湄

Unicode: U+6E44

Pinyin: méi

Variants:溦𣷍𣽪𣾨𤃰𤃱

Related substructures

氵

目

𠃜

Precursors

Oracle Bone Script

c. 1300–1050 BCE (Late Shang)

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Inscriptions carved on turtle plastrons and animal bones for divination and record-keeping in the late Shang royal court; the oldest large attested corpus of written Chinese.Wikipedia ->

Small Seal Script

Standardized 221–206 BCE (Qin); developed earlier in Qin

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The standardized seal script promulgated after Qin’s unification, based on earlier Qin seal forms and used as an empire-wide norm.Wikipedia ->

Transmitted Pre-Qin Forms

Pre-Qin forms (≤221 BCE) / late 2nd century BCE onward (Han → later textual transmission)

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Pre-Qin character forms preserved through later textual transmission (often discussed as the 'Old Text' / guwen tradition). Shaped by repeated copying, they can diverge from excavated Warring States materials.Wikipedia ->

Liushutong Seal Forms

Pre-Qin to Han seal-type forms (≤220 CE) / compiled 1661 (Min Qiji); collated and printed 1720 (Bi Hongshu)

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A ten-volume compendium of seal-script variants arranged by the rhymes of Hongwu Zhengyun: each head character gives its Shuowen small seal form, then variants gathered from guwen, zhouwen, bronze inscriptions and Qin–Han seals. Long a standard reference for seal carvers, but the forms are compiled rather than excavated and were collected with little vetting, so many are of doubtful authenticity.Wikimedia Commons ->