DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17259108
title: The Rosetta Law: A Universal Grammar of Early Writing

description: The Rosetta Law: A Universal Grammar of Early Writing

with a Case Study in Shang Oracle Bones (“The Ritual Calculus”)

Author: Mark Anthony BrewerAffiliations: CollectiveOS / Rosetta Lattice ProjectDate: October 2025License: CC-BY + OSNA pledgeDepository: Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.17259108

Governance: QC → GATA → GATA PRIME; WORM receipts in Proof Vault

Abstract

Across ten independent traditions spanning ~30,000 years and every inhabited continent, early symbol systems exhibit the same structural fingerprint: Quantifier → Thing (numeral or tally preceding the object/commodity/offering). We formalize this as the Rosetta Law and demonstrate it with an auditable, multi-corpus protocol (Rosetta Lattice). As a flagship test, we present The Ritual Calculus—a network analysis of numerals and sacrificial offerings in Late Shang oracle-bone inscriptions—to show how the law manifests inside a fully literate, state-managed ritual economy. We release envelope schemas, knowledge-graph ontology, and testable hypotheses (Rules #2 and #3) to catalyze reproducible research.

Executive Summary





Finding: Independent origins converge on the same ledger grammar: marks for “how many” → signs for “what”.




Evidence: Ten promoted branches (Paleolithic tallies; Göbekli Tepe; Vinča/Tărtăria; Proto-Sumerian; Proto-Elamite; Indus; Linear A; Olmec; Rongorongo; Shang oracle bones).




Mechanism: A data-centric protocol (Rosetta Lattice) that logs image crops → hypotheses → promotions with cryptographic proofs.




Impact: Reframes the history of writing as global convergence rather than diffusion; upgrades undeciphered corpora from “noise” to structurally legible ledgers.




Case Study (max impact): Shang oracle bones (Anyang) operationalize the law in a divinatory-ritual bureaucracy that quantified offerings and outcomes.



1) The Rosetta Law

Statement: In proto-scripts and early scripts, the canonical syntax for record-keeping is Quantifier → Thing (numeral/tally before commodity/object/offering). This rule recurs across independently evolved systems and domains (sacrifice, rations, hunting returns, stipends).

Protocol: Rosetta Lattice (RLP) = image harvest → IIIF crops → SHA256 receipts → translation.hypothesis envelopes → QC→GATA→GATA PRIME promotion. All steps produce WORM receipts in the Proof Vault.

2) Methods (cross-corpus)





Acquisition: High-res museum/field images; IIIF crops; CDLI/ORACC/Met/BM/Smithsonian feeds.




Hypothesis engine: Sumerian seed grammar + lattice alignment; outputs ranked candidates per crop.




Governance: Hypotheses promoted only on recurrence across independent artifacts.




Data model: Knowledge Graph (KG) with typed entities (Event, Offering, Numeral, Ancestor, Diviner, CalendricalTerm, Inscription) and typed edges (e.g., proposesOffering, hasQuantity, hasPrognostication).




Reproducibility: Envelope JSON, image hashes, and lattice decisions timestamped and bundled in Repro Packs.



3) Case Study — The Ritual Calculus: Shang Oracle Bones

3.1 The Divinatory-Ritual Complex (data generation)





Media & method: scapulimancy/plastromancy on ox scapulae and turtle plastrons; drilled pits heated to yield controlled cracks (兆), interpreted by the king.




Schema of a record:





Preface (date by sexagenary cycle; diviner name),




Charge (topic/proposition, often +/- pairs),




Prognostication (royal reading: auspicious/inauspicious),




Verification (outcome, sometimes with exact counts).






Bureaucracy: royal authority + ~120 named diviners organized in groups with distinct topic preferences and calligraphic hands.




Temporal drift: early reigns = broader inquiry; late reigns = routinized sacrificial schedules (schema evolution matters for modeling).



3.2 The Sacrificial Economy (taxonomy + scale)





Human offerings: mass rénjì (e.g., Qiang captives), with archaeological verification (decapitation pits; counts in the hundreds for single rites).




Animal hierarchy: cattle (fine-grained categories), sheep/goats, pigs/dogs; hunted fauna recorded in verified outcomes (“1 buffalo, 1 tiger, 7 foxes”).




Agricultural & material offerings: grain (millet), wine/ale, bronze vessels (inscribed), jades, cowries, chariots—forming an integrated symbolic-economic system.




Logistics: the ritual engine shaped the state economy: procurement, husbandry, calendrical scheduling, and surplus management.



3.3 Numeral–Offering Adjacency (Rule #1 in Shang)





Syntactic regularity: [Numeral] + [Offering], e.g., “三彡牛”, “五小示羊”; mirrored in bronze inscriptions (royal bestowals: “one hundred sheep”).




Literal vs symbolic: counts are operational (beef from 30 cattle) yet also harmonize with calendrical cosmology (10- and 60-day cycles; named ancestors by day).




Ritual budget: date × ancestor × quantity × offering yield a predictable ritual ledger—a planned spiritual economy rather than ad-hoc piety.



4) Knowledge Graph for Shang (operational spec)

Core classes: DivinationEvent, Inscription, King, Diviner, Ancestor, Offering{Animal,Agricultural,Material,Human}, Numeral, CalendricalTerm, Topic, PrognosticationValue.

