Lampeter (1879–1885), Warden of Llandovery College (1885–1889), and Bishop of St. David's (1897–1926). He received priest's orders in 1880. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Owen…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:14

Egerton Grenville Bagot Phillimore (1856–1937) was an Englishman who learned Welsh while at Oxford, and went on to become a renowned expert on Welsh placenames. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egerton_P…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 12:41

Below are lines from a New Year's Day poem, "Cywydd i'r Calan" (1755), by Goronwy Owen (1723–1769) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goronwy_O…

—Diengaist yn ryẟ, y dyẟ du!

Rhedaist, fal llif rhuadwy,

I'r môr, a ni'th welir mwy

A dygaist ẟryll diwegi,

Heb air son, o'm byroes ni!

Gor. Owen ai cânt

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 22 August 2020 at 14:19

Inexplicably, I cannot find an English translation of the poem, so here is my attempt at these lines:

—You escaped free, the black day!

You ran as a roaring flood

To the sea, and I'll see you no more.

And you brought sober fragments (?)

Without a word or sound, oh my brief life!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 11:33

Statement from the Scots Wikipedia user AmaryllisGardener sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uiser_col… twitter.com/r_speer/status…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 11:41

This is an example of one of their recent contributions to the Scots Wikipedia sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Man…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 26 August 2020 at 12:46

I have now made the entire text of the Tangut translation of the High King Avalokitesvara Sutra (𗣛𘟙𗯨𗙏𘝯𗖰𗚩) available on Wikisource for all to read wikisource.org/wiki/%F0%97%A3…

September

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 00:43

The tombstone of the Jin dynasty Confucian scholar Yáng Huàn 楊奐 (1186–1255) has been "discovered" in Qian County 乾縣 in Shaanxi by a group of scholars of Confucianism who were paying a visit to Yáng Huàn's home town. news.cnwest.com/xianyang/a/202…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 00:49

Actually, a local villager led the tour group to the tombstone which was lying in plain sight on the side of a stone bridge. They washed and cleaned it so as to be able to read the seal script heading "楊府奐墓碑銘", and reported their discovery (or rather identification).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:17

Two early 6th century Koguryo tombs with murals have recently been excavated at Wŏlji-ri in Anak County of South Hwanghae province, North Korea. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:18

Wall paintings from Tomb 1

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:22

The plaster wall paintings in the second tomb have largely flaked off, but these nine pieces of gold jewellery were found in it (missed by the tomb robbers of old).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 September 2020 at 23:28

These two tombs are associated with the Complex of Koguryo Tombs which are one of the two UNESCO World Heritage sites in North Korea whc.unesco.org/en/list/1091/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/shop/product/o…

Friday, 18 September 2020 at 23:00

The unidentified yellowish-brown liquid has now been analysed as being a medicinal wine containing hair ash and plant ash, which has similarities to the ingredients for a prescription listed in a Han dynasty medicinal text from Mǎwángduī 《五十二病方》 china.qianlong.com/2020/0918/4743…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 21 September 2020 at 11:31

Q: I've got a 400 year old book that isn't in very good condition; what's the best way to protect it from further damage?

A: A few strips of Sellotape should do the trick!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 21 September 2020 at 12:08

A Yuan dynasty painted tomb for a husband and wife was discovered last October in Wuzhao county of Shanxi. The decoration of the tomb chamber includes paintings of landscape paintings kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 21 September 2020 at 12:14

And a male servant dressed in Mongolian attire, including a hat with a red tassel in the middle

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 22 September 2020 at 10:38

In summary, Katrina Parrott works with the Unicode Consortium to develop emoji with five skin tones (unicode.org/L2/L2014/14085… etc.), and is now suing Apple for copyright infringement because they implemented the Unicode Standard for racially diverse emoji. Utterly without merit. twitter.com/questauthority…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at 01:04

BabelMap has been updated for Emoji 13.1, and now has an improved Emoji lookup tool babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at 01:10

The tool lists all 3,521 emoji defined in Emoji 13.1 (unicode.org/emoji/charts-1…), and lets you filter on the emoji name or description. BabelMap does not yet support colour emoji, but you can copy and paste emoji into twitter where they will be shown in colour.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 24 September 2020 at 23:05

