Ancient character embodies autumn

The 15th day of the eighth lunar month marks the Mid-Autumn Festival, an occasion for admiring the full moon and celebrating family reunions and the harvest. More than 3,000 years ago, qiu, the Chinese character for autumn, appeared in oracle bone inscriptions from the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC), recording a season central to agricultural life.

In its early forms, qiu resembles an insect with antennae and wings. Historian Guo Moruo interpreted it as a cricket, whose chirping was associated with autumn. He also linked the insect's call to the sound of the word, suggesting that the character drew on both the insect's appearance and its song.

The association between crickets and the changing seasons also appears in the Book of Songs. Its poem Qiyue (Seventh Month) traces their movement from the fields toward human dwellings. It says: "In the seventh month, in the fields; in the eighth month, under the eaves; in the ninth month, about the doors; in the tenth month, the cricket enters under our beds." The passage reflects close observation of animal behavior as the weather turns cooler.

Autumn's agricultural significance is clear in an oracle bone inscription cataloged as Tunnan 620. It records a divination about whether that autumn would bring a good harvest, with an auspicious result. Here, qiu identifies the harvest season.

The insect image and the harvest record point to two closely related aspects of autumn: changes in the natural world and the work of farming. For people whose livelihoods depended on crops, recognizing the season was a practical necessity. Qiu gives that relationship a place in the earliest surviving records of Chinese writing.

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The National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang city, Henan province, and Liu Hao contributed to the story.