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Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2021 at 21:52
They are not playing a game of dice babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2009/05/l… twitter.com/peterfrankopan…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 2 January 2021 at 21:57
And the two players are wrongly positioned in the reconstructed scene (as is typically the case): they should face each other across the blank throwing board, with the actual liùbó 六博 board off to the side, as depicted in Han picture bricks babelstone.co.uk/Blog/2009/07/l…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 19:52
A Sui dynasty (581-618) burial with an intricately carved marble bed coffin has recently been excavated at Anyang in Henan. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 4 January 2021 at 19:59
Some of the coloured sculptures and engravings of Buddhist figures and fantastical animals on the marble bed coffin.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:07
A stone epitaph in the tomb informs us that the sleepers on this marble bed were an official called Qū Qìng 麴慶 (not otherwise known to history) and his wife, buried in the 10th year of the Kāihuáng era (590 CE).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:20
Pottery figurines from the tomb
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 4 January 2021 at 20:28
Other finds from the tomb china.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/04/WS…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 10:59
... played on a Go board twitter.com/mizabitha/stat…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:02
Four brick tombs for the famous Eastern Wu (Three Kingdoms) general Dīng Fèng 丁奉 (d. 271) and his family have been excavated in Nanjing at Mùfǔshān 幕府山 overlooking the Yangtze River kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:12
Tomb M3 was identified as the joint tomb for Dīng Fèng 丁奉 and his wife (died 271 and 251 respectively) because of the presence of four brick land purchase certificates 砖地券 which give the names and dates.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 13:18
The tombs have all been robbed, so there are no major finds, although a number of small items were overlooked by the tomb robbers
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 21 January 2021 at 15:35
In celebration of the Feast of St Agnes on this 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century, here is an early 13th century painting of Saints Eugenia, Agnes, and Maria on the north wall of St Peter's Church at Farnborough in Hampshire babelstone.co.uk/BabelDiary/201…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 January 2021 at 12:11
The 9th-century Old Turkic book of divinations, Irk Bitig (𐰃𐰺𐰴 𐰋𐰃𐱅𐰃𐰏), comprises 65 divinations, each headed by three groups of between one and four circles representing the omen (𐰃𐰺𐰴) that is the subject of the divination (Omens 38 [3-1-4] and 39 [2-2-4] shown) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 22 January 2021 at 12:17
The circles represent the pips on a four-sided dice made from a rectangular piece of wood. This is just such a dice, which was found recently at an archeological site at Bügür (Luntai) County in Xinjiang (卓尔库特古城) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 15:10
Busy morning in the snow!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 15:24
Snow cat!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 24 January 2021 at 17:39
My favourite snow cows in the field behind our house
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 28 January 2021 at 14:15
"This device is necessary for such men of accompt as being diseased in marching in strange places and like to finde but homely lodging at night, ... I have sett doune this device which is as sufficient and soft as any fether bed can bee." twitter.com/RareYaleLaw/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 February 2021 at 09:51
The seal with a picture of a camel 🐫 has an inscription in Tibetan running along the bottom and right side which has been read as: དབོན་འ་ཞ་རྗེ་རྟགས dbon a zha rje rtags "seal of the nephew King A-zha". twitter.com/xujnx/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 1 February 2021 at 10:08
