Seal script
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Seal script, also called small seal script, is an archaic style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script (see bronze script, arising in the Warring State of Qín. Seal script became standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qín dynasty, and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Hàn dynasty. Ever since, its predominant use has been in seals, hence the English name. The literal translation of its Chinese name 篆文 (zhuànwén) is decorative engraving script, because by the time this name was coined in the Han dynasty, its role had been reduced to decorational inscriptions rather than as the main script of the day.
Most people today cannot read the seal script, so it is generally not used outside the fields of seals and calligraphy.
History
There are two uses of the word seal script, the Large or Great Seal script (大篆 Dàzhuàn; Japanese daiten), and the Small or Lesser Seal Script (小篆 Xiǎozhuàn; Japanese shōten); the latter is also called simply seal script. The Large Seal script was originally a later, vague Han dynasty reference to writing of the Qin system similar to but earlier than Small Seal. It has also been used to refer to Western Zhou forms or even oracle bones as well. Since the term is an imprecise one, not clearly referring to any specific historical script and not used with any consensus in meaning, modern scholars tend to avoid it.
The script of the Qin system (the writing as exemplified in bronze inscriptions in the state of Qin before unification) had evolved organically from the Zhou script. Beginning around the Warring States period, it became vertically elongated with a regular appearance. This was the birth of Small Seal script, also called simply seal script. It was systematized by Li Si during the reign of the First Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang, but was not invented at that time. Through Chinese commentaries, it is known that Li Si compiled Cangjie (蒼頡篇), a non-extant work of character recognition listing some 3,300 Chinese characters in small seal script. Their form is characterised by being less rectangular and more squarish.
In the history of Chinese characters, the Small Seal script is often considered to be the ancestor of the clerical script 隷書, which in turn gave rise to all of the other scripts in use today. However, this is not quite accurate. Instead, it was a vulgar or popular script of the late Warring States to Qin period, rather than its formal seal counterpart, which evolved into the clerical script.
The first character dictionary, Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 (AD 100–121), shows 9,353 small seal script characters listed under 540 section headers, the lifework of Xu Shen, during the Han Dynasty.
References
Qiú Xīguī (裘錫圭, 2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of his 文字學概論 (1988 PRC edition is in simplified Chinese; 1993 Taiwan edition is in traditional Chinese) by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.
Chén Zhāoróng (陳昭容 Chen Chao-jung, 2003) 秦系文字研究 ﹕从漢字史的角度考察 Research on the Qín (Ch'in) Lineage of Writing: An Examination from the Perspective of the History of Chinese Writing. 中央研究院歷史語言研究所專刊 Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology Monograph. ISBN 957-671-995-X.de:Siegelschrift ja:篆書体 zh:篆书