Jade spirit tablet for Princess Puna, daughter of Temür Khan (second emperor of the Yuan dynasty, reigned 1294–1307), dated 3rd year of the Yuántǒng era (1335). Collection of Inner Mongolia Museum.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 25 September 2020 at 12:11

I've just added U+20475 𠑵 = "西域哲人" (佛) to my font — it is really not a nice glyph to draw! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 11:34

A manuscript scroll bought from an antiquarian bookstore by Keio University in 2017 has been identified as a 6th-7th century Chinese manuscript of the Analects of Confucius #論語 -- may be the oldest surviving non-archaeological manuscript of the text asahi.com/articles/ASN9V…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 13:20

Miniature stele from a relic pagoda in Hebei erected by Master Zhènghuì (d. 1116), dated 25th day of the 6th month of the 2nd year of the Tiānqìng era (1112). 大遼國飛狐縣白石山兩朝讖主二帝門師傅菩薩三聚凈戒太尉正慧大師特於峯頂建舍利塔...時天慶二年壬辰歲六月丙戌朔二十五日丙時建

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 27 September 2020 at 21:18

Bird box sculpture at Farnham Heath

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 30 September 2020 at 12:51

On a similar vein, all Han children in China should learn one of Uyghur, Mongolian, Tibetan, Zhuang, or Manchu (or some other minority language where available) twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 30 September 2020 at 17:29

Yay, let's all work hard to build Archeology with Chinese Characteristics, Chinese Style, and Chinese Flair! 努力建设中国特色、中国风格、中国气派的考古学 xinhuanet.com/english/2020-0… (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20200…)

October

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at 17:35

Western Xia colour-painted clay statues of a seated bodhisattva from the Lǜchéng 緑城 site in Inner Mongolia (left: Inner Mongolia Museum; right: Xixia Museum)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at 21:52

estimated to be worth $300m *by the scroll's owner* (spoiler, it is certainly not worth $300m) twitter.com/TheArtNewspape…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/woodsidesusan2…

Thursday, 8 October 2020 at 11:05

The above are my own photos from behind glass. This is the photo on the Inner Mongolia Museum website (which is broken so image does not display) nmgbwy.com/lsww/1479.jhtml

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 8 October 2020 at 23:07

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 12 October 2020 at 13:18

Sure, totally ignore Tangut Buddhist studies, why don't you?! twitter.com/cmalcolmkeatin

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 14:41

I've spent three days (so far) writing a footnote about a single Tangut character (𘋻). I feel that I need to write a monograph about every character in the Tangut text I am trying to translate (rather unsuccessfully) in order to justify my translation choices ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 15:57

The Chinese Invasion! They are Coming! (1873) schilbantiquarian.com/product/1873-c…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:00

... and after three days all I've done is prove to myself that the character means exactly the same as the English gloss in Lǐ Fànwén' Tangut-Chinese dictionary, but I still don't understand it what it means in the text I am translating ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:41

... which is kinda to be expected given that the gist of the text (a preface to a pedagogical text) is that Tangut is really hard to learn to read and write ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 16:49

"Roger Fuckebythenavele" — An early fourteenth-century use of the F-word in Cheshire, 1310–11 by Paul Booth ("the earliest instance of the word with this usage so far found") academia.edu/28222733/An_ea…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 17:40

And now I've just realized that Prof. Lin Ying-chin wrote a 16-page monograph on the meaning of this very character 𘋻 which makes my last three days of research and footnotation a little redundant ! academia.edu/37045318/The_P…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 15 October 2020 at 17:45

(even worse, it was published in a festschrift for Prof. Kychanov which I contributed to and have on my bookshelf next to me, so I should have known to have looked at Prof. Lin's article first!)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 October 2020 at 11:13

"fairy bridge" 過仙橋 or "fairy cave" 過仙洞 — a hole between two adjacent brick tombs for a husband and wife, to allow their spirits to commune, found in Song dynasty (960–1279) tombs in Southern China. This example is from N. Song tomb in Níngxiāng Húnán kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 20 October 2020 at 11:20

Another Northern Song example from Húnán of husband and wife brick tombs linked together by a "fairy bridge", this one with a brown-glazed pot placed inside. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20190…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 30 October 2020 at 16:46

If he thinks their Latin is bad, just wait till he sees the Tangut translations I'm currently struggling with ... twitter.com/j_t_palmer/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:14