This is the seal (the final word, read as རྟགས rtags, looks to me like རྟག་ཏ rtag ta, perhaps equivalent to རྟགས་དམ rtags dam 'seal') kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 1 February 2021 at 10:15
The seal comes from an 8th-century royal tomb in Dulan, Qinghai (都兰热水2018血渭一号墓) which has been under excavation since 2018 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 February 2021 at 17:28
The 2nd with this title, but there have been almost annual Tangut workshops since 2013, so this is the 6th European meeting of Tangutologists after London (April 2013), Cambridge (September 2014), Hamburg (December 2015), London (February 2017), and Arras/Paris (November 2018). twitter.com/taichungpui/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 2 February 2021 at 18:51
I have attended four of these meetings (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018). I think that the only person to have attended all the Tangut meetings is @Romain_Tangoute who is co-organizing tomorrow's virtual meeting.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 February 2021 at 15:48
Noto Serif Tangut v. 2.168 with newly redesigned glyphs by Yang Xicheng 杨翕丞 supporting Unicode 13.0 additions and anticipated Unicode 14.0 glyph corrections has now been released github.com/googlefonts/no…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 February 2021 at 16:44
I've just updated my Today's Date in Tangut page so that you can specify the Tangut font and size babelstone.co.uk/Calendar/Tangu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:55
This has been doing the rounds on twitter, and as many of the characters shown are rather familiar I thought I would check and see which are or are not available in BabelStone Han ... twitter.com/KhongBah_FISH/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:57
Row 1: 一三火木山川十日口二人
The very first hanzi/kanji that everyone learns as a toddler
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 17:59
Row 2: 長馬滴斥備臓鬱糖窒凸誕酬緻楷卍農鳥
Row 3: 嬬宍豁窪乍衵噺鯵犲罟礬癬孒夙嚠爨渠
Varying in complexity and strangeness, but all present in the basic CJK Unified Ideographs block, so nothing very unusual about any of these.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:03
Row 4: 厯怘沜獐甗瘒旾魗鼪鬜恧浘囙䠖孌
A little more obscure, but still all in the basic CJK Unified Ideographs block, except for one Ext. A character (䠖) which embarrassingly is not in the current release of BabelStone Han
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:22
Row 5: 鿗𦮙㐃𢎥𣻣鿦〇𰻞㔔〇〇𫟉鿚〇㔿𫝂𰍧𬻀𠁼㫄𫧇
Starting to get more interesting. Only 3 of these are from the basic CJK block, and they are Unicode 10.0 additions for Slavonic Christian transcription (鿗 represents Jesus). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_c…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:25
Of the other Row 5 characters, there are 4 from Ext-A, 4 from Ext. B, 2 from Ext. D, 1 from Ext. E, 1 from Ext. F, and 2 from Ext. G (all available in BabelStone Han).
The remaining four are unencoded characters (shown as 〇), but all are present in the BabelStone Han PUA.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:44
Row 6: 𢆂𫐞𪜀𫗄〇𱁬𫉕𰍡𰀀𬚩𫡃𭖈〇𫦿𫂲〇𫋩𫩿𰣻𪠹𫌥𬼄
Stranger and stranger. One unencoded character in BabelStone Han PUA (F6A8), and two complex characters which are probably unencoded but I cannot recognise.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:44
The remaining Row 6 characters are all in the SIP and TIP: 1 Ext. B, 8 Ext. C, 4 Ext. E. 2 Ext. F, and 4 Ext. G (BabelStone Han is missing 1 Ext. B and 6 Ext. C characters)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 18:55
Row 7: 〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇
These are all unencoded characters, the first 18 of which have been proposed for encoding as part of WS2017, which will probably hit the shelves as Ext. H in Unicode 15.0 unicode.org/L2/L2021/21023…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:02
10 of the 18 WS2017 characters in Row 7 are G-source Sawndip usage characters, and ten are V-source Chữ Nôm characters (⿱仍女 is both).
