Over 600 Years Old? City Brick Inscriptions in Modern Simplified Characters is Time Travel? "Liu Dehua" Calls You to Nanjing City Wall to "Recognize Characters"

The recently rediscovered inscription on the Nanjing city wall brick, bearing the name “Liu Dehua,” has once again become a trending topic. This time, netizens noticed that the character “刘” used in the brick inscription is in simplified Chinese, not the traditional “劉,” leading to speculation that this brick might have somehow traveled from the modern era back into the past.

Experts from the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center explained that, including “Liu,” more than 30 simplified characters identical to current simplified Chinese have been found in the city wall bricks. The mixed use of traditional and simplified characters is not due to time travel but reflects the writing habits of brickmakers over 600 years ago.

Over 30 characters match modern simplified Chinese

Currently, this “Liu Dehua” inscribed brick is on display at the Nanjing City Wall Museum. The full inscription reads: “Zong Jia Huang Yuan Heng, Jia Shou Liu Dehua, Xiao Jia Jian Kou Kou / Kiln Worker Yan Wensan / Brick Maker Liu Dehua.” According to the inscription, over 600 years ago, “Liu Dehua” held two roles: as the head of the brick-making organization, responsible for managing the grassroots labor force, and as a brick worker himself, undertaking heavy physical tasks such as sourcing clay, kneading mud, shaping bricks, and firing kilns. A few years ago, sharp-eyed netizens noticed that “Liu Dehua” shared a name with a modern celebrity, sparking discussions. The renewed attention is due to the character “刘” being in simplified form, not the traditional “劉,” prompting further questions.

“Liu Dehua” inscription brick

Summer Hui, Associate Research Librarian at the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center, told Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News that it is not uncommon to find cases where characters in the bricks match current simplified Chinese. To date, more than 30 simplified characters have been identified, including “Liu,” “Wan,” “Lu,” “Yu,” “Shi,” “Hao,” “Diao,” “Shi,” “Liang,” “Zhuan,” “Bao,” “Ti,” “Sheng,” and others, covering names, place names, official titles, and more. These bricks date from the late Yuan to early Ming dynasties, used in the construction of the Nanjing city wall. Hui explained that the same character can appear in both traditional and simplified forms on different bricks. For example, the character “庐” appears as “庐陵縣” in some inscriptions and as “盧州府” in others.

“Lu” in “Lu Zhou Fu He Fei Xian” uses modern simplified form

“Wan” in “Si Li Wan Zong Cheng” uses modern simplified form

More obsolete folk and variant characters are also found on the bricks

Hui added that Zhu Ming’e, a researcher at the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center, published in 2008 a paper titled “Preliminary Compilation and Interpretation of Simplified, Variant, and Misspelled Characters in Ming Dynasty City Wall Bricks,” which was among the earliest systematic studies of the inscriptions. Since then, with ongoing efforts by researchers and volunteer teams, the interpretation, organization, and study of the brick inscriptions have deepened. To date, about 300 folk variant characters different from official ancient standard characters have been identified, including those that match current simplified characters and many unique variants.

For example, the modern simplified “兴” (xing) appears as “㒷” in the inscriptions; “学” (xue) appears as “斈”; and the most diverse variant is “总” (zong), which appears as “緫,” “捴,” “揔,” “総,” among others.

“兴” in modern simplified form is written as “㒷” on this brick

“学” in modern simplified form is written as “斈” on this brick

Hui explained, “Although these folk variant characters were popular during certain historical periods, they eventually faded due to lack of widespread recognition and continued use, leaving behind valuable clues for the study of Chinese character evolution.”

“We compare brick inscriptions and refer to ancient Chinese calligraphy character databases to study and interpret these diverse ‘folk style’ characters one by one,” Hui said. The inscriptions on the bricks are not only important physical evidence for studying administrative divisions, official systems, and corvée labor in early Ming Nanjing but also contain rich folk characters and calligraphic styles, vividly illustrating the evolution of Chinese characters and the development of folk calligraphy.

Simplification of Chinese characters dates back to oracle bone script

“Character simplification did not only appear in modern times. Since Chinese characters became a relatively mature writing system, simplification phenomena have existed,” said Liu Ren, lecturer in Classical Philology at Nanjing Normal University. He explained that oracle bone and bronze inscriptions already show many cases where the same character has multiple forms—some with more strokes, others with fewer.

Liu Ren gave an example: the official script during the Qin Dynasty was small seal script, but the characters on the unearthed “Sleep Tiger Land Qin Bamboo Slips” and “Liyue Qin Bamboo Slips” are in clerical script, which was a simplified form used by grassroots officials for easier writing. During the Tang Dynasty, after the emergence of regular script, Yan Yu Sun compiled the “Gan Lu Zi Shu,” which categorized writing styles into “Vulgar,” “Common,” and “Standard,” establishing standards for character forms and principles for different occasions.

Liu Ren noted that official documents, engraved stone steles, and imperial examinations in ancient times strictly used standard forms, but in other contexts, simplified variants emerged to improve writing efficiency. “Overall, the simplification of Chinese characters in ancient times was largely driven by folk initiatives.”

He believes that the inscriptions on Ming-era bricks in Nanjing primarily served to record the responsible brick-makers at various levels. Since most of these bricks were stamped or molded, it is not surprising that many folk abbreviations and variant characters with fewer strokes were used.

Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Ke