These are some of a number of scattered fragments of a manuscript document in Tangut script recording court cases from the Guazhou Department of Military Supervision (瓜州監軍司審判案). 1/thread twitter.com/ihptaiwan/stat…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:25

This manuscript survives in a dozen or so fragments held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, at the National Library of China, National Museum of China, and Beijing University in Beijing, and at Ryukoku University in Kyoto (Ryukoku University fragment shown). 2/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:36

It is not known for certain where and when the manuscript was discovered, but it was most likely part of a cache of Tangut Buddhist texts discovered at Língwǔ (寧夏靈武縣) in 1917. The manuscript was apparently broken into pieces and dispersed among various collectors ... 3/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 14:45

... the National Museum of Chinese History acquired one piece in 1963, and Beijing University bought three pieces for ¥20 at about the same time. Five pieces in the possession of Luó Fúchéng 羅福成 (1885–1960) are now missing. 4/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:16

The back of the document was later reused for writing (in a somewhat neater and easier to read hand) the Tangut translation of Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (六祖壇經). This enables us to arrange the surviving fragments of the Guazhou records in their correct order. 5/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:25

The largest piece in the Fu Ssu-nien Library of Academia Sinica gives the office "Guazhou Department of Military Supervision" 𗽝𗉔𘒏𗧼𗅂 (瓜州監軍司) in two places. 6/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 15:33

And one of the small pieces in the Academia Sinica collection gives the incomplete date 𘀗𗙀𗅲𗯿𗂧𗴴𗍫[𗤒] = 天賜禮盛國慶二[年] = 2nd [year] of the 'Heaven Bestows Flourishing Rites and Country at Peace' era ('Celebrates' in the Chinese version of the era name). 7/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:08

Seven other pieces also have dates for this era (天賜禮盛國慶): 12th month of the 1st year (2), 1st month of the 2nd year (1), 2nd month of the 2nd year (1), 6th month of the 2nd year (2), and 7th month of the 2nd year (1). Nat. Mus. fragment dated 7th month of 2nd year shown. 8/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:19

So we can be fairly confident in dating the writing of this document to between the 12th month of the 1st year and 7th month of the 2nd year of the Heaven Bestows Flourishing Rites and Country at Peace (天賜禮盛國慶) era. However, the precise date of this era is uncertain ... 9/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:25

... as all known examples of dates with this era (in both Chinese and Tangut) are uncalibrated (against either the corresponding Song or Liao eras, or by reference to the system of cyclical years) ... 10/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 16:33

The start of the 天賜禮盛國慶 era is traditionally put at 1070 and lasting five years, but more recently it has been put at 1069 and lasting six years, so the 12th month of the 1st year may be either January/February 1070 or January 1071 in the Julian calendar. 11/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 22:49

At 1070/1071, this document may be the earliest known dated piece of Tangut writing, about 15 years before the earliest dated Tangut inscription at Dunhuang (1085), and about 25 years before the date of the famous Liangzhou Stele inscription (1094). 12/

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 23:05

The Tangut script was invented c.1036, but there are no very early surviving examples of Tangut writing. I suppose that it may have taken a generation for fluent script users to emerge, and for Tangut script to become normalized enough to be used for recording court cases. 13/end

November

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 11:12

If you are interested in learning more about the details of the "Guazhou Process" manuscript fragments, then this article (西夏文草书《瓜州审案记录》叙录) by 王惠民 is a good introduction dhyj.net.cn/html/2016/zata…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 11:25

And if you are interested in the Buddhist text written on the back of this document then "The Fragments of the Tangut Translation of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch Preserved in the Fu Ssu-nien Library" by Kirill Solonin is what you want www2.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/file/2907psRKs…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 13:12

This is the scale reproduction/reconstruction that they recently built for tourists about 15 km from the real Khara-khoto. twitter.com/thesilkroad/st…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 15:41

The real Heicheng Ruins (as visited by me in August 2016) twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:01

The first thing I do almost every morning is add one or two more unencoded hanzi/kanji to my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html twitter.com/dmnefkt/status…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:43

In the last 106 days I've added 404 unencoded characters, which is almost an average of 4 a day. This is not a good thing, as my aim is to shrink the size of my font over time not grow it ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11:56