Although BabelStone Han includes PUA glyphs for some 1,500 WS2017 characters, it does not yet include any of the 18 shown in Row 7.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:06
The final two Row 7 characters (⿰何雷 and ⿱晚飯) are unknown to me and not yet in my font. The meaning of 2nd one is obvious, but I'm not sure about the first one.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:16
Row 8: 〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇
The final row finds us back on more comfortable ground. All are unencoded characters, but half of them are hybrid kanj-kana-romaji-hangul characters that are present in BabelStone Han PUA. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 19:47
At least one of the remaining nine Row 8 characters is a Sawndip character used for writing Zhuang. But I leave it as an exercise for my learned readers to identify the others.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 19 February 2021 at 13:00
Some hanzi/kanji are not easy to find in a dictionary. 㔿 (which you may have seen in yesterday's thread) is one of the worst. I couldn't remember it's reading and it took me half an hour of searching before I found it hidden under Kangxi radical 26 卩 in the Unicode charts!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 March 2021 at 15:10
First draft of CJK Ext. H posted at appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg56… -- expected to be included in Unicode 15.0 in 2022 (code points are not yet stable!)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 3 March 2021 at 15:15
My draft Ext. H font currently covers 1,306 of the 4,205 characters
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 5 March 2021 at 01:00
I'm pleased to note that the two unencoded characters in this image (hyen and khya) are both included in CJK Ext. H coming to Unicode 15.0 next year. twitter.com/JUMANJIKYO/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 6 March 2021 at 00:41
Let's play "Spot the CJK Extension H character" ... anyone? twitter.com/incunabula/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 8 March 2021 at 17:48
I was thinking of ⿰礻兾 in the date (1st year of Jǐngdìng era = 1260 AD) which looks like a vulgar simplification of 𬓝 (⿰礻翼) which is presumably a variant of 禩 sì which is a variant of 祀 sì meaning 'year'. But the Ext. H character (T13-3A21) is slightly different.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:06
New release of BabelStone Han (babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html) with 1,028 additional characters. I have added 5,169 CJK unified ideographs and 1,520 PUA characters to the font since the first release for Unicode 13.0 in November 2019.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:12
BabelStone Han now covers 45,745 of the 92,856 CJK unified ideographs defined in Unicode version 13.0, which is only 683 short of 50%. I should be able to exceed 50% by the time Unicode 14.0 is released in September this year ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 at 16:22
... but then another ~4,200 characters will be added to Unicode 15.0 next year as CJK Extension H, which will continue to keep me busy!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 18 March 2021 at 17:17
The fourth in David Helliwell's series of blog posts on the Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn 永樂大典 serica.blog/2021/03/18/yon… discusses the two volumes that were sold at auction in Paris last year.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 10:53
A huge nine-sided well (4.5m wide and 9m deep) with 38 layers of wooden supporting beams, dating to the late Warring States to early Western Han (over 2,000 years bp), has been excavated at Yángquán in Shānxī. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 10:55
The well is located 570m north of the northern wall of the Warring States site at Píngtǎnnǎo (平坦堖戰國古城遺址).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 31 March 2021 at 11:21
A bronze yǎn 甗 vessel from Tomb M3 at the Běibái'é burial site at Yuánqū county in Shānxī has a short inscription (虢季為匽姬媵甗 永寶用享) which indicates that it was made as part of the dowry for a marriage between the states of Guo 虢 and Yan 燕. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:26
My complete set of 《古本戲曲叢刊四集》[17函180册] (中華書局, 1958年) and four parts of 《古本戲曲叢刊九集》[8函42册] (中華書局, 1964年) which were given to me by the late lamented Prof. Hugh Stimson (1931–2011) when I was at Yale University in the mid 1990s ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:43
... now all packaged up and ready to go to its new home at the Institut für Sinologie - LMU München !
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 12 April 2021 at 12:52
The 4th series of early Chinese drama was edited by Zhèng Zhènduó 鄭振鐸 (1898–1958) who tragically died in a plane crash just before publication. His draft for a preface hurriedly written the day before he boarded the ill-fated airplane is reproduced in the first fascicle.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 13 April 2021 at 13:52
