Vermilion Seal Chinese civilisation, from Taiwan

The traditional characters

Chinese writing is the longest continuously used script on earth, and Taiwan still writes it in the forms the classics were written in. Each entry gives the character’s structure, what its parts once pictured, how it changed from bone to bronze to brush — and, where it matters, what a careless copy gets wrong.

Fragment of the second silk manuscript of the Laozi excavated from Mawangdui tomb 3, columns of early clerical-script characters brushed on darkened silk. Western Han, before 168 BCE.
Silk manuscript of the Laozi, Mawangdui tomb 3 馬王堆帛書《老子》乙本 — Unknown scribe, Western Han, before 168 BCE, Hunan Museum. Source

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