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My parents have bought some type of ceramic vessel (plate, pot, something like that), which has the following stamp on the bottom:

Shelob and her identical twin sells an area?

Armed with 米好 '-'’s answer on how to decipher seal script, I’ve done my best to identify these four characters (well, three, with one repetition), but I haven’t got very far. Sadly, my copy of Wenlin is version 3.4, which doesn’t have seal script support, so the Wenlin-based methods don’t work and I’m forced to work with my 简本 paper copy of 说文解字.

The top right character obviously looks like 區, but the lack of a bottom stroke seems suspicious to me. I can’t find any characters consisting of just 厂 or 广 and 品, though, so for now I’m inclined to believe it’s just an odd variant on 區.

The bottom right character has what looks like a turned-eye or net radical (罒), but with four ‘chambers’ instead of three. The lower part of the character looks a bit like a warped 貝, but with a weird extra pair of legs and a vertical line going through the main part; or like the top of 周 (in the modern form) with two 人 stacked on top of each other instead of 口. But neither of those options seem to be anything that exists, as far as I can tell. It reminds me of 買 or 賈, but there’s too much going on for that to fit.

The top/bottom left character mostly just looks like a five-year-old tried to draw Shelob (so a bit like 禺, I guess?), or perhaps more relevantly a bit like a disfigured 番 or 商; but it’s clearly none of those. I’m struggling to figure out what the radical is supposed to be, though.

 

Can anyone help me get further with this?

Edited to add:
I just spoke to my dad who guesses that the pot is probably from between 1900 and 1920 – though, if the characters end up being very corrupted (as the comments would indicate that they might be), it’s possible that it’s simply a fake made by someone with very limited understanding of Chinese characters and seal script.

dROOOze
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Janus Bahs Jacquet
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    Quick guess: 區黑香香. No idea what it's supposed to mean, though. – dROOOze Sep 29 '18 at 14:26
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    @droooze Ooh, 香 is a good guess! Didn’t even see that, but it does rather fit. The top being closed up into a sort of squiggly lying-down 日 had me in a bit of a box. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 29 '18 at 14:29
  • BTW, did you flip the image already, or is this the original? – dROOOze Sep 29 '18 at 14:32
  • @droooze This is the (cropped) picture taken by my dad. It’s the stamp at the bottom of the ceramic doodah they bought, not the actual seal itself, so it should be the right way around. The ‘border’ on 區 seems to confirm this: it would look quite odd flipped. The other three characters are quite symmetrical, as it happens, so it wouldn’t make much difference there. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 29 '18 at 14:34
  • the top right character is not 黑…… 黑 should be 罒+火+火 – Toosky Hierot Sep 30 '18 at 07:16
  • @TooskyHierot 「黑」does not contain「罒」.「黑」was originally a picture of a person, with the face emphasised containing tattoos - seal script forms have three vertical lines in the top of「黑」, as opposed to two in「罒」. To me, the bottom right character, from the shape, looks like a corrupted form of「黑」- one「火」is present, another has changed into「土」, and we have an extra long stroke that I don't know how to account for. Actually, the first「火」in most seal forms of「黑」is a corruption of「大」. – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 08:00
  • The only characters I know that contain "「罒」with four chambers" are「黑」(top part; related character「熏」) and「會」(middle part). – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 08:05
  • @droooze ah 这样说也不准确，我有耳闻多个版本的说法：黑，为火熏囱壁之色（上圈内十字加四点指有灰的烟囱）；或言为鼎镬之底所熏之色；亦有言考其甲骨文为成年人加点（头上四点，四肢四点）指毛发之色。虽然，此印从疑之黑字实多余一横，乃未有所闻。 – Toosky Hierot Sep 30 '18 at 09:35
  • @TooskyHierot 現代學者多取从大，从人面部受墨刑之貌的說法，見漢字源流，漢語多功能字庫，《殷周金文集成》4169 等。說文「黑，火所熏之色也。从炎上出囦。囦古䆫字。」不可信，从甲骨金文等看字形演變，加點是繁化，「火」形是訛變。 – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 09:54
  • @droooze There does indeed seem to be an extra stroke there. If we take the two ‘arms’ that hang down over the 土 to be the dots on the original 火, it looks like the 人 part of 火 has been squashed into a 丄 and grown an extra stroke. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 30 '18 at 10:05
  • Yep, I'm certainly not confident about 黑 - it's just that the top part of the character rarely appears anywhere. I can't explain what the character is supposed to be :( – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 10:07
  • @TooskyHierot 「黑」鄭張尚芳上古漢語作爲 /hmlɯːɡ/, 「墨」作爲 /mlɯːɡ/，「黑」本詞今作「墨」(black 或是假借或根「墨」同源)，此說證據較多。 – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 10:10
  • @droooze It could be (see edit) that it’s simply a fake, and that this seal was cobbled together by someone with very limited knowledge of Chinese or seal script. If they base things on an existing seal but change just enough at random to make it look different, they may have ended up with botched characters. An extra stroke on the 黑, a missing bottom stroke on the 區, and perhaps even a meaningless repetition of (and extra stroke on) 香. Disappointing if that’s the explanation, but it is possible. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 30 '18 at 10:24
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    I can give liberties for「區」and「香」- (1) oracle bone forms of「區」may only cover two sides, and (2) the top of「香」was originally「黍」, simplified to「禾」later, which explains why part of「曰」extends so much. In the end, 區黑香香 still makes no sense to me. – dROOOze Sep 30 '18 at 10:29
  • @dROOOze I just popped that (區黑香香) into Google Translate and got: Heixiangxiang Maybe another way? – new Q Open Wid May 23 '20 at 14:49
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/translator/comments/h7wjbz/chinese_english_is_this_chinese_seal_script_its/ looks like it could be the same characters.. – dROOOze Jun 13 '20 at 12:36
  • @dROOOze Interesting! So probably not just a one-off then. But much more legible and less seal-y in that one (黑 is easily recognisable), though if it is indeed 區, then they’ve done something very odd to it. Looks more like 厂 with a 日 under it (whatever that may be). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 13 '20 at 12:41
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    Found it. Japanese artist name 石黒香々 – dROOOze Jun 13 '20 at 12:52
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    @dROOOze Excellent and most unexpected! Please post an answer so I can accept. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 13 '20 at 12:53

1 Answers1

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The characters in Standard Chinese writing are 石黑香香. This is the artist mark of a Japanese pottery maker named Ishiguro Kōkō (石黒香々).

See this page for more details on the mark and its variants.

Variants of Kōkō’s artist mark

Mark on the bottom of a priest statue (https://www.old-noritake-antique.com/u4000/u4085.html)

dROOOze
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