Small Seal Script (Chinese: 小篆, xiǎozhuàn),
formerly romanized as Hsiao-chuan and also
known as Seal Script, Lesser Seal Script and
Qin Script (秦篆, Qínzhuàn), is an archaic
form of Chinese calligraphy.
It was standardized and promulgated as a national
standard by Li Si, prime minister under Shi
Huangdi, the First Emperor of Qin.
Before the Qin conquest of the six other major
warring states of Zhou China, local styles
of characters had evolved independently of
one another for centuries, producing what
are called the "Scripts of the Six States"
(六國文字), all of which are included
under the general term "Great Seal Script".
Under one unified government, however, the
diversity was deemed undesirable as it hindered
timely communication, trade, taxation, and
transportation, and as independent scripts
might be used to represent dissenting political
ideas.
Hence, Emperor Qin Shi Huang mandated the
systematic unification of weights, measures,
currencies, etc., and the use of a standard
writing script.
Characters which were different from those
found in Qin were discarded, and the Qin's
small seal characters became the standard
for all regions within the empire.
This policy came in about 220 BC, the year
after Qin's unification of the Chinese states.The
standardized use of small seal characters
was promulgated via the Cangjiepian, a primer
compiled by Li Si and two other ministers.
This compilation, stated to contain 3,300
characters, is no longer extant, and is known
only through Chinese commentaries through
the centuries.
Several hundred characters from fragmented
commentaries were collected during the Qing
period, and recent archeological excavations
in Anhui, China, have uncovered several hundred
more on bamboo strips, showing the order of
the characters; however, the script found
is not the small seal script, as the discovery
dates from Han times.
== Unicode ==
Small Seal Script has been proposed for inclusion
in Unicode.
== See also ==
Seal script
Large seal script
== References ==
