Looking at your posts, I realize that I still havent figured out how to post all those little images. 
[edited]
speaking of sacrificing animals other than rhino, bulls, cattle, sheep, ram, and other four-legged creatures, there’s a song in the Book of Songs, a ritual hymn about the zhou king sacrificing all sorts of fish to be found in the Qi and Ju rivers. The hymn is titled Qian(2nd tone). first line: yi yu qi ju
詩經
潛
猗與漆沮
[quote=“Jack Burton”]Looking at your posts, I realize that I still havent figured out how to post all those little images.
speaking of sacrificing animals other than rhino, bulls, cattle, sheep, ram, and other four-legged creatures, there’s a song in the Book of Songs, a ritual hymn about the zhou king sacrificing all sorts of fish to be found in the Qi and Ju rivers. The hymn is titled Qian(2nd tone). first line: yi yu qi ju[/quote]
Jack, it’d be nice if you could include the characters. As for posting little pictures, they need to be saved somewhere that’s accessible by a web browser. Then all you do is add a behind the URL of the picture. For example:
[img]http://www.mypic.com/Jackswebsite/pic1.jpg[/img]
OK, back to the mystery graph in question. The website where I took the bronze script from mentions two 重文 and 30 characters, which implies that there is no 合文. However, I do wonder if the mystery graph really is a 合文 for “考享” or “享考”, which means to “worship one’s ancestors” and is typically proceeded by 用.
The reason I state this is all due to this web page: 《周易》、金文 “孝享” 釋義. I do understand that for the right side to be interpreted as 考 or 孝 is a bit of a stretch, but hey, it’s either this or the quails.
Have a read and let me know your opinion.
I’m skeptical. The top bit could match the ‘hair’ from the 孝 graph on, for example, the 師麻簋 (see Hanyu Da Zidian p. 425a), but the rest is just too far – there’s invariably a clearly discernible 子 child element below every bronze graph of 孝 I’ve ever seen. Nice try, though! 
BTW, I’ve found a HYDZD listing(p.1938b6) graph which matches the above perfectly in structure: it has the lid (一點一橫) above 呂 above 羊 on the left, and 鳥 on the right. It’s a dead ringer for , and the definition is 同"鶉". 
So I do believe we have a quail !!! 
Ok, new challenge:
吉為乍元用 (inlaid in gold on a Warring States period sword)
[quote=“Dragonbones”]Ok, new challenge:
吉為乍元用 (inlaid in gold on a Warring States period sword)[/quote]
Made on an auspicous day for personal use.
Am I close?
I have no idea. I can’t read this stuff! 
Oh, my brain hurts! :help:
乍 we all know as 作.
元用 means either 永用 or 專用. In this case, it’s probably 專用.
I have no idea what 吉為 means and I was just guessing it meant that the sword was made on an auspicious day.
Cool, thanks! 
Just curious, how did you know that?
I also found this inscription on another sword:
工大子姑发反”，自乍元用行之，云用云，莫敢卸余，余处江之阳， 囝南行西行
Seems to be some kind of pattern.
Now I wish I had studied Classical Chinese! 
Cool, thanks! Just curious, how did you know that? [/quote]
Because I found the following quote buried deep in one of 北京大學’s website:
[ul]元字的含義並非此一種，還有十多種解釋，但都是後起之義。元字在春秋中期以後還有“元用”之義。如秦子戈和秦子矛，都有“公族元用”的銘文。據容庚考證，這裏的“元用”是“永用”或“專用”的意思。
林清源將“元用”兵器歸納爲十五例。研究後得出的結論是：“元用一詞引用的朝代，以春秋晚期爲主，戰國早期逐漸式微，春秋早期以前，迄今未之一見”。這說明“元用”和“元器”兩詞，並無本質的聯繫。[/ul]
[quote=“Dragonbones”]I also found this inscription on another sword:
工大子姑发反”，自乍元用行之，云用云，莫敢卸余，余处江之阳， 囝南行西行
Seems to be some kind of pattern. [/quote]
It would appear that 乍元用 is used on just about every sword and dagger out there. 自乍元用 in this case means (I think) that he made the sword himself for himself.
You and me both! Alas, there’s no place to learn Classical Chinese where I live AFAIK.
[quote=“sjcma”]據
容庚
考證，這裏的“元用”是“永用”或“專用”的意思。[/quote]
Ah, beautiful! I’ll trust Rong Geng’s interpretation any day! He’s famous for his work on bronze inscriptions.
