The problem of the origin of writing among the peoples of Southeast Asia, which should include the peoples of today's southern China, has long been associated with the influence of Chinese hieroglyphics and the Indian Brahmi script, and in both cases this region played only a secondary role as a receptor for written cultures. However, archaeological finds in the south of China and in Indochina in recent decades have not only changed the previously formed ideas about the development of civilization in the region, but also allowed us to take a new look at the problem of the appearance and spread of writing here.

Recent excavations in Southern and Eastern China were summarized in a book by a 90-year-old Hong Kong professor Yao Tsung Yi (b.1917), translated into Japanese (Yao Tsung Yi, 2003), which can be called the result of his many years of research on the written languages of Southern China. During the advanced Neolithic period, various icons began to appear in China on ceramic potsherds, which are occasionally found on other materials - stone, animal bones, and turtle shells (the latter also provide the earliest examples of Chinese hieroglyphics). These signs are known in many cultures of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in China-from the northwest, close to Central Asia, to the extreme south. The problem of whether these icons are a written language or a step towards it, and how closely they are related to Chinese characters, which has probably arisen since their mass publication since the 1970s, could not be solved without some systematization of all the available finds. Yao Zong Yi is the first to give such a systematization and compile tables of similar signs in different cultures.

To solve this problem, it is also necessary to refer to the mechanism of development of written languages. I note that, despite all attempts to clarify the theory of the origin of writing, the stages of its development, put forward in 1937 by D. Deerer [Deerer, 1963], remain relevant. The last major theoretical study on this topic [Daniels and Bright, 1996] only adds factual material, but does not offer anything new in the stages of the evolution of writing, highlighted by Deerer. According to him, writing goes through the following series of stages in its development: pictography, ideography, phonetic writing. Thus, pictography, i.e. pictorial writing, becomes a necessary step towards the formation of ideographic writing. This is easily proved by the example of various scripts of the world, with the possible exception of Chinese hieroglyphics, which until very recently was considered to be a developed system from the middle of the Shang-Yin period (XIV - XI centuries BC). Icons on ceramics appear first as single ones, having the meaning of property marks or something else, and then as symbols of the ancient Chinese language. then they increase in number, turning into a kind of phrase.

In this regard, the latest work of the French researcher of the Middle East D. Schmant-Besser [Schmant-Besser, 2008], which summarizes the results of studying the problem of tokens - clay icons with a pattern in ancient Mesopotamia and Iran, is interesting. Comparing the signs on tokens and early Sumerian ideograms, she shows the identity of many of them, which gives her reason to see tokens as a step in the development of writing in Mesopotamia. This is all the more interesting because pebbles with badges are known in North Africa and Southern France ("Azile pebbles") and have already been considered by scientists as an early stage in the development of writing. Tokens are convenient for counting items shown on them. Most of the tokens had a hole, and there is evidence that they were strung on a rope, thereby forming a phrase. Gradually, tokens become more complex, combining simple signs (although such finds are rare), and at a certain point, about 3100 years BC.,

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several signs begin to be written on a single clay tablet, which is what happens in Sumer. The Schmant-Besser theory is confirmed by the great similarity of rather complex signs in their outlines, which cannot be explained only by a series of coincidences.

