CHALFANT: EARLY CHINESE WRITING 5 
sity for seeking older sources of information than that afforded by the modern text. 
Fortunately we have many examples of the older text in (1) ancient inscriptions 
preserved in existing works by Chinese scholars, and in (2) exhumed 
inscribed objects of durable materials, such as bronze, copper, stone, 
and bone. 
As to the value of the first source, there is a risk that intentional 
or accidental changes in the text may have occurred in copying from 
older manuscripts or from the original inscriptions. ‘The Chinese 
have not the high reputation as faithful copyists® which is credited to 
the Hebrews, whose scribes were superstitiously careful in reproduc- 
ing their Scriptures. Many errors have crept into the text of the 
Chinese classics, which are undoubtedly traceable to careless tran- 
scription. 
The student must further be on his guard against spurious and 
forged inscriptions. Such was the reputed “Tablet of Yui,” which 
first appeared as a manuscript copy purporting to have been taken 
from a stone tablet found on a mountain in the Yang-tze valley. Had 
it proved genuine we would have possessed an inscription of the 
greatest antiquity (circa 2200 B. C.). But this is now pronounced a Fie.1. Form 
forgery by the best Chinese scholars, both native and foreign. ieee 
Perhaps the best extant collection of ancient Chinese inscriptions referred to Chou 
is that published by a famous scholar of Yang Chow, Juan Ytian cote Soa 
(§% 7), who in 1803 reédited the work of an earlier scholar, Hsiie ‘ee4™ size. 
Shang-Kung (B aI zp), adding sixty-seven transcriptions to the four hundred and 
ninety-three of the original treatise. 
The vocabulary obtained from all these is very limited, for most of the texts 
yield only the conventional phrases inscribed upon sacrificial vessels, halberds, and 
swords. One inscription of three hundred and fifty-seven symbols is referred to 
the reign of Wu Wang (4, £) (cirea B. C. 1122), and affords the oldest known 
Chinese writing of determinate date. (See infra.) 
Inscribed objects of undoubted genuineness, which have been exhumed, while 
they prove the most reliable source of knowledge of ancient writing, are far from 
satisfactory in that it is seldom possible to fix their dates. The ancient Chinese 
had a tantalizing habit of carefully inscribing the number of the year,’ month, and 
5Tn fairness to Chinese authors, their first editions are usually accurate. It is in reprints that numerous errors 
decur through careless proof-reading. 
"Chinese chronology is not on a consecutive basis upon an established era, but upon the successive reigns, often 
ubstituting the cycle-year for year of the reign. 