I'm down-sizing my library, and am looking for new homes for a number of my Chinese books. If you're interested in anything then please email me. babelstone.co.uk/Books/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 18 April 2021 at 15:57
Spring walk
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 April 2021 at 13:03
This "seal" with the Tangut character 𗡞 'thousand' used to be in the collection of Luó Zhènyù 羅振玉 (1866–1940) but is now lost. 1/2
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 25 April 2021 at 13:11
2/2 Recently a similar piece with the character 𘊝 'hundred' was reported to have been unearthed in Kyrgyzstan (zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…). This and the 'thousand' piece are obviously not seals (the characters are not mirrored). Maybe gaming counters?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 May 2021 at 00:38
Mt. Wutai probably does not refer to the famous sacred mountain in Shanxi, but to a Buddhist temple complex with the same name which was built by the Tangut emperors in the Helan mountains, close to the Western Xia capital (modern Yinchuan) ... twitter.com/women_1000/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 7 May 2021 at 00:49
On these two Qing dynasty versions of the Western Xia Topographic Map (西夏地形圖) the "Temple of Mt. Wutai" (五臺山寺 = 𗉨𗔕𘑗𘜸) is clearly marked in the Helan mountains (賀蘭山 = 𗲡𗝢𘑗)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:03
Submissions for IRG Working Set 2021 #WS2021 are now available appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~irg/irg/irg56…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:04
WS2021 is targetted to become CJK Ext. I in about 5 years from now (WS2015 = Ext. G in 2020; WS2017 = Ext. H in 2022)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 13:13
There are 4,952 submitted characters from seven IRG member bodies:
China: 1,223
ROK: 191
SAT: 383
TCA: 1,000
UK: 1,000
UTC: 153
Vietnam: 1,002
Preliminary IDS data: babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS_2021_R…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 14:01
Preliminary analysis suggests that there are a total of 4,850 separate characters in the combined WS2021 submissions babelstone.co.uk/CJK/IDS_2021.T…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 14:17
Over a quarter of the characters in WS2021 (at least 1,294 of 4,850 characters) are already available in my BabelStone Han PUA font babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/PUA.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 9 May 2021 at 15:34
I have already found about 50 duplicates of existing encoded characters or Ext. H characters (China ~31, SAT ~16), which brings the total count down to about 4,800.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 13 May 2021 at 12:05
The tombs of the Ming dynasty Prince Zhū Zhīyáng 朱知烊 (晉端王, 1489–1533) and his wives have been excavated near Taiyuan in Shanxi kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210… (entrance to the tomb of the prince's beloved concubine Madam Yuàn 院氏 shown)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 19 May 2021 at 16:31
The IRG #WS2021 review tool by @henryfhchan is now up and running hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2021/app/
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 20 May 2021 at 18:44
U+4748 䝈 is an unholy alliance between the correct glyph form (⿰豕厄) with a Taiwan source and a corrupt glyph form (⿰豕卮) with a China source. Currently no way of transcribing the two 漢語大字典 entries shown with a single font. It is a bad unification.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 21 May 2021 at 14:55
Left: U+2B8D9 and U+2B8DA from Unicode 8.0 to Unicode 12.1 (2015-2019)
Right: U+2B8D9 and U+2B8DA in Unicode 13.0 (2020), font silently changed by Vietnam
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 21 May 2021 at 15:25
Unfortunately not an isolated incident. There are at least a dozen Vietnam characters which were silently corrected between Unicode versions 10 and 11 or between versions 11 and 12. But this is a particularly egregious and destabilizing change.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Saturday, 22 May 2021 at 11:02
Notice how the two characters are still indexed as "人 9.12" (i.e. 人 radical with 12 residual strokes) even though neither character includes a 人 component any longer, and the total stroke count has been reduced by two.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 22 May 2021 at 11:08
Another example, U+2C0B8, showing Unicode 12.1 form on the left and Unicode 13.0 form on the right, but the residual stroke count is the same even though the new version has one stroke more.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 23 May 2021 at 16:31
I have 58 issues of the journal Wénwù 文物 Cultural Relics covering 2005-2009 (missing 2005-11 and 2007-12) looking for a new home. If interested please contact me.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 May 2021 at 18:54
