Archaic Chinese Characters Being some intensive studies in them

Having already discussed the first of the two forms used for Summer, we may examine the second, and attractive theory of its origin put forward by Mr. Yeh Yü-sên. This theory is freely cited by Mr. Tung Tso-pin in Part 3 of the Excavations at Anyang (Academia Sinica ), 1931, especially on pp. 511–514. Mr. Yeh observes: “When the ancients invented characters for the Four Seasons—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter—I surmise that in each case they drew their imagery from the object most conspicuous in that season. Now the character hsia , summer, is not found in the oracular sentences, but on the analogy of the example previously adduced, the words chin ch'un ‘the present Spring’, I have secured three instances where, following chin , there occurs a single character, in each case a pictogram.” Here Mr. Yeh cites three passages from Bone inscriptions, two from Lo Chên-yü's Yin Hsü Shu Ch'i , and one from a work not accessible to me. The three figures below I have copied direct from Lo's plates, as cited by Mr. Yeh, but not from the minuscule forms as constricted into the text of Mr. Tung Tso-pin's article

Analogy · Archaeology · Art · Character (mathematics · Chin · CITES · Geometry · Linguistics · Literature · Object (grammar · Physics · Pictogram · Spring (device · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Geology · Paleontology