Familiar with Schmant-Besser's earlier work, Yao Tsung Yi compares the role of tokens in the Middle East to the role of icons on ceramics in China. Scattered icons on pottery appear around 6000 BCE in the Neolithic Laoguantai and Dadiwan cultures of northwestern China. Icons are found in large numbers in the Yangshao (5th millennium BC) and Majiao (4th-3rd millennium BC) cultures, as well as in the northwest. However, the icons continue to be single, and combining two or three icons on a single shard is very rare. On the territory of Central China, icons on ceramics are found in the Peiligang culture (2nd half of the 4th millennium BC), in the central Longshan culture (2nd half of the 3rd millennium BC), and in the bronze Erlitou culture (early 2nd millennium BC), which precedes Although, according to our observations, their findings are quite rare compared to the north-west, but in the north-west they continue to be scattered. In Southern China, pottery designs appear in the Gaomiao (c. 5400 BC), Middle Yangtze, and Hemudu (5th-early 4th millennium BC) cultures. B.C.), at the mouth of the Yangtze, but they can't be called signs yet. I think they can be attributed to the "drawings" preceding signs, according to the scheme of Yao Tsung Yi [Yao Tsung Yi, 2003, p. 39-41]. Icons on ceramics appear in the Daxi culture, in the Upper Yangtze region (2nd half of the 5th-4th millennium BC), and immediately in large numbers. At the mouth of the Yangtze River, only those from the Songze culture (c. 4th millennium BC) should really be considered icons. In the Liangzhu culture (3300 - 2200 BC), inscriptions of several icons are already appearing.

Signs on ceramics reach their true heyday in the Wucheng Bronze Culture, in the Middle Yangtze region (1st half of the 2nd millennium BC), where their total number is already estimated at several hundred. Yao Tsung Yi notes that signs on ceramics are especially widespread in the Yangtze River and Southern China among the Yue (Viet) peoples. Only here and in Shandong, which is connected with the mouth of the Yangtze, are inscriptions from a group of characters recorded on one potsherd (up to 12 characters in Wucheng).

Yao Tsung Yi speaks of active "south-north" connections, which were reflected in similar forms of signs throughout the entire period of the signs ' existence on ceramics. It is very important to note the scientist that the signs on ceramics can not be considered and read only on the basis of the written languages of the peoples of China. This explains the failures of Chinese epigraphists, who "read" signs on ceramics as Chinese characters. Yao Zong Yi cites a large number of not only simple, but also complex signs that look similar in ceramic inscriptions in the Middle East and China.

In the Middle East, signs similar to Chinese appear on the same material (ceramics) in the Hassuna culture in Mesopotamia at the same time as Laoguantai. Almost identical icons are also found in the Uruk period in Mesopotamia (c. 2900 BC). This is also indicated by some common ornaments (for example, the swastika). Later, early Semitic writings (2nd-early 1st millennium BC), also written on ceramics, retain similar signs. The main conclusion that Yao Tsung makes quite logically from his research is that the peoples of East and the rest of Asia did not exist in isolation from each other, but developed in interaction from a fairly early period. At the same time, Yao Zong Yi opposes the idea of spreading writing from West to East or from East to West. Similar ideas have been expressed before, but for the first time this was done by analyzing a huge amount of archaeological materials from China, the Middle East, and India.

Like Yao Zong Yi, Goto Keng (a researcher at Waseda University) considers ceramic inscriptions as the first stage of writing in China (Goto, 2004). At the same time, he assigns a special role to Wucheng, where the icons form rather long inscriptions. According to the length of the inscriptions and the large number of finds, he calls the Wucheng inscriptions close to writing, thus dividing the inscriptions on ceramics according to the degree of their development. Goto notes this important fact: ceramic inscriptions disappear in the Shang with the appearance of hieroglyphics on fortune-telling bones in the middle Shang period, around the XIV century BC.

I note that the same situation occurs with inscriptions in the Yangtze region and to the south of it. Wucheng-type ceramic inscriptions never coexist with Chinese hieroglyphic epigraphy. Most obviously, this occurs south of the mouth of the Yangtze, in the kingdom of Yue (Viet) (the territory of the present prov. Zhejiang), where signs on ceramics close to Wucheng are preserved until the Zhanguo period (403-221 BC). Chinese characters are distributed in the Yangtze region

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together with the assimilation of these territories by ethnic Chinese, and if to the north of the mouth of the Yangtze, in the kingdom of Wu, the spread of Chinese characters and the disappearance of Wucheng-type characters occurs at the beginning of the Western Zhou period (XI-VIII centuries BC), then in the neighboring region the same process occurs several centuries later, along with Sinicization [Laptev, 2006, vol. I].