The latest release of my BabelStone Han font finally hits the 50% milestone with coverage of 46,512 of the 92,856 CJK unified ideographs included in Unicode 13.0. babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 24 May 2021 at 19:14
With ~4,200 characters being added as CJK Extension H in Unicode 15.0, and up to 4,800 characters in Extension I a few years later it will be a struggle just to maintain 50%
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 25 May 2021 at 11:45
Excavations have started at the site of the State of Song (1046-286 BCE) capital at Shangqiu in Henan (商丘宋国故城) kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210… Archaeologists hope to not only reveal the outlines of the Song city, but also uncover evidence of Shang or even pre-Shang settlements.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 16:56
Yesterday Vladimir Belyaev presented a report at the XXI All-Russian Numismatic Conference on two groups of bronze coin-like charms with possible Khitan Large Script inscriptions which were separately found in Kyrgyzstan in the autumn of 2020.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 16:59
В.А. Беляев и С.В. Сидорович «Недавние находки амулетов с легендой большим киданьским письмом» (to be published in pp. 110–112 of the proceedings of the conference) tvermuzeum.ru/news/xxi-vsero…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:12
In October 2020 a group of ten bronze charms were found in a mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan, all with the same obverse inscription of 7 characters, and two with an inscription of 5 characters on the reverse.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:21
A bronze charm with the same obverse legend, but missing a large chunk, was previously found in the Namangan region of Uzbekistan in April 2004 zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:25
And a complete but less clear example, with some small differences in the legend, was discovered in the Altay Prefecture of northern Xinjiang zeno.ru/showphoto.php?…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 17:47
It is probable that all these pieces were issued by the Qara Khitai (aka Western Liao) regime which ruled over this area of Central Asia from 1124 to 1218, and the legend is written in the Khitan Large Script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 19:06
The inscription on the obverse is not entirely clear, but the five characters of the reverse inscription can be identified as Khitan Large Script with reasonable certainty. I hope to discuss the inscriptions in detail in a future babelstone blog post.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 26 May 2021 at 19:19
Also found in autumn 2020 in a mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan, near Bishkek, was a group of 8 bronze coin-like charms with the same four-character inscription on the reverse. The characters may be Khitan Large Script, but they are not so easy to identify.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:40
The stone epitaph in Chinese for Murong Zhi 慕容智 (d. 691), 3rd son of last khan of the Tuyuhun 吐谷渾 kingdom, has an inscription on its edge in an unknown script, possibly the first known example of the written Tuyuhun language! m.weibo.cn/status/4641792…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:42
The well-preserved tomb of Murong Zhi 慕容智 was discovered in Gansu on 25 September 2019 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 28 May 2021 at 14:45
This is the stone cover for the epitaph, inscribed "大周故慕容府君墓誌" = "Tomb epitaph for the deceased Lord Murong of the Great Zhou" (Great Zhou refers to the short-lived Zhou dynasty 690–705 established by Empress Wu Zetian).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 28 May 2021 at 15:16
According to Alexander Vovin the Tuyuhun language is a Para-Mongolic language related to Mongolian and Khitan, and so there may be a relationship between the script seen on Murong Zhi's epitaph and the Khitan Large Script.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 29 May 2021 at 11:44
慶祝建設東亞新秩序 twitter.com/tongbingxue/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Sunday, 30 May 2021 at 17:01
I've now created a rough font for the supposed Tuyuhun characters on the side of the epitaph for Murong Zhi (650–691) babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Tuyuhun.…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 1 June 2021 at 22:35
For more information on the Tuyuhun please read the excellent study by @EscherJulia on the epitaphs for two Tang princesses who married into the Tuyuhun royal family, Princesses Honghua and Jincheng, mother and sister-in-law respectively of Murong Zhi zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/1816…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 June 2021 at 15:09
Can anyone fill in the blanks?
夏□□等无
□□□龍樹
菩薩偈
若自口經誦
本分名誦百
洛叉經者
大乘起信論
□□□ twitter.com/NMnewdelhi/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 2 June 2021 at 20:12
