The Bearskin, another pictographic reconnaissance from primitive prophylactic to present-day panache

Among the several hundred archaic forms preserved in the inscriptions on the bone fragments of the Honan Find which research has failed to identify there is a minority demanding special attention. And in it perhaps the most outstanding challenge to aggressive epigraphists is the figure appearing in Plate II. This inscription discloses a human shape of grotesque design. Above the emaciated and linear frontal figure of a man, appears an object covering but concealing his head, which resembles an outsize and ill-designed bowler hat. From what seem like ear-flaps depend two oval earrings perhaps, and in front of the bulky headgear two small apertures are remarkable. Such is the leading figure in the sequence of the four characters in the centre of the plate. On each side of the three main rows are several characters perhaps not all connected with the three main columns

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