Goto does not directly link the origin of Chinese hieroglyphics with signs on ceramics, but notes the similarity of some of them on ceramics of the early Shang (Erligan) period (XVI - XIV centuries BC) with subsequent Shan hieroglyphic signs. Although quite a few Erligan signs have been preserved, this point of view seems quite justified.

Yao Tsung And yi Goto do not touch on another, more primitive, one might say initial, stage in the development of writing-rock pictographic inscriptions, which are considered an intermediate stage between drawing and writing. Apparently, they could also have a sacred function. Rock inscriptions should be distinguished depending on the time of their creation and the type of signs (picture or separate signs), their relative position, and a number of other factors. According to the research of the Thai archaeologist Amara Srisuchat (Srisuchat, 1987; Srisuchat, 1990), the rock pictography may be quite late, dating back to the period of the spread of Buddhism and the Iron Age (VII - VIII centuries).

Srisuchat divides the rock pictographic inscriptions that are well preserved in the mountains throughout modern Thailand into seven recurring types, depending on the subject depicted: hunting, gathering, farming and cattle breeding, dancing, wrestling, sexual contact, rituals. Thai rock inscriptions reflect all aspects of life and religion, they can be distinguished by individual figures that form a picture and do not have the position of a separate sign. Thus, it is obvious that Thai pictography has not so much mnemonic as informative, possibly ritual, meaning. However, not all pictographic rock inscriptions are the same. In addition to Thailand and Cambodia (Trane, 1995, pp. 25-27, il. 42), rock inscriptions have been found in Southern China in the provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

Lei Sai Yun (Li Shiyuan), a researcher at the Zhuhai Museum, offers an analysis of the rock inscriptions in Bow Geng Waan (Baojingwan), on the border with Macau, thus complementing the work of Amara Srisuchat in Thailand. He identifies individual elements-signs in the rock pictography of Bow Geng Waan and suggests the order of their arrangement (Lei Sai Yun, 2003, pp. 197-210). Lei Sai Yong's research continues a series of surveys of rock inscriptions at the mouth of the Zhujiang River, conducted in 1970-1980 in Hong Kong by local archaeologists S. G. Davis (1974) and Chiu Tse Nang (1986) on Koloan Island, Macau, by the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, but the elements were not previously identified.

It is important to note that not all inscriptions have a pictorial character, as in Thailand, Cambodia or Zhuhai, but some consist of separate signs that are close or identical to the icons on the ceramics. So, of great interest are the inscriptions in Xianzitan (lit. "Lake of Sacred Signs"), in a remote mountain area along the Jiulongjiang River (prov. Fujian) [Wang Zhenyong et al., 1991]. Rock surveys in 1915, 1958, and 1988 in Xianzitang revealed a large number of inscriptions etched into the rocks (this is the difference between the inscriptions of southern China, including Bow Geng Waan, and Thailand and Cambodia, where most of the inscriptions are painted on the surface of the rock or on top of notches). A survey in 1958 and 1988 showed that the inscriptions were made with a metal object, but not iron, and therefore they can be dated to the Bronze Age, approximately the period from Shang to Chunqiu (between the XVI-V centuries BC). These inscriptions are completely different in size and number of signs or drawings-from one to about two dozen. Often there is the same sign - the figure of a little man with his hands down or raised up and legs spread apart, as well as a large drawn face. Often there is a ritual dance scene, similar to the scenes in Khao Plara (Thai prov. Uthai Tani).

