CO129-538-1 Hong Kong University 31-12-1931 - 6-8-1932 — Page 89

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D. J. FINN

monarch in his removes but the proofs are not conclusive. It is best to be conservative and content oneself with the date 1400-1155 B.C. This date is subject to revision but it is hardly likely that the lower date will have to be much changed; the upper date is more uncertain.

**

man

รา

eye

+

char-

One of these characters found on fragment (frg.) 32, REAY I p. 134 has been taken as the basis of the enlarged drawing of the acter in the text figure. How the old character passed into the modern shape will be evident from the scheme reproduced in the accom- panying text figures which gives typical forms to illustrate its evolution into the modern Cantonese MUK. That it was even originally the pictogram

and of an eye is best seen from the combination of

eye to make the ideograph

Cantonese KIN. In these old forms, man is represented seated or standing and one can always distinguish arms and legs so that it is clear which way he faces; the signs had not yet taken on the canonical forms they follow nowadays. Thus we get an ideograph for SEE in which the body may be turned to right or to left. According to the direction of the body, the eye too changes about.

目

to see

15

SOME

OLD

PICTOGRAMS

MAN

TO SEE

人

EYE

目

MODERN

? FIRST MILLENIUM

B. C.

Figure 2.

見食

ӨӨ B

HAN PERIOD

B.C/AD

MODERN

FVOLUTION OF CHINESE EYE CHARACTER

** Like symbols occur on Nos. 49, 63, 134, 298 and variants on Nos. 8, 24, 131, 146, 216, 277, 248, 326, 328, 373. The upper character on No. 32 should probably be restored as on No. 25 (= banquet, sacrificial feast)

The Mongolian Eye

Let us examine the elements in our EYE" pictograph.

123

There

In the

are three sections of about equal length. One ends in a tapering point made by a line running up to meet a more or less horizontal line on top. centre is a taller section flat on top, but rounding off below with a very slight nipple-like projection. The third section is bounded on top and at the end by a continuous line which then passes out down below the line that runs sloping out from the central section to make the lower boundary line of this section. Thus at one end there is a point (corresponding to the outer canthus of the eye), at the other there is an overlap of the upper lid over the under, the "Mongol fold. That this is the inner corner of the eye results from character: the over-fold epicanthus must always

"

see

consideration of the be nearer the profile. The eye itself is always seen full-on; the primitive arts always follow this practise as a consequence of "frontality." A similar primitive trait here is that the artist shows you the whole pupil and iris through he knows that the under lid usually cuts across it; that is the meaning of the sections by which the continuity of the under-lid is interrupted. Further it is noteworthy that the under lid slopes up to the outer canthus so that it gives a general oblique appearance to the eye:

31

Comparison of the Chinese pictograph with the Egyptian (copied from the Encycl. Britt.) makes evident the Mongolian characteristics which distinguish it over-fold and general upward lic. The contrast between the Chinese and the Egyptian characters is proportionate to that between the Chinese and the European eye in nature. Furthermore, a plate in the Encyclaepodia Britannica* (Egypt Plate IV Figure 50) shows four different profiles, apparently 3 races, Semitic, Caucasian, Negro and none of them seems to have this "Mongolian feature. The Semitic eye is of the four the one most similar to our symbol in the straight descent of the upper lid and the relation of the two lids towards the outer canthus.

So far, so good; it would appear that we have here the "Mongolian eye as characteristic of the people who were the Chinese of the Yin dynasty living c. 1400-c. 1155 B.C. round about the royal abode (near Chang Te Fu in Honan, 36 N. 114 E. Approx.).

*

But we must add certain notes. I have not seen the actual bone or carapace fragments, but a reading of REAY II p. 413 and a comparison of the characters published by Messrs. and in the general collation of these Bone-Shell" symbols X will convince anyone of the care with which they have been published; Chinese scholars know very well what accuracy is here imperative and the work of the band of scholars devoted to this type of research is amazing in its learning and thoroughness.

CC

11

A more difficult point is that certain

eye characters appear in which the overlapping projection is replaced by a more pointed termination of the canthus, turned downwards however and not tapering away on the

* Thirteenth Edition. Vol. 9, Plate IV is as it were made for this comparison. Picto- graph ibid, p. 64. Fig. 50 is from the tomb of King Seti, roughly contemporaneous with our pictogram.

The Hong Kong Naturalist.

May 1932.

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