Posted 2017/7/18
“Dun” (“盾”) is a pictographic character. In the oracle bone inscriptions, the square on the outer edge of the character is like a board and the vertical stroke in the middle indicates the handle of the board. The character paints a picture of a weapon used by ancient soldiers for self defense against knives and swords. The weapon, known as shield, is a big board (made of metal, wood or leather) worn on the arm or held in the hand. The original meaning of the character “dun” is none other than this kind of weapon. In the small seal script, the shape of the character changes significantly, with an eye (“目”, pronounced as “mu”) radical added to a side-view shield. This change shows a more lifelike picture of the shield's function as a protection for the human body. In the regular script, the character basically remains in the same shape as that in the small seal script.
A shield was also called “gan” in ancient China. It was used as a battle weapon along with a dagger-axe (or “ge” in Chinese), hence the phrase “gan ge xiang jian” (gan and ge meets each other), which means to start a war. The earliest shield of China is said to have come into existence way back in the reign of the Yellow Emperor. You can get a sense of what the shield looked like from the unearthed cultural relics of the Shang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, the weapon was renamed “pengpai” and officially called “pai” in the Song Dynasty. The name “pai” was widely used in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, replacing the former name “dun”. At some stage in ancient China, bronze and iron shields were also among the items carried by a guard of honor.