It is interesting that the same figure of the "dancing man" is also found in ceramic inscriptions from the Shang necropolis (XVI - XI centuries BC) in Hulinshan, along the same Jiulongjiang River (Fujian, 2003). Apparently, this sign has a magical character, it is not by chance that it is found in each of the rock inscriptions of Xianzitani. By the nature of the writing, as well as by the material, it is clear that the icons on the ceramics differed from the signs of rock inscriptions. Signs on ceramics are simpler, less stereotypical. So, the obligatory "dancing man" for each rock inscription is found on ceramics only once. It is possible that the rock inscriptions date back to an earlier period than the icons on the ceramics, but it is unlikely that much. Anyway,

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undoubtedly, they have a common origin, but in the case of rock inscriptions, judging by their appearance, they look more like a magical(?) However, most of the signs on ceramics are very simplified, so they are rather close to ideograms.

At the same time, the simplified signs in Hulinshan show many similarities with the signs on the pottery of Wucheng, also a monument of the Shang period, but in the Middle Yangtze region. Yao Tsung Yi emphasizes that signs on ceramics are most developed in the lands of the Yue (Viet) peoples, turning into a developed system here [Yao Tsung Yi, 2003, pp. 75-90].

Comparison of rock inscriptions allows us to continue this line further south, to the territory of Indochina, which is proposed in his new work by the Cambodian researcher of French origin M. Trane (Trane, 2006). He pays special attention to the Yue (Viet) peoples, who he considers a single ethnic community in the vast territory from the Yangtze to Central Indochina, which had a huge impact on the formation of Khmer culture in Cambodia and present-day Thailand. Thus, the problem of the connection of the ancient Khmer people with the Dong Son bronze culture of North Vietnam, which was highlighted in his earlier works, gets a new development here.

Proposed by M. Trane (and before him by the Hong Kong archaeologist William Meacham and the American archaeologist Wilhelm Solheim II) the scheme of relations between the peoples of Indochina and Southern China, based on the data of material culture, suggests the development of similar scripts in the Yangtze region and Southern China and on the Indochina Peninsula. However, no evidence of writing, other than pictographic rock inscriptions, has been found in Indochina. Of course, we should note the extremely poor excavation of prehistoric monuments here, with the exception of North Vietnam. Although the Bronze and Iron Age necropolis we excavated near the village of Snai, in northeastern Cambodia, yielded a large number of perfectly preserved pottery samples, including painted ones, like Ban Chiang, a Bronze Age monument in northern Thailand, excavated by Chester Gorman and Pisit Charoenvongsa, but there are no hints of icons here. Consequently, the ancient Khmer people had different ways of developing writing than the Yue peoples.

The earliest epigraphic monuments in Myanmar, South Vietnam, and Java date back to the fifth and sixth centuries, while inscriptions in local languages (Khmer, Pyu, and Javanese) date back to the seventh century. All these inscriptions, as well as for a long subsequent period, up to the end of the Anchor (XIV century), are on stone stelae. However, large inflows of population from India begin here much earlier - from the beginning of a new era. Moreover, a number of Indian rings with epigraphy are known in the Okeo culture in South Vietnam (Daniels and Bright, 1996, p. 445-484; Trane, 1995, il. 102, 107). It can hardly be assumed that the Indians moved to Southeast Asia without writing. I'll suggest something else. The soil and climate of Cambodia (a constant alternation of dry and heavy rain seasons) do not preserve materials such as banana leaves - the main material of writing in this region. This can partly explain the almost complete absence of epigraphy (except for stone inscriptions) in most of Indochina, as well as the very late time for recorded writing.

As for writing in India itself, Prof. S. R. Goyal of Jodhpur University, who studied the epigraphy of the Brahmi script that spread to Southeast Asia, believes that there is no evidence to suggest the existence of a script in India in the period before the third century BC, with the exception of Taxilla, associated with Greek-Macedonian colonists (Goyal, 2005).

