Four thousand years ago, it is alleged, the Chinese sage Cang Jian, whose pastime was to observe birds' footprints in the sand and trace their patterns, conceived China's first writing. These were pictographs or stenographic sketches of familiar objects, animals, or birds, still more or less easily recognized. They formed no sentences or concepts, merely incomplete ideas and phrases. In the pre-Confucian, pre-Buddhist China of the Shang dynasty (1500–1050 BCE) such scripts were used to inscribe the shells and bones used for divination. Early writing is next encountered in China during the Zhou dynasty (1122–221 BCE) in the stiff, cold, classic, formal ideograms of the "great seal" style (da zhuan) that covered ceremonial bronzes with messages of felicity in the afterlife. These vessels, suitable for cooking or wine, were entombed with their masters, who might need such comforts as they journeyed to join their...