Final reading thanks to @bryandaniellowe @xwen0113 @schrift_sprache
真如彼等无
[别]異故龍樹
[菩]薩偈云
若自口經誦
本分名誦百
洛叉經者
大乘起信論
立義中
*彼 is an error for 平 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 11:58
The epitaph for the Tuyuhun prince Mùróng Zhì 慕容智 (650–691) discovered in his tomb in Gansu which was excavated in 2019
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:04
Transcription:
大周故雲麾將軍守左玉鈐衛大將軍員外置喜王慕
容府君墓誌銘並序 王諱智字哲陰山人拔勤豆
可汗第三子也原夫圓穹寫象珠昴為夷落之墟方
礴凝形玉塞列藩維之固其有守中外沐淳和貴詩
書踐仁義則王家之生常矣廓青海凈湟川率荒陬
1/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:05
欵缶朔則主家之積習矣故能爪牙上國跨躡邊亭
控長河以為防居盤石而作固靈源茂緒可略言焉
祖麗杜吐渾可汗父諾曷鉢尚大長公主駙馬都尉
跋勤豆可汗王以龜組榮班魚軒懿戚出楤戎律敷
德化以調人入奉 皇猷耿忠貞而事□主有□制
2/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:11
曰慕容智鮮山貴族昂城豪望材略有聞宜加戎職
可左領軍將軍俄加雲麾將軍守左玉鈐衛大將軍
望重邊亭譽隆藩邦西園清夜敬愛忘疲東閣芳晨言
談莫倦誠可長隆顯秩永奉 宸居豈謂齊桓之痾
先侵骨髓晉景之瘵已入膏肓𠀑𥠢二𠡦三囝二𡆠
(天授二年三月二日)
3/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:11
薨於靈府之官舍春秋卌有二即其𠡦九囝五𡆠󠄁遷
葬於大可汗陵禮也上懸烏兔下臨城闕草露朝清
松風夜發泣峴山之淚隋悲隴水之聲咽嗚哀哉乃
為銘曰 丹烏迅速白兔蒼茫兩楹流奠二鑒經殃
崩城慟哭變竹悲傷一銘翠琰埊久𠀑長
(地久天長)
4/4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:18
The epitaph uses the Wǔ Zétiān complified forms of the characters 天, 授, 年, 月, 日, and 地, but the form for 天 is very different from the 'standard' Zétiān character used above, and does not seem to be in Unicode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:20
The Zétiān character for 年 is also rather different to the standard form (similar to U+E5E8 in BabelStone Han PUA), and the characters for 日 and 月 should be circled rather than 𡆠󠄁 and 囝 used above.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:21
All in all it seems to be impossible to correctly transcribe inscriptions using Zétiān characters with Unicode at present, which is very disappointing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:22
See this thread for the Chinese epitaph inscription for Mùróng Zhì 慕容智 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 18 June 2021 at 12:41
The circled 乙 form for 日 has recently been proposed for encoding hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2021/app…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 18 June 2021 at 23:44
The epitaph for his mother, Princess Hónghuà (弘化公主), has 𠦚 for 年, and 𠥱 for 月
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 June 2021 at 09:15
You can share a Coke with China, Taiwan or Hong Kong, but not with Tibet or Xinjiang, although you can with "Tibet & Xinjiang" us.coca-cola.com/store/personal…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 22 June 2021 at 09:27
You can't have "Free Tibet" but you can have "Free Tibet!" -- the guy in charge of censorship needs firing.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 23 June 2021 at 19:24
Tile talisman from a Ming dynasty tomb of 1612:
勑令：神符随墓，亡者安寧
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 6 July 2021 at 16:23
The Mongolian version seems to be lost in translation ... twitter.com/JingzhouTao/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 7 July 2021 at 22:54
ΧΡΙ ⇒ XPI ⇒ ΧΠΙ twitter.com/Sonja_Drimmer/…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 9 July 2021 at 08:52
𱁬 in the wild twitter.com/yamada_theta/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:41
Two painted figures of mice on the lid of an ancient Egyptian limestone box from Tomb 67 at Abydos, inside of which are two compartments containing mummified mice (on display at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London) 🐁🐁
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:42
Posted in response to Ancient Egyptian jerboa figurines twitter.com/AlisonFisk/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 10 July 2021 at 01:43
and Ancient Egyptian hedgehogs twitter.com/GrecianGirly/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 09:47
I feel stupid for not knowing, but what's up with the V of MORIDVNVM ? twitter.com/HawkeJon/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 10:08
Sorry for not being clear in my question. I mean why has the first V got a flourish on it?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 10:54
Many thanks to everyone who explained that it is an apex sign marking a long vowel. The apex is normally written like a thin acute accent, so it would still be interesting to know what the model for the ligatured sideways-u form of the sign used on this inscription was.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 11:11
Sorry, another ambiguous tweet! I meant what was the model for the form of V+apex used on the modern Amphitheatre Moridvnvm inscription? (the image of the Roman inscription from Nîmes in the previous tweet shows the typical slanted form of the apex sign)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 July 2021 at 11:11
Jurchen, Khitan Large Script, Khitan Small Script, Tangut
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 16 July 2021 at 14:30
Just look at the body language of Mr and Mrs Khitan -- turned away from each other, and refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the other!
