Tsuba Script

[kissakai]

Hi

My second query - another one from the NMB

This tsuba has quite a few characters and the school is unknown

I do not think it to be Tensho but maybe seal script but after looking at quite a few pages of seal script I do not see a single character

I is a laborious task to cut away the base to leave these character in relief

Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

Grev

 

[TETSUGENDO]

Grev,

 

Moving this query to the translations section might be a better place, there it is more likely to catch the eye of one of our resident translators.

 

Cheers,

[kissakai]

Thanks

[SteveM]

I remember this tsuba. I think there is a thread on it somewhere. The script looks like early (proto) kanji - like a cross between oracle bone script and seal script. But its a bit too enigmatic for me to figure out if it has meaning or if it just meant as decoration. 

 

It is unusual to see random kanji-like characters (or bits of kanji) used as decoration. So...I'm left in the dark on this one. 

[Rich S]

I think they are symbols from the Stargate locator :-)

Rich

[SteveM]

It looks like some of the characters on this site: a collection of dubious scripts purported to be native Japanese writing (i.e. before the importation of kanji). I think most scholars consider these to be 19-20th century fabrications. 

 

Called "Jindai Moji". Scroll to the bottom to see them. 

http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~choreki/sinmoji.htm

[kissakai]

Hi Steve

Thanks as I had a lead and name to follow

The character that I can't see any thing close to was on the first image, it is the circle with three radiating lines

It still seems a lot of work to be a fantasy but that is my current conclusion unless anyone knows better

 

From the internet

 

 

From Wikipedia

 

Reasons for skepticism

 

    The Kogo Shūi, written in 808, clearly states that the Japanese had no writing system, and thus no characters, before Kanji were imported, and nobody before Urabe no Kanekata (mentioned above) made any reference to such "ancient characters."

    The examples of jindai moji that have been put forward over the years have all clearly been based on Modern Japanese, which had five vowels, and not Old Japanese, which until the Heian period had eight vowels.

    Shinkichi Hashimoto studied documents written in Man'yōgana during the Nara period and found the Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, proving that there were 88 sounds in the ancient language, but jindai moji have only 50 or fewer, matching the Gojūon and Iroha of the Heian period.

    If jindai moji had been in use before the Japanese became aware of Kanji, it is impossible to explain why they would have swiftly and totally abandoned such characters in favour of the much more complex new characters derived from China, or why they then went on to develop Man'yōgana, Hiragana and Katakana, all of which are based on Kanji and show no evidence of any connection with jindai moji.

 

 

Claims in favor of jindai moji

 

    Some recent writers have interpreted the following passage in the Shaku Nihongi to support their view that jindai moji were in use in ancient Japan: "There are six or seven documents written in characters of Hi Province(肥人の字、Ahiru characters) in the Ministry of the Treasury."

    It was reported in the late 19th century that ancient characters had been found in Ryukyu and in Ezo, and these claims received some support from respectable mainstream scholars, at least at the time.