... despite helping to get ~1,800 unencoded hanzi/kanji encoded in CJK Ext. G (Unicode 13, March 2020), and nearly 1,000 scheduled for Ext. H (Unicode 15 ?), the tide of unencoded characters is as relentless and overwhelming as ever.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 5 November 2020 at 14:43

Alla Sizova discusses the "Collection of Precious Dhāraṇīs with the Emperor's Postscript" in corresponding Chinese, Tangut and Tibetan woodblock editions from Khara-Khoto, printed c. 1149 on @oxfordpodcasts. podcasts.ox.ac.uk/first-tibetan-…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 5 November 2020 at 19:50

Zorin and Sizova's study (in Russian) of the Tibetan edition of this text twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:47

"the Chinese character for the word 'ball' combines the ideograms of 'hair' and 'leather'" — or does it? twitter.com/SmithsonianMag…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 14:22

Today's addition to my Tangut library is Prof. Kychanov's 2006 Tangut-Russian-English-Chinese Dictionary, with many thanks to @cosmicore

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 17:46

For some reason I never posted a picture of my copy of the Tangut-Chinese Dictionary (夏漢字典) compiled by Lǐ Fànwén 李範文 (2nd ed., 2008) which I got in February 2009.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 17 November 2020 at 20:29

We're up to 92,856 in Unicode now, and still growing... twitter.com/sudasana/statu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:12

An epitaph dated 747 (天寶六年) with text brushed by famed Tang dynasty calligrapher Yán Zhēnqīng 颜真卿 (709–785) has been found during excavation of three tombs for a high status Tang family at XīXián New Area (西咸新區) between Xī'ān and Xiányáng. news.changsha.cn/xctt/html/1101…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:21

This is the first time that a sample of Yán Zhēnqīng's calligrapher has been found in an archaeological context. At the time he was at the start of his political and calligraphic career, and had been appointed Vice Magistrate of Cháng'ān (長安縣尉) the previous year.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:34

This is one of four epitaphs found in three tombs belonging to the Yuán 元 family: a) tomb of Yuán Dàqiān 元大謙 and his wife Luó Wǎnshùn 羅婉順 (buried together in 747); b) tomb of their 3rd son Yuán Bùqì 元不器; and c) tomb of their nephew Yuán Zìjué 元自覺.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:47

The epitaph brushed by Yán Zhēnqīng was for Luó Wǎnshùn 羅婉順 (d. 746), a member of the Xianbei (鮮卑) people. Her husband, Yuán Dàqiān 元大謙 was himself a descendant of the Northern Wei Xianbei aristocrat Tuòbá Zūn 拓跋遵 (d. 407). Some finds from the three tombs pictured.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 21:18

"The Story of Shunzi 舜子 in Old Uyghur" by Kitsudō Kōichi and Imre Galambos (three fragments at the Turfanforschung) academia.edu/44535893/The_S…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 21 November 2020 at 23:15

Chinese character (unencoded) perhaps derived from Tibetan ༀ twitter.com/sarasvati635/s…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Monday, 23 November 2020 at 17:44

Here is the entire book bookinlife.net/book-280387-vi… (page=44 for this character)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 21:42

As I discussed a few months ago, the Musée Guimet in Paris has a Western Xia bronze official seal, published as an appendix to the edition of the Tangut Lotus Sutra (2018). The appendix also records five bronze passes (牌子 páizi) held at the Guimet twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 22:13

MG17617 is a bronze waist paizi inscribed 𗪒𗽷𘒩𗭻 "stay indoors and await orders" (Chinese 内宿待命) on one side, and the name of the holder, 𗼨𗆟・𗃞𗗿𘏨 (Chinese 嵬名・小犬寶) on the other side. He has the royal family name, and his given name means "Precious Puppy Dog".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 25 November 2020 at 23:31

MG17618 is another bronze waist paizi inscribed 𗪒𗽷𘒩𗭻 "stay indoors and await orders" (Chinese 内宿待命), this one engraved with the name 𗰰・𗹏𗘦𘀄 (Chinese 紀・那征吉). 𗹏𗘦 [ndon¹ ndźɪn¹] "drive out evil" is one of the most common Tangut personal name elements.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:41

