Integrated Research On The Recently Recovered Weapon Inscriptions Of The Eastern Zhou Dynasty

The transition stage from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States undergoes tremendous social revolution. Kings of states fight each other and social upheavals last during this period. Due to reasons like wars between states, great emphasis on army and warrior and the opinion that military development strengthens state power, larger quantity of weapons are manufactured, especially the inscriptive weapons emerge in large numbers, which results to the common research on weapon inscriptions. Some research on a single weapon inscription, some research on individual words, some research on a region weapon inscriptions and some research on a country weapon inscriptions. However, these researches are scattered comparatively and there is no integrated and systematic research on this area up to now.This paper widely collects and sorts out newly appeared weapon inscriptions after A Collection of Inscriptions on Ancient Bronze Objects of Yin and Zhou Dynasty and makes a systematic research and classification on these inscriptions. The whole paper is divided into three chapters:The first chapter is main part of the paper, which conducts an integrated research on recently recovered weapon inscriptions of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. According to geographic classification on characters widely acknowledged by academic community, weapon inscriptions of the Warring States period are divided into five categories, namely:Qin Characters, Chu Characters, Jin characters, Qi characters and Yan Characters. Inscriptions are listed and supplemented respectively with its state, record, unearthed place, appearance and specification about the rubbings of the inscriptions. On the basis of sufficiently absorbing and integrating research findings by former people, this paper interprets weapon inscriptions in the aspect of character research and shows some own opinions on the research and explanation of some unsure characters. The second chapter gives some research and explanation on characteristics on the recently recovered weapon inscriptions of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in aspects of style and form. Manufacturing and inspection system is continually improved to perfect by reflection from the style. The system of "product inscribed with name of its owner" in early stage is developed to system of "product inscribed with name of its owner, producer and inspector". In aspect of its form, predigestion and dissimilation is the main feature of character evolution during this period. The third chapter discusses the value of the recently recovered weapon inscriptions of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in terms of research and evolution on characters and words. The value on research of characters and words is shown by the appearance of larger quantity of new characters. Since these newly appeared characters are mainly phonograms, research on these characters will develop the extent and profundity of research on characters in the Warring States period, meanwhile, basis to explain characters in the Warring States period can be provided by research on newly appeared characters. The value on evolution of the recently recovered weapon inscriptions of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty is as following:By this kind of research, we can give an even deeper insight into the evolution rule of characters in the Warring States period from Bronze Inscription in Western Zhou Dynasty to seal character and clerical character in Qin and Han Dynasty. Systematic and integrated research on weapon inscriptions in this period are established by the discussion and explanation of the above three chapters.As one of the typical characters, weapon inscriptions bear their own features. Through research, we can see the evolution process of characters in the Warring States period, which helps us get a better understanding about the important historical role of these characters.