Thus, any connection with the Harappan script that existed in Northern India in the 2nd millennium BC was interrupted by the arrival of the Aryans. However, a number of questions remain about the Harappan script and its heritage: Goyal himself does not deny the similarity of some signs of the Harappan script and Brahmi [Goyal, 2005, p. 4-5]; Yao Tsung And notes the similarity of a number of signs of the Harappan script with icons on Chinese ceramics [Yao Tsung And, 2003, p. 156-157]; Deerer found the similarity of many signs of the Harappan script with the script of Easter Island in the South Pacific, geographically and chronologically separated by about two millennia, although the distance of time and distance allow us to consider direct connections between India and Easter Island impossible. Questions about the connection between the Harappan script, the Brahmi script, and the Ori script. The Paskhas do not yet have an answer, nor does the possible role of Southeast Asia in the external influence of Indian writing in the pre-Brahmi period. However, there is one interesting fact that Yao Tsung and [Yao Tsung Yi, 2003, p. 82-87]: it is not only the Late Neolithic pottery inscriptions in Rangpur (Gujarat, Western India) that show similarities to the signs on the

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Western ceramics from the Yue group, in Yunnan and Sichuan, as well as in the area along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze (Liangzhu, Wucheng), but also a number of Neolithic tools of Central and Eastern India, in particular shoulder and dental axes found in the East Indian state of Assam with perforations in the center.

I would also like to mention that Assam is close to the Chinese province of Yunnan and Myanmar (Burma). Moreover, Myanmar is also close to Assam in terms of material culture during the Neolithic, Bronze Age and, of course, during the Hinduization of the Indochina Peninsula. There is another fact that suggests the possibility of writing on the Indochina Peninsula in the pre-Indian period - the existence of several peoples independent of Chinese writing in the areas bordering South-East Asia in present-day Southern China: I (Vietnamese name - lolo), Moso (nasi), Miao and Yao, who live not only in Southern China,but also in the South of China. but also in neighboring areas of Southeast Asian countries-Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and even somewhat remote Thailand. All these scripts are ideographic, and ideograms, if they have experienced the influence of Chinese hieroglyphics, are insignificant and far from it in appearance.

The most studied was the written language of the Moso people, which left behind epic-historical and other written monuments. As early as the 1940s, their research and translations into English and Chinese appeared (Rock, 1940; Fu Mao-chi, 1948). Recently, there has been a new interest in the Moso script, which, unfortunately, has not affected the remaining preserved scripts of the peoples of Southern China. For example, Wang Chaoyin tries to explain the origin of signs based on the ethnographic material of Moso in Yunnan Province (Wang Chaoyin, 2004), and He Baolin tries to explain the shape of the signs themselves (He Baolin, 2007).

The question of the time of origin of moso ideograms remains unexplored. For a long time, it was believed that the written languages of the peoples of Southern China are of relatively recent origin. But in 1955, during the excavation of the necropolis in Shizhaishan (prov. Yunnan) was found a bronze plate with engraved signs of local, apparently ideographic, writing, attributed to the state of Dien that existed there. The necropolis dates from the second-first centuries BC (Yunnan, 1959). The signs of the Dien script are complex in outline and do not resemble the signs on ceramics. However, I note the external similarity of some characters from Shizhaishan with the Moso script, which, due to the complexity of the drawing of these characters, can hardly be considered a simple coincidence. The Moso and Dien scripts probably represent another branch of southern China's own ideography, distinct from the Wucheng script.

The opinions presented in this review allow us to draw the following conclusions. The written language of the peoples of Southern China, apparently Indochina, developed independently, regardless of the direct dependence on the Chinese or Indian scripts, whose penetration into this region begins only with the processes of active physical migration of their carriers - ethnic Chinese and Indians. At the same time, the written languages of Asia were not isolated from each other: their interrelationships and mutual influences can be traced across a wide area of Asia - from the Middle East to China. It is obvious that the peoples of Southern China and, presumably, Indochina also played a role in the contacts between the cultures of West and East Asia.

list of literature

Deerer D. Alphabet / Translated from English, Moscow: Publishing House of Foreign Literature, 1963.