Or ‘had the sword made for his own soldiers’ use’, I would imagine.
Thanks again!
[quote=“sjcma”][quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“sjcma”]
You and me both! Alas, there’s no place to learn Classical Chinese where I live AFAIK.[/quote][/quote][/quote]
I suggests Pulleybank’s Classical Chinese Grammar book (Published by UBC) which reminds me, I was flipping through it and came across
Kao ((from the wenkao question)
It seems this word meant 老 (though I’m not sure if that is the right period)
[quote=“Jack Burton”][quote=“sjcma”][quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“sjcma”]
You and me both! Alas, there’s no place to learn Classical Chinese where I live AFAIK.[/quote]
I suggests Pulleybank’s Classical Chinese Grammar book (Published by UBC) which reminds me, I was flipping through it and came across
[/quote][/quote][/quote]
A great book for self-study at an intermediate/advanced level is in my opinion
Donald B. Wagner, A Classical Chinese Reader: The Hanshu Biography of Huo Guang.
[quote=“sjcma”]Here’s an actual example from an early Western Zhou dynasty (~1100 B.C.) 鼎 ding3.
[/quote]
I had the good fortune to discuss our ding inscription with my paleographer friend at the Academia Sinica today. She tried to look up this particular vessel, but couldn’t find it. She also was slightly suspicious of a couple of the graphs, and mentioned the possibility that this vessel is a fake. Just a mere possibility, mind you – not a likelihood. Such determinations can be quite difficult, and she would have to see the vessel in person, examine records of provenance and so on.
Anyway, we walked through the inscription together, and I did learn a bit. Overall, it seems that as a joint effort, the Forumosan bronze sleuths did a pretty good job of reading it! I’ll run through it from the beginning:
肁乍(作)朕文考甲
(sì, possibly yù): She agrees on our reading as 
i.e., 
, and points out that the latter more properly preserves the structure; she tentatively interprets the center element as the etymon (original graph) for
頤
, so I’ll read it yí. She also notes that since and meant prison warden or minister of corrections (roughly), it’s highly likely these graphs are merely cognates of
獄
, and the pronunciations were probably the same in Shang to early Zhou times. The graph in this position is not an official title, nor is it a clan name; she insists it’s just a personal name.
肁乍(作) zhào zuò: She says it doesn’t matter which way you li4ding4 it; scholars do both, but read both as zuo4 in this context. She agreed with the reading of ‘cause to be made’, but then mentioned that another scholar, 朱鳳瀚 Zhū Fènghàn, had an equally plausible interpretation for 
肁, as ‘begin’ – in reference not to the making of the vessel, but rather to the establishment of a new male lineage under the zōngfa3 宗法 patriarchal clan system, in which only the lineage of the first son extends back to the father, paternal grandfather etc.; the lineage of the second son begins anew with that son, and extends to his 1st son and so on. The new lineage would require the casting of a new set of vessels for worship.
朕 zhèn is indeed “I” or my, 文 is esteemed/good/honorable, and kao3 (not lao3) 考 is specifically the deceased father, who is then referred to as 甲公.
We thus have not "The officer of prisons has had this made in honor of my virtuous deceased ancestor Jia3 Gōng” but rather “Si4/Yu4 (personal name) made (or ‘begin[ing his lineage]’) made [for] my esteemed father Jia Gong…”
Next, we’re fine with
寶尊彝其
but she notes that zūn here isn’t a vessel
(鐏)
, but rather a verb ‘to place’ and the grouping zun1yi2 means ‘these bronzes’. 其日朝夕用 is as we thought, but she was suspicious of the addition of 日 here.
Next we come to our quail. Yes, it’s the chún ‘quail’ graph (!), but it’s a mere phonetic loan here, as 享 xiang3, which was formerly homophonic. 用享祀于 is a common set phrase.
Now the big surprise. We had separately read col. 3, graph 6 as 人 or匕 (妣), right? I had mentioned that the [quote]bronze forms of 人, 匕, 氒 jué and 勺 on occasion all look like this.[/quote] Well, she immediately read it as
氒
jué, explaining it as equivalent to
厥
and functioning equivalently to 其.
百申(神)
was correct, as was the rest.
=============================================
As for the Wieger page posted by Kobo-Daishi:
I had previously pointed out how bad Weiger’s rendition was. Abysmal, really.
