Archaic Chinese Characters Being some intensive studies in them Part 1

Extract

The Chinese numeral 4 is a syllable pronounced ssŭ, and was originally written by four horizontal lines, , but by the time of the Han Dynasty (and perhaps before, for the formoccurs on the Stone Drums), and ever since, the scription as above was substituted. And the question with which this note is concerned is: What was the origin of this substituted form ? The author of the Shuo Wen makes the Lesser Seal Version , his 503rd Radical, and describes it thus, hsiang ssŭ fên chih hsing, depicts division into quarters. This is a poor explanation. If a quadrilateral was chosen as an adequate symbol of the numeral 4, that was surely enough, and the two interior strokes are supernous, irrelevant, and misleading.