Say in front:
The invention of writing is one of the important symbols of human civilization, China has now found 8 kinds of mysterious, to be deciphered original script or symbol, but only the Cuban Shu script belongs to the writing system, which has a pivotal position in the origin of the Chinese national script. Later, on many excavated bronzes, we see the tools, clan emblems, totems or religious symbols used by the ancient Bashu people to record language, which are collectively referred to by scholars as "pictorial languages", and these rich mysterious "pictorials" will also become the "labyrinth drawings" for exploring the ancient Shu civilization.
In the Wuling Mountain Great Rift Valley Scenic Area, there is a place called "Tuyu Square". And what does "pictorial language" mean? How did the "pictorial language" come into being? Today we will solve the mystery of "pictorial language" for everyone.
Bashutu
Ancient codes waiting to be cracked
21 February 2022 is the 22nd International Mother Language Day, with the theme "Harnessing Technology for Multilingual Learning: Challenges and Opportunities". It is a festival established by UNESCO to promote linguistic and cultural diversity. Although there are now more than 6,000 languages in the world, there are not many vibrant languages. According to UNESCO, one language disappears every two weeks around the world.
The writer Peng Cheng once said in his work "Under the Eaves of the Mother Tongue":
"To exterminate a people, we must begin by stripping it of its language. Because what is connected by language is the history and memory of this nation. And to guard language is to defend the dignity of a nation and pass on the genes of a culture. ”
In recent decades, with the discovery and excavation of the Xuanhan Luojiaba site, people have begun to rethink the origin center and transmission route of the "Bashu Tu language". Due to its special geographical location and culture, Shu and the Central Plains are not of the same ethnic group, with different speeches and different shapes of words. Historical sources describe the ancient Shu period as follows: "When people were cute and left-handed, they did not know the script, and there was no ceremonial music" (Yang Xiong: "The Book of the King of Shu").
The language of the ancient Shu people, known as the "Zuo Yan" by the Central Plains people, basically disappeared as early as shortly after the Qin dynasty destroyed Bashu, but the ancient script of Bashu was revived by archaeological excavations, and these unique cultural wealth is currently in the process of being lost, and it is in urgent need of protection, recording and research.
Image source: Sohu Ancient Shu Panda Wu Chongzhen
The Great Rift Valley of Wuling Mountain
The "indissoluble relationship" with the Bashu Turkish language
In the eyes of the world, 30 degrees north latitude is a strange latitude line, which runs through the "four ancient civilizations", and there are mysterious bermuda triangles, Egyptian pyramids, the world's highest peak Mount Everest and other cultural and natural wonders near the latitude - and the Great Rift Valley of Wuling Mountain is also located near 30 degrees north latitude.
After hundreds of millions of years of crustal movement, the Great Rift Valley has thousands of cliffs, karst terrain can be seen everywhere, and 92.7% of the forest coverage rate provides a good living environment for people and animals. Rift Valley Monkeys "rob" passers-by while helping mountain people drive wild boars and guard crops; among them, the narrowest point of the Qingtian Gorge is less than one meter, and it is almost impossible to see sunlight all day; laojun Cave at the end of the ground gap has a 8.3-kilometer-long karst cave wonder; and the "Wanzhang Pit" has a proven vertical depth of 841 meters, ranking second in the country...
Like historical wonders such as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Rift Valley of Wuling Mountain was also an active area for ancient civilizations. As early as 2,000 years ago, a famous ethnic group was active here, the Ba people. According to the Huayang Guozhi, the distant Cubans living in the Wuling Mountains made a living hunting and fishing, and they diligently reclaimed this land. The natural barrier of the Great Rift Valley allows them to stay in peace even in the years of war. This has also allowed their traditional cultures such as graphic language, song and dance to be preserved in the Wuling Mountains.
Photos of the return of the king
The language of the Ba people is called "Turkish Language", also known as "Bashu Tu language". The Bashu Turkish language is mainly distributed on bronze weapons, copper musical instruments, copper seals and other artifacts. Typical Bashu Turkish languages are tiger stripes, palm prints, flower peduncle patterns, etc.
Because of its shape very much like a decorative symbol, Bashu Tuo did not initially regard it as a text. With the progress of archaeological work, more and more similar symbols have been discovered in the Prachuap Khiri Khan region, which have accumulated to hundreds, some of which are of a very strong nature of the picture, and some of which are very abstract, and it is difficult to infer meaning from the shape. At present, the mainstream view is that this is the tool, clan emblem, totem or religious symbol used by the ancient Bashu people to record the language, which is a hieroglyph, which is the prototype of the Bashu script.
Image source: February 2019 Science Chinese
The Bashu Tu language is a window to peek into the ancient Shu civilization and a path into the hearts of the ancient Shu people. Behind each pictorial language, there may be a group of vivid faces, which may hide a hidden history. However, the deciphering of the Bashu Turkish language is extremely difficult, and it is still foggy.
The Pictorial Square in the Great Rift Valley Scenic Area of Wuling Mountain covers an area of about 5,200 square meters, which is composed of cultural and artistic walls and sculptures of "Ba Ren Tu Language" and "Wuling Spring Dawn". Among them, the "Ba Ren Tu Language" floor sculpture is mainly designed according to the six groups of Ba Ren Picu excavated from the tomb of King Ba of XiaotianXi in Fuling. On the north side of the cultural and artistic wall, the ancient Ba people in the spring, summer, autumn and winter, asking for rain, sowing, fishing, hunting, shipping, marriage and other life scenes. Interested friends can come here to try to identify and decipher those mysterious symbols, feel and understand the beautiful Bashu tuyu, the mysterious ancient Shu memory.
The white tiger bar in front of the visitor square is a relief totem
White tiger totem relief next to the scenic gate
In addition, the colorful natural beauty here is something you must not miss: the Cloud Pavilion at the top of the clouds and mist, which can be leaned on a column to overlook the mountains on a sunny day, and the cloudy wonderland on cloudy days; the nearly 200-meter aerial rope bridge across the mountains and the "Copper Wall Iron Wall" named "one of the 100 Best Photography Spots" by National Geographic magazine to feel the thrill and infinite scenery; the cliff boardwalk built along the mountain by the Qingtian Gorge Is extremely steep, and the "one meter of sunshine" sprinkled from the stone cracks above the head is romantic and sentimental Stepping out of the world's longest and narrowest crevice with the longest average width, you can take asia's steepest "Wuling Taidou" aerial ropeway to the sky and enter the earth, and enjoy the magnificent rift valley between the mountains and valleys at a height of 100 meters...
Cloud Pavilion
"Wuling Taidou" aerial ropeway
Qingtian Gorge seam
It is the geological upheaval of the vicissitudes of the mulberry fields that has created these miraculous wonders of Wuling Mountain. According to expert research, the history of the Great Rift Valley of Wuling Mountain can even be traced back to the Paleozoic Permian period about 250 million years ago, when the Wuling Mountains were still an ocean, and countless carcasses of animals and plants and sediment were deposited in the ocean. To this day, the stone walls along the scenic area are still inlaid with fossils of animals and plants of different sizes and shapes, and a large number of marine life fossils are attached to the rock layers... They were pre-human inhabitants of the planet, and their fossils became excellent sources for studying ancient geography and geological changes.
Ancient ancestors shared this land with all living beings, and they cultivated their own culture and wisdom. Even today, when modern technology is so developed, we still have to learn from the reverence of our ancestors and explore ways to get along with nature. Taking advantage of the spring light, why not come to the Great Rift Valley of Wuling Mountain and start a walking deep cultural reading!