Damaidi
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Damaidi (; ''literally: Big wheat field'') is the location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese
petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...
s, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures. Cliff carving expert Li Xiangshi stated that "The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters," Another expert said "Through arduous research, we have found that some pictographs are commonly seen in up to hundreds of pictures in the carvings," said Liu Jingyun, an expert on ancient Oracle Bone characters. The size, shape and meanings of the pictographs in different carvings are the same. These pictographs may be the origin of Chinese characters. Damaidi itself is a small village located in Zhongwei in Central
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, set amid the Weining Mountains on the north bend of the
Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
.


Cliff carvings

The dates of these carvings is uncertain. The latest were made during the
Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia ( zh, c=, w=Hsi1 Hsia4, p=Xī Xià), officially the Great Xia ( zh, c=大夏, w=Ta4 Hsia4, p=Dà Xià, labels=no), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts ...
dynasty (1032-1227). Dates for the first carvings are disputed, with Zhou Xinghua from the Ningxia Museum suggesting a
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
date and Professor of Archaeology at the Central University of Nationalities in Beijing suggesting 3,000 years, adding that modern technology was needed to be used to prove any dates. They feature environmental as well as social themes. There are carvings of the sun and moon along with other celestial bodies as well as of people hunting, herding and fighting. Archaeologists believe that some of these symbols (over 1,500) bear a resemblance to ancient
hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...
s of
Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...
s. If dating estimates of the carvings are correct, this would push back the origins of Chinese writing (previously dated only as far back as the Jiaguwen
Oracle Bone Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron which were used in pyromancya form of divinationduring the Late Shang period () in ancient China. '' Scapulimancy'' is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, ''p ...
inscriptions found at
Anyang Anyang ( zh, s=安阳, t=安陽; ) is a prefecture-level city in Henan, China. Geographical coordinates are 35° 41'~ 36° 21' north latitude and 113° 38'~ 114° 59' east longitude. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the eas ...
) from 1250 BC to 6600 BC-6200 BC.


References


External links


Cliff Carvings May Rewrite History of Chinese Characters
– another copy of the ''Xinhua'' article, with images. {{coord missing, Ningxia Paleolithic sites in China Rock art in China Buildings and structures in Ningxia