Well, here is the proper reading of the 2nd inscription:
唯八月初吉
辰在乙卯公錫(賜)
旂(旗)僕旂(旗)用乍(作)
文父日乙寶
尊彝X
Note that I had previously asked about 初吉, remember? She reads this as the new moon or first glimmer of a crescent. 辰 means time; 旂 is the personal name of the recipient of the honors and 僕 laborer-servants. 文父 is the Shang version of 文考. 日乙 may be the date-appellation of the ancestor (the yĭ is clear, but the role of rì is not clear and is disputed among scholars), so文父日乙 is just the same as文考乙.
Finally, the last three bits which roughly resemble 非子大 are in fact one unitary clan emblem, another sign that this is a Shang inscription (or one by Shang descendants in the early Zhou dynasty), as the Zhou didn’t use clan emblems.
Whew! That’s enough reading of 3000-year-old crap for one day for me!
Cool!
A few more details:
Here is one li4ding4 version of the bronze chun2 graph, interpreting the niao3 as zhui1: 
The version I found in the HYDZD earlier is identical to this but with 鳥 instead of 隹.
The chun2 ‘quail’ graph is also seen on a Spring & Autumn vessel, the 吳買鼎, in the form of 
. It is used as a decorative element on the ding3 vessel, and my friend suggests it may have indicated the contents of the vessel, literally ‘quail’. So apparently the idea of quail as a sacrificial meat is not particularly ludicrous. 
She also independently tracked down the ding we analyzed, here, just based on its inscription!
http://www.gg-art.com/include/viewDetail_b.php?columnid=50&colid=1391
http://www.gg-art.com/include/viewPartBig_b.php?columnid=50&detailid=621&colid=1391
Meaning “illustrious late father”?
Aye!
Oh, and I scored a really great book today – 商周金文Ｓhang and Zhou bronze inscriptions by 王輝 Wang2 Hui1 :yay: !!! Hoooooooooooooooooo!
This is a paperback that goes through a number of bronze rubbings and analyzes them, graph by graph, in as introductory a fashion as could be expected from a scholar. If any of you want to get a solid introduction to reading jin1wen2, this looks like a good start, quite possibly the best option out there. Be forewarned, though – it’s written in very scholarly Chinese, and is a bit, um, “chewy”. You’ll definitely need resources like the 漢語大字典 to get you through it.
After a bit more research, she decided that although one or two of the graphs in the inscription are problematic (one is idiosyncratic in placement (grammar), and another “poorly written”), the inscriptions are meaningful, and the vessel shapes and decorations appear fully authentic; to create these with slight idiosyncracies in the otherwise flawless vessels and inscriptions either means that they are authentic and extremely valuable, or the work of the very highest caliber of forger. Since forgeries of this quality are rare, it is likely that the vessels are genuine. She admitted that she is always naturally suspicious, sometimes too much so, of any vessels in private collections or being sold at auctions which were not unearthed by reputable archaeologists.
Furthermore, returning to our first graph, she notes that an early W. Zhou lord (3rd generation) of Lu3 魯 had the same bronze character as his name on a certain ge2 bronze (鬲), and in the Shiji (史記) his name is transcribed as 熙 xi1. This would seem to indicate a pronunciation of xi1 for our graph. Of course, (I add) the pronunciation back then would have been different, and was presumably ancestral to the HYDZD’s reading si4, our 獄’s yu4, the yi2 of ‘cheek’, and her xi1.
She adds that if the vessels are indeed genuine, it is likely that the vessel owner was in fact this very same 3rd-generation lord of Lu3.
DB, great posts! All that work for a measely 30 graphs, but it was great fun! I’m glad the mystery quail graph was finally solved. And it appears that the ancients certainly did enjoy their quail.
[quote=“Dragonbones”]
The Hanyu Da Zidian is is available from 建宏出版社 Jian4hong2 Publ., ISBN 957-813-478-9 for about NT$1780; it lists elsewhere for $2500. You’ll want one! :D[/quote]
Thanks DB, I finally got myself one. By the way, you could also download it from lib.verycd.com/2006/07/24/0000112055.html in pdf (5.7GB). Not that I would ever do such a thing. And it would take about a week to download it. And then you would probably start thinking about gettin the 中文大辭典 as well, which would take even longer. Or the 续修四库全书 …