MG17619 is a pear-shaped bronze paizi inscribed 𗬳𗓑𘒩𗭻 "guard the exterior and await orders" (Chinese 防守待命) on one side, and the name of the holder, 𘈫・𗹏𗘦𗵒 (Chinese 武・那征金) on the other side (his name includes "driving out evil" again).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:49

This is the second most common form of Western Xia paizi, and its large round shape contrasts with the smaller rectangular paizi for inside use. Here is another example from the National Museum of China en.chnmuseum.cn/collections_57…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 10:55

And here is another example of the 𗬳𗓑𘒩𗭻 "guard the exterior and await orders" (防守待命) paizi at the National Museum of China which I photographed in 2011. It shows the side engraved with the holder's name: 𗣆𘀄･𘏨𘎧 (千玉･寶訛)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 17:05

MG17620 has a long Buddhist inscription on one side (𘜶𗣼𗾟|𘍑𘉋□𘜶𘄡|𗕑𗪉𗢳𘟛□|𗅉𗏹□□|𘍑□□) and is plain on the other side. It is not a paizi in the strict sense, and in the Musée Guimet book it is categorized as a probable fake ("疑爲贋品"), but I'm not convinced.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 17:11

It similar to another large round rimless so-called paizi held at the National museum of China (copy at Xixia Museum shown) which has a Buddhist inscription on the front (𗍏𗓚𘄽𗢈□) and a plain back. I suspect these are both hanging mirrors rather than paizi.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 26 November 2020 at 18:28

MG17621 is also not really a paizi, and is also suspected of being a fake. Not only is the calligraphy suspect, especially the miswriting of 𘜶 "big", but the date in the middle 𘜶𗣼𘉋𗤒 (大德八年) "8th year of Dade" does not exist (Dade only lasted 5 years from 1135 to 1139).

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 27 November 2020 at 00:15

And if you are interested, I have just published a catalogue of Western Xia paizi with Tangut inscriptions, which I hope to expand and improve over time babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2020/11/t…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:45

For anyone worried about the lack of "exotic" scripts in Unicode, here is a list of the 154 scripts in the Unicode Standard as of 2020:

Arabic (1991)

Armenian (1991)

Bengali (1991)

Bopomofo (1991)

Coptic (1991/2005)

Cyrillic (1991)

Devanagari (1991)

Georgian (1991)

Greek (1991)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:46

Gujarati (1991)

Gurmukhi (1991)

Hangul (1991)

Hebrew (1991)

Hiragana (1991)

Kannada (1991)

Katakana (1991)

Lao (1991)

Latin (1991)

Malayalam (1991)

Oriya (1991)

Tamil (1991)

Telugu (1991)

Thai (1991)

Tibetan (1991/1996)

Han (1992)

Braille (1999)

Canadian Aboriginal (1999)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:47

Cherokee (1999)

Ethiopic (1999)

Khmer (1999)

Mongolian (1999)

Myanmar (1999)

Ogham (1999)

Runic (1999)

Sinhala (1999)

Syriac (1999)

Thaana (1999)

Yi (1999)

Deseret (2001)

Gothic (2001)

Old Italic (2001)

Buhid (2002)

Hanunoo (2002)

Tagalog (2002)

Tagbanwa (2002)

Cypriot (2003)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:48

Limbu (2003)

Linear B (2003)

Osmanya (2003)

Shavian (2003)

Tai Le (2003)

Ugaritic (2003)

Buginese (2005)

Glagolitic (2005)

Kharoshthi (2005)

New Tai Lue (2005)

Old Persian (2005)

Syloti Nagri (2005)

Tifinagh (2005)

Balinese (2006)

Cuneiform (2006)

N'Ko (2006)

Phags-pa (2006)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:49

Phoenician (2006)

Carian (2008)

Cham (2008)

Kayah Li (2008)

Lepcha (2008)

Lycian (2008)

Lydian (2008)

Ol Chiki (2008)

Rejang (2008)

Saurashtra (2008)

Sundanese (2008)

Vai (2008)

Avestan (2009)

Bamum (2009)

Egyptian Hieroglyphs (2009)

Imperial Aramaic (2009)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:49

Inscriptional Pahlavi (2009)

Inscriptional Parthian (2009)

Javanese (2009)

Kaithi (2009)

Lisu (2009)

Meetei Mayek (2009)

Old South Arabian (2009)

