Pictograph derived from the imitation of pottery (including certain bronze artifacts)

Pictographs form the foundation of ancient Chinese script. One significant method in creating pictographic script was imitating man-made artifacts, a widely recognized practice in ancient China. Both oracle bone and bronze inscriptions preserve a portion of ancient Chinese script modeled after pottery. Some of these pictographic scripts bear a close relationship to the pottery shapes, clearly reflecting imitation of certain prehistoric types of pottery (including some bronze vessels). These ancient Chinese scripts imitating prehistoric pottery/bronzeware do not conform to the commonly held single-origin theory that holds that characters originated only from pictures and the initial characters were exclusively from West Asia. Instead, the scripts support the hypothesis of multiple origins of writing linked to various forms of prehistoric art across different regions. Gaining a new perspective on and exploring in depth ancient Chinese script, especially pictographs, created by imitating manufactured objects could make up for the deficiencies in general graphology regarding the origin of Chinese characters, and thus has significant academic research value.