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 21 July 2021 at 19:56
#二简字 𰅊=量 𰋙=具 𰆊=部 twitter.com/tsmullaney/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 23 July 2021 at 23:36
Not Ogham, but I think a form of Cistercian numerals (unicode.org/L2/L2020/20290…). The 1st image can be read as 428, and the 3rd (T) as 11; the two examples on the 2nd image are less obvious (the small one could be 447). twitter.com/AlicjaBielak/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:03
A pleasing addition to my Tangut library, Georges Morisse's "Contribution préliminaire à l’étude de l’écriture et de la langue Si-hia" (1904) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:09
... in which he makes a ground-breaking study of the gold-inked manuscript of the Tangut translation of the Lotus Sutra that he had found in 1900 twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:16
This plate shows his decipherment of the first three pages of the first volume of the Tangut Lotus Sutra, which was enormously important in the early history of the decipherment of the Tangut script
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Monday, 26 July 2021 at 17:20
I finally managed to acquire a copy of Georges Morisses's seminal 1904 study of the Tangut Lotus Sutra twitter.com/BabelStone/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 31 July 2021 at 10:50
Wow, Prof. Shǐ Jīnbō 史金波 is looking good at the age of 81 😅 twitter.com/Brill_Asian/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 11 August 2021 at 10:42
@LymingeDig Two years later twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:05
Note the 'x' rune in the 2nd column which is the same as the new Anglo-Saxon runic vowel letter used three times in the recently discovered Baconsthorpe runic inscription arild-hauge.com/PDF/Baconsthor… twitter.com/schrift_sprach…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:20
ᚱᛖᛞ᛭ᛋᛖᚦᛖᚳᛁᚾᚾᛖᛒ᛭ᚨᚢᚦᚪᛋᚱᚢᚾ᛭ᚪᚹᚱᚪᛏ
(using ᛭ to represent the new rune)
redę se þe cuinne bęæu þas runę awrat
Read whoso may, Bēaw inscribed these runes.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Saturday, 21 August 2021 at 21:22
This new Anglo-Saxon runic letter is also discussed by Gaby Waxenberger degruyter.com/document/doi/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Sunday, 22 August 2021 at 00:16
ḥur lwātēh sabbar bēh ܚܘܪ ܠܘܬܗ ܣܒܪܘ ܒܗ
Look ye unto it and hope in it [the triumphal cross]
—— Pier Giorgio Borbone, "A “Nestorian” Mirror from Inner Mongolia" academia.edu/42689448/A_Nes… twitter.com/xujnx/status/1…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 24 August 2021 at 08:31
New nine-volume Dictionary of Tangut (covering secular texts) 《西夏文词典（世俗文献部分）》 by Hán Xiǎománg 韓小忙 just published. ISBN 978-7-5203-8011-9
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 1 September 2021 at 10:09
Two Eastern Jin (266–420) date-imprinted tomb bricks from the Huángnítáng tomb site (黄泥塘墓群) near Chēnzhōu in Húnán (kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…):
Yǒnghé 3 永和三年七月十日造 [347] (M8)
Yìxī 10 義熙十年 [414] (M9, no image available)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:32
A 'sacred bronze tree' 青铜神树 which was discovered in the #3 sacrificial pit at Sānxīngduī 三星堆遗址3号祭祀坑 in March 2021 was lifted out on July 15 after 4 months of careful excavation weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:36
The tree appears to be very similar to a badly-damaged and incomplete bronze tree (2号青铜神) which was discovered in the #2 sacrificial pit at Sānxīngduī in 1986; it is even possible that they are parts of the same tree. kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:52
On 23 August four brick tombs dating to the late Liao dynasty (916–1125) were uncovered during housing construction at Gù'ān county in Héběi province (河北省固安县). kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 7 September 2021 at 21:57
A few murals were preserved in one of the tombs. In addition, a stone dharani pillar and [one or more] stone tomb epitaphs were also recovered from the tombs. (I am waiting for images and more information on the epitaphs and dharani pillar).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Wednesday, 8 September 2021 at 22:41
More pictures of the murals preserved in tomb M4
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 8 September 2021 at 23:24
A picture of two octagonal stone dharani pillars (and several bases and covers) at the site. The shorter pillar on the left appears to have relief sculptures on four faces. The designation M2JC6 (2号墓6号经幢) painted on its base suggests that as many as six were found.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:51