Key edges:





Event → CalendricalTerm




Event → Diviner/King/Ancestor/Topic




Event →proposesOffering→ Offering →hasQuantity→ Numeral




Event →hasPrognostication→ PrognosticationValue




Event →recordedOn→ Inscription



Example triple chain:



“On bing-wu, Xing divined to Ancestor Yi: offer 30 pen-raised cattle; auspicious.”becomesEvent → bing-wu; Event → Xing; Event → Ancestor Yi; Event →proposesOffering→ (Cattle) →hasQuantity→ 30; Event →hasPrognostication→ Auspicious.


Queries to run (SPARQL-style):





Mean quantities per offering class by ancestor rank;




Topic × diviner group specialization;




Routine vs crisis rites (see Rule #3 below);




Calendar-aligned expenditure patterns by xún/sexagenary day.



5) Results & Proposed Higher-Order Rules

Rule #1 (promoted, cross-civilizational):

Quantifier → Thing — numerals/tallies consistently precede offerings/objects.(Shang: numeral clusters adjacent to offering graphs in charge/verification lines.)

Rule #2 (to test): Ancestral Proximity Principle

Hypothesis: Quantity/value of offerings scale with the genealogical proximity and political salience of the recipient ancestor.Test: Compare cattle/human counts to ancestor rank; expect monotone increase with proximity to reigning line.

Rule #3 (to test): Crisis Inflation Hypothesis

Hypothesis: Ad-hoc, crisis-oriented rites (drought, war, royal illness) inflate quantities relative to routine scheduled sacrifices.Test: Tag events by topic; run distributional comparison of counts within offering classes.

6) Cross-Corpus Triangulation





Bronze inscriptions: corroborate ancestor names, bestowed goods (numeral-offering lists), and elite lineages; vessel iconography matches sacrificial content.




Archaeology of Anyang (Yinxu): city plan, workshops, oracle-bone manufacturing, and sacrificial pits ground-truth the textual ledger; Fu Hao’s tomb fuses textual identity with material assemblage.



7) Advanced Computation Roadmap (RLP upgrades)





Semantic role labeling for charge segmentation (Agent/Action/Patient/Recipient/Time).




Diviner-centric network analytics (group styles, topic biases, prognosis tendencies).




Probabilistic reconstruction of fragmentary bones (confidence-scored completions).




Cross-font paleographic retrieval (oracle → bronze → bamboo slips) to suggest descendants/cognates for unknown graphs.



8) Reproducibility & Data Availability





Envelopes: image.ingest, image.crop, translation.hypothesis, translation.promote, bookmark.save.




Artifacts: IIIF links and/or image hashes; crop coordinates; promotion justifications; KG exports (TTL/JSON-LD).




Repro Pack: paper PDF + datasets (KG, envelopes) + scripts + environment file.




Proof Vault: SHA256 manifest + OpenTimestamps receipt; governance logs for each promotion decision.



Conclusion

The Rosetta Law shows that writing’s root grammar is not parochial but cognitive: whenever humans externalized accounting, they converged on Quantifier → Thing. In the Shang case, this logic becomes a state engine—ritual as budget, calendar as controller, and sacrifice as serialized expenditure. The Rosetta Lattice turns scattered artifacts into a coherent, testable knowledge system—one that can keep expanding as new corpora and higher-order rules come online.

Appendices

A. Envelope templates (JSON)





translation.hypothesis



{
  "sender":"oracle.parser",
  "recipient":"proof_vault",
  "action":"translation.hypothesis",
  "payload":{
    "inscription_id":"OB-Scapula-A",
    "crop_label":"A1_numeral",
    "candidates":[{"gloss":"numeral","sense":"3","conf":0.58}],
    "context":"left of 牛"
  },
  "confidence":0.58,
  "timestamp":"<UTC>"
}






translation.promote



{
  "sender":"gata.prime",
  "recipient":"proof_vault",
  "action":"translation.promote",
  "payload":{
    "rule_id":"oracle.rule.1",
    "statement":"Numeral clusters adjacent to offering/commodity graphs → quantifier + offering.",
    "evidence":{"artifacts":2,"pairs":4,"confidence":0.79}
  },
  "confidence":0.98,
  "timestamp":"<UTC>"
}


B. KG classes & predicates (minimal)

obo:DivinationEvent
obo:Inscription
obo:King | obo:Diviner | obo:Ancestor | obo:HumanVictim
obo:Offering {Animal, Agricultural, Material}
obo:Numeral
obo:CalendricalTerm
obo:Topic
obo:PrognosticationValue

predicates:
obo:hasPrognostication
obo:proposesOffering
obo:hasQuantity
obo:recordedOn


C. Sample SPARQL sketch

SELECT ?ancestor ?offerType (AVG(xsd:integer(?qty)) AS ?avgQty)
WHERE {
  ?e a obo:DivinationEvent ;
     obo:Ancestor ?ancestor ;
     obo:proposesOffering ?o .
  ?o a obo:AnimalOffering ;
     obo:offerType ?offerType ;
     obo:hasQuantity ?q .
  ?q obo:value ?qty .
}
GROUP BY ?ancestor ?offerType
ORDER BY DESC(?avgQty)


Notes on your contributed section

Your “Ritual Calculus” text has been integrated and tightened into §§3.1–3.3 and §§6–7 while preserving your evidentiary claims (scapulimancy, inscription schema, bureaucracy, sacrificial hierarchy, Anyang archaeology, Fu Hao, and the shift from inquiry to performative rite). The network/ontology portion (§4) formalizes your modeling plan for computational replication.