Seal script

Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese writing with rounded, balanced forms, used especially on seals and ritual objects. Its small-seal form became the standard script of the Qin dynasty.

Oracle bone script: The earliest known mature form of Chinese writing, inscribed mainly on animal bones and turtle shells. Its angular forms precede the more regular characters of seal script.
Qin dynasty: The Chinese dynasty that ruled from 221 to 206 BCE and first unified imperial China. Qin government standardized small seal script across the newly unified empire.
Chinese character structure: The principles by which components are arranged to form written Chinese characters. Seal-script calligraphy depends on balancing components within a regular character frame.
Seal (emblem): A mark made by stamping an identifying design or inscription onto a surface. Seal script became a durable convention for names and authority in stamped marks.
Bronze script: Chinese characters cast or engraved on ritual bronze vessels, especially during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Its regional forms supplied much of the material unified as Qin seal script.
Li Si: A Qin dynasty statesman and calligrapher traditionally associated with standardizing the writing system. Tradition credits him with establishing the standard form of small seal script.
Radical (Chinese characters): A recurring component used to classify or index Chinese characters. Radicals remain recognizable even when their forms are transformed in seal script.
Chinese bronze inscriptions: Texts cast or engraved on Chinese bronze vessels and objects. Ritual bronzes carried seal-script forms alongside earlier inscriptional styles.
Chinese characters: Logographic signs used to write Chinese and several other languages. Seal script is one historical style in the long development of these characters.
Small seal script: The standardized Qin-era form of seal script, also called xiaozhuan. It is the best-known form of seal script and the Qin standard.

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