| Abstract: |
English summary on page 46 as follows: The paper deals with two signs on a bronze ploughshare or spade ( Fig.1) and five others on a bronze halberd ko ( Fig.2). Both have been found in Thanh Hoa Province ( Viet Nam ). The spade is undoubtedly a typical artifact of the Dong Son Culture in the Ma River Valley. The author also focuses his attention on the signs engraved on three other ko found in the Ch'u tombs of Warring States period in Human Province ( China) : two from changsha ( Fig.3, Kaogu xuebao 1959, No 1, Pl. X (6)
Fig.6, Kaogu tongxun 1958, No. 6, p.48) and the third from Changte ( Fig.5 Kaogu 1963, No 9, p. 465). No decipherments have been made but Chinese scholars think that these were Chinese inscriptions. A careful analysis of all these signs (twenty symbols on four ko with their frequencies shown in Table 1) leads the author to conclude that they belonged to a mysterious non - Chinese system of writing. This script includes two separate types of characters. the linear (Nos 1-11 in Table 1) and the hieroglyphic ( Nos 12-16). The curvilines and the rectilines I are the two basic components of the linear characters. This structure of script differs markedly from that of the Chinese writing, The author thinks this script was basically ideographic or logographic rather than pictographic. Little definite information is available as to the people who created this script. According to many recent views, this sincized Ch'u people's language and writing in the Warring States Period were identical with those of the Northern Chinese. The author proves that the peoples of the States Yueh (Chekiang), Wu (Kiangsu), Pa or Shu (Szechwan) and Tien (Yunnan) were also not the inventors of this writing system. He hypothesizes that this script was invented by the Lo Yueh (Lac Viet) people, the makers of the Dong Son culture.
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