石鼓

故宫博物院（北京）

Stone Drum

at Beijing's Palace Museum

石鼓也叫“陈仓石碣”、“岐阳石鼓”，是十座刻有文字的石墩，刻于先秦时期，627年发现于今陕西省宝鸡市的荒野，现保存在北京故宫博物院石鼓馆（位于珍宝馆内）。由于鼓身上刻凿的文字珍贵，是中国现存最早的石刻文字，历代都极受重视。根据鼓身上的文字分别命名为：乍原、而师、马荐、吾水、吴人、吾车、□沔、田车、銮车、□雨。

The Stone Drums of Qin or Qin Shi Gu (Chinese: 秦石鼓; Wade━Giles: Ch'in Shih Ku) are ten granite boulders bearing the oldest known "stone" inscriptions in ancient Chinese (much older inscriptions on pottery, bronzes and the oracle bones exist). Because these inscribed stones are shaped roughly like drums, they have been known as the Stone Drums of Qin since at least the 7th century.

唐627年，石鼓于陕西宝鸡岐山北坡的荒郊发现，此地曾是秦国旧地。它们是花岗岩质地，每个直径约1米，重约一吨。十座石鼓外形相似，上狭下宽，形似鼓，因此得名石鼓。唐朝人按它得出土地点，命名为“陈仓石碣”或“岐阳石鼓”。

石鼓的刻凿年代一直没有定论，现在比较认可得说法是前故宫博物院院长马衡在《石鼓文秦刻石考》中认定石鼓刻于先秦时期，但具体年代说法不一。十座石鼓上都刻有文字，数字不等，共700多个，现在仅存不到500个，每个字有两寸见方，当时的金石学家没有见过这种字体，后来认定这个是介于甲骨文和小篆之间的大篆，被称为石鼓文。

　
Shigu is called the "hunting Gar", is the earliest extant text China stele, cause a group of ten Steamed Buns shaped granite stone, each about 1 meters in diameter, weighing about 1 tons. Similar to the ten seat Shigu shape, narrow width, the shape of the drum, hence the name "Shigu". In the drum shaped stone engraved with the seal character, later known as the stone. The stone is the characters of our country the earliest stone, "CHANGJEI said, if installed Xiaozhuan progenitor". Qin Wen Zhuan belongs to class, between the inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty and Qin Xiaozhuan, also known as "China's majuscul seal script", the development of writing an important part of the chain, it is also said to be the ancestor Chinese characters today".

这些文字记录着秦统一前的历史。据唐兰的考证，石鼓上的文字是十首一组的史诗，记述了周王太史来秦宫与王出游的故事。
Their fame is because they are the oldest known stone inscriptions in China, making them a priceless treasure for epigraphers. The stone drums are now kept in the Palace Museum, Beijing. They vary in height from 73 cm to 87.5 cm (with one which was at one point used as a mortar reduced by the grinding to 58 cm), and from 56 to 80.1 cm in diameter. The Stone Drums weigh about 400 kg. each.

Like their discovery, the details of their origin have also long been subject to debate. While most now agree that they were made at the behest of a Duke of the feudal state of Qin (秦 Ch'in), the century of their creation is still uncertain; It is very likely that these artifacts date to the late Spring and Autumn period（576 to 537 BCE）.

The ancient inscriptions on them are arranged in accordance with each stone's size and proportions, the largest stone bearing fifteen lines of five characters each, and a smaller one with nine lines of eight graphs each, neatly arranged as if in a grid. The contents are generally four-character rhymed verse in the style of the poems of the Shijing (诗经), the Book of Poetry, a few lines of which they even paraphrase. The contents generally commemorate royal hunting and fishing activities.

Originally thought to bear about 700 characters in all, the Stone Drums were already damaged by the time they are mentioned in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) poetry of Du Fu. The drums had only 501 graphs by the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), when the best rubbings now surviving were made (Mattos, p. 57. Cf. Guo Zhongshu). They have been further damaged through rough handling and repeated rubbings in the years since, and one was even converted into a mortar, destroying a third of it. A mere 272 characters are visible on the stones today. In the best rubbing, only 470 of the 501 characters are legible, or about 68%; after omitting repeated graphs, this leaves us with a treasury of 265 different graphs, 49 of which are known from no other source (excluding recognizable variants). Even among recognizable graphs, scores of them are used in ways unattested elsewhere, leading to great difficulty and disagreement in their interpretation, a situation common to Zhou dynasty inscriptions.
 
The Stone Drums are mentioned in the 7th century, and may have been found within the preceding century. There exists no record of their actual discovery, so the date and location thereof are unsettled, and are a matter of extensive scholarly controversy. Wagner (1990) speculates that the original location of the drums’ discovery may have been the Qin royal tombs or an associated ritual complex in Fengxiang County (凤翔), Shaanxi Province (陕西), but also mentions another potentially relevant location: a mountain named Shigushan (石鼓山), or Stone Drum Mt., in Chencang (陈仓), about 25 km. SW of Yong (Tianxing), the Qin capital from 677 to 383 BCE. Yong's city walls have been found in Fengxiang, and the Qin royal tombs lie about 11 km. to the south.

Reference/Sources:

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[wikipedia.org]

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