I. Book Structure

The book consists of six volumes in total with the a collection of 2.4 million characters including 3,807 radicals and 24,900 character variants, which can provide an overall perspective of characters in the Han Dynasty. The book is comprised of eight principle sections, namely the catalog, guidance, preface, index table of main radicals, the main body of fourteen volumes, addendum, appendix (instrument name, No. and source index), references, afterword and character index.

II. Basic Introduction

The book selects and includes unearthed character patterns in the Han Dynasty. Each selected character then appears with both a standard form of the character and its variety of variants, considering differences in chirography. Beneath each character pattern there provides a note. The collected character patterns, according to its different carriers, are classified into “general bronze ware”, “imperial seal”, “bronze mirror”, “currency”, “bamboo slip”, “stele inscription”, “pottery inscription”, “lacquerware” and “sealing clay inscription”; All character patterns under each category of radical are assorted by the above nine classes with the sequence number accompanied. First, each radical has a regular script, and if the radical can be related to Shuo Wen Jie Zi, then book will provide its variant in the form of the small seal and attach the radical sequence number.

III. Primary Innovation

The book is the first full-length comprehensive collation of characters featuring the Han Dynasty that covers the unearthed nine character carriers from general bronze ware, imperial seal, bronze mirror, currency, bamboo slip, stele inscription, pottery inscription, lacquerware to sealing clay inscription among academic circles.

The primary innovation lies in:

1. The book has not confined its collected characters to one carrier but try to select all unearthed characters from as many carriers as possible, which includes almost all character patterns from general bronze ware, imperial seal, bronze mirror, currency, bamboo slip, stele inscription, pottery inscription, lacquerware to sealing clay inscription.

2. The book sets foot on a wide range of research achievements made by predecessors as well as great scholars and is the latest embodiment of a comprehensive research result.

3. The book also includes a sub-volume ofShuo Wen Jie Ziand a character index before the main body of the book, which will help scholars who are familiar withShuo Wen Jie Zican rapidly retrieve the character pattern.

4. All collected characters in the book present with scanned pictures according to their original records and sizes, which keeps their original appearances largely and avoids stroke mistakes and style distortion by imitation. As a result, there is great reliance to the book.

5. As the first masterpiece covering characters from different carriers unearthed in the Han Dynasty among academic circles, the book not only presents a systematic collection of character patters for researchers of ancient Chinese writing, but also provides other disciplines such as history, archaeology, calligraphy, seal cutting, etc. with reference of the usage of unearthed characters in the Han Dynasty.