Laptev S. V. Prehistory and history of the Viet peoples: archeology of the Lower Yangtze and Southeastern China of the period from the Early Neolithic to the Early Iron Age. Vol. I-III. Moscow: Institute of Practical Oriental Studies, 2006-2007.

Wang Chaoyin. Tomna moji densetsu (The Legend of the Tompa Script). Tokyo: Marusya Publ., 2004.

Wang Zhenyong, Lin Weiwen, Fan Wanchun. Fujian Huaan Xianzitang shi ke kaocha ji (Records of the survey of rock inscriptions in Xianzitang, Huaan County, prov. Fujian) / / Dongnan wenhua. Nanjing, 1991. N 6.

Goto Ken. Kodai Chugoku-no moji (Writing of ancient China) / / Moji no kokogaku (Archeology of writing) / Ed. Kikuchi Tetsuo. Vol. II. Tokyo: Doseisha Publ., 2004.

Chiu T. N. Report on Rock Carvings // Journal of Hong Kong Archaeological Society. Hong Kong, Aug. Vol. XI. 1986.

Daniels P. T., Bright W. (ed). The World Writing Systems. New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Davis S. G. Rock Carvings in Hong Kong // Journal of Hong Kong Archeological Society / Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Archaeological Society. Vol. V. Hong Kong, Dec. 1974.

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Goyal S. R. Ancient Indian Inscriptions: Recent Finds and New Interpretations. Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Book World, 2005.

Rock J. F. The Romance of K'a-mä-gyu-mi-gkyi // Bulletin d'Ecole Française d'Extreme Orient. T. XXXIX. Fasc. 1. Hanoi, 1940.

Lei Sai Yun. Zhu Hoi Bow Geng Waan ngaam waak ching tai poon duk (Comprehensive study of rock paintings in the Bay of Bow Geng Waan, Zhuhai) / / Man fa zhaap ji. Macau, N 47. Summer 2003.

Srisuchat Amara. Sil pa tham Kan Cha Na Bu Ri (Rock art in Kanchanaburi province). Bangkok: Krom sinlapakbn, 1989.

Srisuchat Amara. Sil pa tham Khao Pla Ra, U Thai Tha Ni (Rock carvings in Khao Plara, Uthai Thani province). Bangkok: Krom sinlapakbn, 1990.

Trane M. Brovatshi sas Kampuchea: pi bopak samay dol satawat ti brambey (History of Cambodia: from antiquity to the 7th century AD). Phnom Penh, 1995.

Trane M. Mathe kaa voappadhoam Khmer (On the origin of Khmer culture). Vol. 1. Phnom Penh, 2006.

Fu Mao-chi. Lijiang Meshe xiangxing wen "Gu shi ji" yanjiu (Study of the "Records of Ancient Affairs" written in the hieroglyphic script of the Moso people). Wuchang: Wuchang Huazhong daxue, 1948.

Fujian Zhangzhoushi Hulinilan Shang dai yizhi fajue jian bao (A brief report on the excavation of a Shang Period monument in Hulinshan, Mt. Zhangzhou, prov. Fujian) / / Kaogu. Beijing, 2003, No. 12.

He Baolin. Changyong Dongba wenzi mingyan, suyu xinshan (Sayings and proverbs written in the Dongba letter). Kunming: Yunnan People's Republic of China, 2007.

Schmant-Bessera D. Moji wa ko: shite umareta (So writing was born). Tokyo: Iwanami seten, 2008.

Yunnan boguan (Museum prov. Yunnan). Yunnan Jinning Shizhaishan gu muqun fajue baogao (Report on the excavation of the ancient necropolis in Shizhaishan, Jinning County, prov. Yunnan). Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1959.

Yao Tsung I. Kanjiju. Kodai bunmei to kanji-no kigen (Genealogical branch of Chinese characters. Ancient civilizations and the origin of Chinese characters). Tokyo: Archifusya Publ., 2003.

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