Old Turkic (2009)

Samaritan (2009)

Tai Tham (2009)

Tai Viet (2009)

Batak (2010)

Brahmi (2010)

Mandaic (2010)

Chakma (2012)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:50

Meroitic Cursive (2012)

Meroitic Hieroglyphs (2012)

Miao (2012)

Sharada (2012)

Sora Sompeng (2012)

Takri (2012)

Bassa Vah (2014)

Caucasian Albanian (2014)

Duployan (2014)

Elbasan (2014)

Grantha (2014)

Khojki (2014)

Khudawadi (2014)

Linear A (2014)

Mahajani (2014)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:51

Manichaean (2014)

Mende Kikakui (2014)

Modi (2014)

Mro (2014)

Nabataean (2014)

Old North Arabian (2014)

Old Permic (2014)

Pahawh Hmong (2014)

Palmyrene (2014)

Pau Cin Hau (2014)

Psalter Pahlavi (2014)

Siddham (2014)

Tirhuta (2014)

Warang Citi (2014)

Ahom (2015)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:52

Anatolian Hieroglyphs (2015)

Hatran (2015)

Multani (2015)

Old Hungarian (2015)

SignWriting (2015)

Adlam (2016)

Bhaiksuki (2016)

Marchen (2016)

Newa (2016)

Osage (2016)

Tangut (2016)

Masaram Gondi (2017)

Nüshu (2017)

Soyombo (2017)

Zanabazar Square (2017)

Dogra (2018)

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 18:53

Gunjala Gondi (2018)

Hanifi Rohingya (2018)

Makasar (2018)

Medefaidrin (2018)

Old Sogdian (2018)

Sogdian (2018)

Elymaic (2019)

Nandinagari (2019)

Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong (2019)

Wancho (2019)

Chorasmian (2020)

Dives Akuru (2020)

Khitan Small Script (2020)

Yezidi (2020)

...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:03

And the Unicode Consortium does not just wave a magic wand to add support for all these scripts. It takes a huge amount of hard work over many years by many experts from around the world to get them added to the Standard. And we're still working on it!

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:48

In the last 10 years (since Unicode 6.0), Unicode has added a total of 36,563 new characters, of which fewer than 1,500 were encoded specifically as emoji. So in the grand scheme of things, emoji are not so important.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 19:56

And if it does sometimes seem that Unicode prioritises adding fun new emoji, that may just be because emoji don't need the years of detailed research and expert review that are required for characters which are used for writing real languages.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 29 November 2020 at 22:42

Obviously the lost Rising Tone volume of the Tangut dictionary Sea of Writing 𘝞𗗚 (the level tone volume is almost completely preserved) twitter.com/Robin_C_Dougla…

December

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:20

Thanks to the encouragement of General Secretary Xi Jinping, a Yuan dynasty gold paizi with tiger ornamentation and an inscription in Phags-pa Mongolian was found near the Yellow River at Xiuma in Qinghai province this summer (秀麻元代八思巴蒙古文金虎符). epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2020…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:30

The Mongolian inscription in Phags-pa script is identical to that on the Minusinsk and Nyuki paizi discovered in the 19th century and now held at the Hermitage Museum. But the Qinghai paizi differs in that it seems to be held in a framework sitting on a tiger.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:39

Side A:

ꡏꡡꡃ ꡁ

ꡊꡠꡃ ꡘꡞ ꡗꡞꡋ ꡁꡟ ꡅꡟꡋ ꡊꡟꡘ

ꡢꡖꡋ ꡋꡦ ꡘꡦ ꡢꡟ ꡉꡟꡢ ꡉꡗꡞ

mong kha

deng ri yin khu chun dur

qa·n nė rė qu thuq thayi

By the strength of eternal Heaven. Let the name of the emperor be sacred.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 at 17:40

Side B:

ꡎꡡꡙ ꡉꡟ ꡢꡗꡞ ꡁꡦꡋ ꡝꡦꡟ ꡙꡟ ꡎꡟ

ꡚꡞ ꡘꡦ ꡂꡟ ꡝꡙ ꡊ ꡢꡟ ꡝꡦꡟ ꡁꡟ ꡂꡟ

bol thu qayi khėn 'ėu lu bu

shi rė gu 'al da qu 'ėu khu gu

He who has no respect shall be guilty and die.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 4 December 2020 at 15:55