I like octagonal structures, so here are two large octagonal platforms from recent archaeological excavations in Mongolia (left, 7th century) and Heilongjiang in China (right, 12th century). I wonder what they were used for, and why the octagonal shape was chosen?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:52
Octagonal platform on the left is at the Shiveet Ulaan archaeological complex in Bayan-Agt county, Bulgan province, Mongolia, perhaps constructed by the Uighur rulers of the Toquz Oghuz tribal confederation in 667-691 twitter.com/csen_nomads/st…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Friday, 10 September 2021 at 23:56
Octagonal platform on the right (5.8-5.9 metres in diameter) is from the Jin dynasty (1115-1234) Upper Capital 金上京 at Acheng in Heilongjiang kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20210…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 00:02
I've just released BabelStone Han version 14 covering 47,395 CJK unified ideographs, including the 9 additional CJK unified ideographs added in Unicode 14.0 babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Han.html
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 19:42
I have just released BabelMap version 14 which now supports polychromatic glyphs with COLR/CPAL format fonts such as Microsoft's Segoe UI Emoji font (caveats discussed below) babelstone.co.uk/Software/Babel…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:19
Note that colour glyphs are only shown in the edit buffer when in "simple rendering" mode. The default mode uses standard Windows rendering (Uniscribe API) which does not support polychromatic glyphs.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:26
At present, colour emoji sequences are not supported in the edit buffer, e.g. 👩🏼❤️💋👨🏾 which comprises a sequence of ten code points (1F469 1F3FC 200D 2764 FE0F 200D 1F48B 200D 1F468 1F3FE) renders as a single b/w glyph by default, but as a sequence of unjoined glyphs in simple mode.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:30
The Emoji Lookup tool does support simple colour emoji sequences, such as "woman health worker" 👩🏽⚕️ which comprises a sequence of five code points (1F469 1F3FD 200D 2696 FE0F) ...
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at 20:31
... but at present does not correctly render some colour emoji sequences where the final glyph is created by complex substitution and positioning of multiple component glyphs in the font.
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Wednesday, 15 September 2021 at 11:12
It is being discussed on a public mailing list hosted by the Unicode Consortium. The question of whether Klingon should be encoded is most definitely *not* being debated by the Unicode Consortium or the Unicode Technical Committee. #FakeNews twitter.com/Cor3ntin/statu…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:20
Probably the most sensible suggestion for Japanese script reform that I have seen twitter.com/JPRidgeway/sta…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 21:42
"horses' skulls were often laid in rows under choir stalls in churches" twitter.com/BungayMuseum/s…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
Thursday, 23 September 2021 at 18:56
Handwörterbuch des Altuigurischen [Concise Dictionary of Old Uyghur] by Jens Wilkens is available for free download univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/handle/3/isbn-…
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 09:39
Another date-imprinted tomb brick, this one from an Eastern Han tomb excavated at Áoquánzhèn 敖泉镇 in Guìyáng 桂阳 county of Húnán kaogu.cssn.cn/zwb/xccz/20211…
Yǒngchū 4 永初四年九月 [110] (M3)
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 09:51
All the tombs in this thread are situated in the same area of southern Húnán. Áoquánzhèn 敖泉镇 is about 50km SW of Huángnítáng 黄泥塘 (previous tweet) and 70km NE of Tǎfēngzhèn 塔峰镇 (first tweet).
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 10:02
Is the use of date-imprinted tomb bricks a local tradition that lasted from Eastern Han through to the early Tang dynasty (bricks dated 永初四年 [110], 本初元年 [146], 永和三年 [347], 義熙十年 [414], 大業四年 608], 武德元年 [618], 貞觀元年 [627], 永昌元年 [689]) ?
Andrew West 魏安 @BabelStone
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Tuesday, 12 October 2021 at 10:03
I guess that date-imprinted tomb bricks must be found in Han~Tang tombs elsewhere in China, but all the recent archaeological reports mentioning them come from this one small area of Húnán.
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