"I have included an image of the printed form of the incantation because many of these characters do not exist within modern computerized Chinese character sets." twitter.com/edwardW2/statu…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

twitter.com/Portaspeciosa/…

Friday, 4 December 2020 at 15:56

A couple of the characters are unclear, but at least these are still missing from Unicode: ⿰口淨, ⿰口順, ⿰口壘, ⿰口霆, ⿰口役.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 6 December 2020 at 18:08

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 11 December 2020 at 15:19

BabelStone Han v. 13.0.9 with 2,184 additional CJK unified ideographs and 511 additional PUA characters is now available babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 11 December 2020 at 23:25

I needed to make a second release today of BabelStone Han PUA for this beauty! twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 11 December 2020 at 23:48

Just for fun ...

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 14:32

Other interesting unencoded characters in Davis and Silsby's 1911 "Chinese-English pocket dictionary" pointed out to me by @LowRisingTone include ⿰魚脚 for "turtle", ⿱蛇魚 for "eel" and ⿳高𠆢土 for "pagoda".

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 23:27

Another surprisingly unencoded character: ⿺鼠飛 = bat

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 12 December 2020 at 23:51

This one is more subtle

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 December 2020 at 00:47

⿰黑白 black + white = grey/ashen is another obvious one which you think should exist but isn't (yet) in Unicode.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Sunday, 13 December 2020 at 00:52

But I think this (⿱⿰術攵魚) must just be a bizarre mistake for 鱉

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 16:20

* before, during, and after twitter.com/stbridelibrary…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 17:13

Ironically they were going to name 🫀 as simply HEART (anagram of EARTH ♁) until I complained and they changed the name to ANATOMICAL HEART unicode.org/L2/L2019/19273… twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 16 December 2020 at 21:24

Pottery sherds decorated all over with galloping horses from the remains of Xianbei 鮮卑 dwellings (c. 2nd/3rd century) excavated between August and October 2020 at the Xiao Huhegele (小呼和格勒) site in Horqin Left Middle Banner of Inner Mongolia kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…

Friday, 18 December 2020 at 13:04

7 brick tombs dating from Eastern Han to Tang dynasties were recently excavated at Lanshan County in Hunan. Two of the tombs, dating to E. Han and Sui, have date-imprinted bricks:

Han (left): 本初元年 Běnchū 1 [146]

Sui (right): 大業四年 Dàyè 4 [608]

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 18 December 2020 at 13:11

This follows on from the 2019 season when 47 tombs were excavated, several with Tang dynasty date-imprinted bricks twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Friday, 18 December 2020 at 15:57

Potential migration route of the Tanguts from their homeland (in modern Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan), in "Tangut as a West Gyalrongic language" by Yunfan Lai, @minus273cn, Jesse P. Gates, and Guillaume Jacques　degruyter.tools/document/doi/1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 19 December 2020 at 00:02

Spectral imaging of Mogaoku Cave 465 reveals the Sanskrit "Ye dharmā hetu" dhāraṇī stamped on paper as part of a consecration ritual for the ceiling paintings (dated as late Tangut or Yuan) nature.com/articles/s4159…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Saturday, 19 December 2020 at 00:06

Transcription and palaeographic analysis of Sanskrit text static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Wednesday, 30 December 2020 at 14:27

A stone utensil engraved "made in the 3rd year of the Guānghé era (180 AD)" [of the Han dynasty] 光和三年造 is evidence that an imperial tomb site at Luòyáng is the Xuānlíng 宣陵 mausoleum of Emperor Huán of Eastern Han 漢桓帝 (reigned 146–168). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20201…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:31

My most treasured book acquisition this year was a rather nice copy of Edward Thwaites' 1698 edition of the Anglo-Saxon Heptateuch.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:33

The Anglo-Saxon text is set in the "Pica Saxon" typeface cut for Franciscus Junius (1591–1677) in about 1655. After his death the Junius type was inherited by Oxford University, and it was used by the university press for typesetting Anglo-Saxon up to the end of the 18th century.

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone

Thursday, 31 December 2020 at 14:46

This edition of the Anglo-Saxon Heptateuch (the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges) translated by Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, is based on Bodleian Library MS. Laud Misc. 509 medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manusc…

Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone