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"The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs"

Review by Lance Carter

This book review of The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs1 by Dr. Hugh

Anderson Moran is from the perspective of someone who has closely investigated the

ancient alphabet and had personal instruction in the methods described in the book. Some

of my insights about this book were formed during meetings with the author, Dr. Hugh

Anderson Moran. I will be using the Second Edition of the book, which has improved

graphics and minor textual corrections in addition to an entire section written later by Dr.

David Kelly that explores the American parallels as well as other calendar systems used

around the world, but his review will focus on the material presented in the First Edition

because Dr. Kelly’s work is beyond the scope of this review.

An objective of this review is to help other researchers to understand the pros and

cons of Moran’s hypothesis in a format that facilitates further research into this

fascinating subject. The core of the material presented is focused on the specific

correspondences that Dr. Moran postulated between the Semitic alphabet and the Chinese

lunar calendar.

The subject of the First Edition of The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs

regards the origins of the earliest Western alphabets and their relationship to the Chinese

lunar calendar and horary signs. Dr. Moran focused his attention on the striking

correspondences between the word meanings attributed to the letters of the Hebrew

alphabet to their one-to-one relationship to certain Chinese lunar mansions.

Dr. Moran’s hypothesis was that attributes of the Western alphabet was somehow

derived from the Chinese lunar calendar. His thesis was that the meanings of each of the
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twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet had a one-to-one correspondence to the

meanings of twenty-two Chinese lunar mansions, while omitting six lunar mansions in

his correspondence. The Chinese lunar mansions were actually constellations in a band in

the sky that the Moon traversed, which is the same band that the Sun travels, but is called

the zodiac in the solar context. Moran compared the meanings and etymology of these

two sets and found many similarities that he documented in his book.

The artifacts associated with early Chinese astronomers are quite sophisticated for

that era and the alphabet was a revolutionary development in the history of Western

civilization, so please look at this subject as if you were an archeologist analyzing the

remains of long vanished cultures. International interest in The Alphabet and the Ancient

Calendar Signs in Europe and Asia has remained steady through the years although the

book is out of print. Chinese scholars are keenly interested in the origin of their calendar

and writing system as well.

There have been numerous discoveries of examples of ancient writing styles and

Chinese writing since the publication of the First and a Second edition of The Alphabet

and the Ancient Calendar Signs, but the hypothesis presented by Dr. Moran continues to

be valid in my estimation. Dr. Moran’s so-called “Alphabet Book” is still respected as an

early milestone in the exposition of the correspondence between the calligraphy of the

early Chinese calendar and the original Semitic alphabet, although not much has been

presented to prove or disprove the basic premise that the Semitic alphabet was based

upon or somehow closely related to the early Chinese calendar. The Chinese lunar

calendars is postulated by Moran to be directly related to the Semitic alphabet because of

the epigraphic correspondences or similarities between them in regard to the meaning of

the symbols themselves, their order and their descriptions, or through analogies to related

symbols in related systems.

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What will be investigated is the validity of the author’s hypothesis that the ancient

lunar calendar was the source of the written alphabet as used by early Semitic peoples.

Dr. Moran’s venerable master, Yeh Hsien Seng (Before Well Born), introduced him to

the resemblances in number and use between the Western alphabet and the twenty-two

horary characters of the Chinese Ten Stems and Twelve Branches, and Dr. Moran

continued his study of those correspondences. In 1913, Moran shared his ideas with

Professor John Fryer of the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of California

and in 1923 Moran read a paper about this subject at the American Oriental Society at

Princeton. Eventually Dr. David Diringer of Cambridge University in England came to

Dr. Moran’s aid and offered valuable suggestions in regard to this line of research. Dr.

Diringer’s book on the alphabet were also very useful to me in my studies of ancient

writing systems.2

Moran states that: “There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and there

are also twenty-two horary characters in the Chinese, which includes the twelve signs of

the solar zodiac.”3 Moran goes on to describe the early Chinese astronomical charts that

use dots to represent stars in the sky connected by lines in a linear form and show the

twenty-eight lunar constellations. The Chinese ideographs of these star groups that are

still used today were derived from these constellational drawings or from their associated

meanings or characteristics. Dr. Moran was intrigued by Chinese writing and during his

years in China he endeavored to understand its form and meaning.

Moran’s thesis that the letters of the alphabet were derived from the lunar

constellations is entirely his original idea and unique, but it requires the reader to become

an investigator instead of merely a bystander. The reader must understand Moran’s

methods to achieve the results he did, which requires knowing some of the basics of

epigraphic decipherment. The methods are not too difficult and they can greatly
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contribute to the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the conclusions of the thesis.

An investigation of this particular method of epigraphic decipherment is just one of the

many tools used by epigraphers, but if it is useful to the decipherment of the alphabet

then it may find its use in the decipherment of other scripts as well.

The lunar calendar was widely distributed in the second millennia BCE, but the

earliest alphabet is thought to have originated around the first half of the second millennia

BCE, although there may be newly discovered scripts uncovered through excavation that

could throw that date back even further. It is not the point of this review or of Dr.

Moran’s book to set an exact date for the origin of the alphabet, but to explain how the

alphabet originated and its connection to the Chinese astrological/astronomical system.

The alphabet was believed to have originated with the Phoenicians, who somehow

borrowed the letters from the Egyptian hieroglyphs according to Plato, Plutarch, Tacitus,

and numerous other early authors. The Phoenicians, who occupied parts of modern-day

Lebanon, were some of the earliest users of the ancient alphabet. They were sea-faring

traders who may have traveled as far as the New World and even to China and the Orient,

but those conjectures will be left for archeologists to prove or disprove. The Phoenicians

and other peoples in that area were the first to use a primitive alphabet as far as the

excavated evidence indicates.

Early forms of the alphabet were found in the Sinai Peninsula and adjoining areas,

while the North Semitic forms of the alphabet appear to have stabilized into a set of

letters that was engraved on tombs and stone tablets. The Greeks borrowed the alphabet

from the Phoenicians and modified it a bit and then the Romans took it and helped spread

it across the ancient world. The modern world uses various forms of the ancient alphabet.

Moran undertook a study of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the alphabet but did not believe
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that it was based on the Egyptian hieroglyphs for numerous reasons, although there are

certainly correspondences.

Moran’s book investigates the early theories about the origin of the alphabet, but

he was not satisfied with the conclusions drawn by the published works about the

alphabet. Moran starts with an exposition to the early research into the alphabet, and uses

of a fair number of actual quotes to give the reader an idea of how research into the origin

of the alphabet progressed over the years and the insights various authors such as

Seyffarth, Ernest Renan, Dr. Peile, Isaac Taylor, Emanuel de Rouge, Flinders Petrie, Sir

Authur Evans, C.J. Ball, Dr. David Diringer and others who paved the way for his line of

research. These various authors explored the possible origins of the alphabet in order to

get a full picture of this marvelous invention, but Moran was not convinced by the

theories and evidence that those authors offered. Moran’s ability to read Egyptian

hieroglyphs gave him insight about why they could not be the origin of the alphabet and

he gives several examples of why the two systems of writing do not have a one-to-one

correspondence in either written form or in spoken form.

Moran dismisses the early investigators as being desperate to pin down the origin

on the Egyptians with little evidence and finally must totally reject the Egyptian

hieroglyphs as being the origin of the Semitic alphabet. He was determined to look

elsewhere for a more suitable starting point and decides that a scientific investigation

must have certain characteristics which can be summarized as: 1) An organizing

principle, 2) Great Age, 3) Widespread distribution, 4) Correlation of form, meaning, and

phonetic value, 5) Constant order. With these principles he undertook a scientific

investigation into the origins of the Semitic alphabet.

Moran searched for an organizing principle that would provide a means of

satisfying the requirements he set for his scientific investigation of the early alphabet.
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Religious ideas had great antiquity and were widespread, but he was looking for

something that would bring order out of the chaos of the multitude of symbols used

around the world. He found that the cosmological concepts used by ancient nature

worship used many symbols that were associated with the sky such as stars, triangles,

crosses and other shapes that also had correspondences to the seasons and feasts.

The sun, moon, planets and constellations played a major role in many ancient

religions and Moran surmised that cosmological symbols for these religions had common

roots and were part of a common culture. The twelve signs of the zodiac were used in

various religious rituals and became associated with kings, calendar signs and seasons,

feast dates and were integrated into stories and legends. He found that astrology, the

calendar and religious rituals were respected all across the ancient world. He noted that

the organizing principle behind the origins of the alphabet were Semitic and astrological,

but he could not find evidence that the alphabet originated in ancient Chaldea, Sumeria,

or Accadia.

Moran then turned his investigation to the Chinese culture, which had been

dismissed as a possible progenitor to the alphabet in 1853 in the 8th edition of the

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Moran noted that astrology played an important in Chinese

culture for millennia and that their written history was unbroken since antiquity. Dozens

of ancient Chinese texts deal with astrology and it is woven into the fabric of Chinese

wisdom and lore. The problem was that Chinese ideographic writing uses the symbols for

the representation of concepts or ideas and not as phonetic sounds which the alphabet is

best known for. Moran surmised that astrology was the major organizing factor in the

Chinese written language.

Moran saw the outline pictures of simple objects as significant when compared to

their heavenly counterparts in such objects as an ox, dipper or a spoon. The method of
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outlining an object in a stellar pattern is still used today when outlining the “Big Dipper”

in the stars of Ursa Major or the “Little Dipper” in the stars of Ursa Minor. Mythical

heroes are outlined in many star maps as the figures of Hercules, Perseus and

Andromeda. The outlined constellations took their names from the objects they portrayed

and had symbolic meanings associated with them such as the moon took on the meaning

of ‘lofty’, ‘glorious’, and ‘brilliant’ in the Chinese framework. The meanings that the

outlines symbolized were ancient in origin and had archaic meanings and names that had

connections to the calendar, feasts and sacrifices.

The ancient constellational symbols could also be used to express the concepts of

those ancient philosophies in verbs as well as nouns. A numerical system could be

expressed using those ancient constellational symbols by attaching numbers to those

early symbols. A calendrical system was a natural use of those astronomical symbols

because of their close connection to the motions of the planets and the celestial sphere in

relation to the earth, which the ancients observed in their ancient observatories. Moran

estimates that some of the Chinese astronomical symbols must have existed as early as

2500 B.C.E. and probably originated several thousand years earlier.

Moran notes that Dr. C. J. Ball found an interrelationship between the early

Chinese and Sumerian writing systems. Ball surmised that early the Chinese writing and

calendar symbols came from central Asia at about the fourth millennium B.C.E., but that

idea is not widely accepted by modern scholars. Ball explains that the symbols used

exhibited evidence of their ‘pictorial or pictographic origin’4 and Moran notes that each

of the primitive symbols used by Ball had an astrological significance to the Chinese.

Moran lamented that astrology has been neglected as a field of study to modern

Chinese and Western scholars because astrology has been held in such contempt that its

study was not deemed worthy of investigation and was left to those curious about the
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occult and was not seriously contemplated by modern scholars partly because of the

dearth of information and inadequate understanding of its importance to the ancients.

Moran found the Chinese P’u Pan divining board as the key to unlocking the

secrets of the ancient astrological system, which held clues to the origins of the earliest

Chinese symbols. The P’u Pan was usually a varnished wooden disk about ten and a half

inches in diameter and about an inch thick and can still be obtained at Chinese shops in

various configurations. Modern versions have a crude compass in the center that is used

for divination and not as a mariner’s compass for the magnetic needle points to different

sectors of the board that have specific meanings depending on what specific questions are

asked. Lucky and unlucky days can be divined using the P’u Pan board and places to dig

graves or build structures can also be divined.

The characters inscribed on the board have philosophical and cosmological

significance and are intended to convey what Westerners paraphrase as “As above, so

below”. The ‘pa kua’ or eight hexagrams invented by Emperor Fou surround the center

and the rest of the board is surrounded by circles that contain combinations of the

Chinese five elements, ten stems and twelve branches. The ten stems and twelve branches

are combined to form the twenty-two horary characters. The outer ring contains the

twenty-eight lunar mansions or lunar signs, which are arranged in a counterclockwise

arrangement. The complexities of the P’u Pan board is explained by Moran, who delves

into the use of the board as a device that was used for numerology or fortune-telling by

numbers as well as astrology or fortune-telling by divining stellar phenomena.

Moran explores the meanings and symbology of the five elements and numbers in

the ancient Chinese system. He then explains that the ten stems are the ten circumpolar

constellations and that the twelve constellations are the twelve zodiac signs. The twenty-

two symbols of the ten stems and twelve branches are arranged arbitrarily on the P’u Pan
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board for different divinatory uses. The outer circle of the P’u Pan board has the twenty-

eight lunar signs, houses, mansions or divisions. Each of these twenty-eight signs has a

constellation, animal and ideograph associated with it. Moran notes that there is some

confusion associating the exact stars with the twenty-eight Chinese lunar constellations,

which could have been the result of having those symbols being drawn in reverse for

purposes of divination. He also notes that the precession of the equinoxes may have also

caused confusion among authorities on the subject.

Moran describes the scholarship of Alenander von Humboldt and his research into

the ancient Chinese calendar as well as the calendars of Aztecs, Toltecs, Hindus and other

Oriental peoples. Moran also states that the system of writing used in early America has

close correspondences to his theory about the astrological basis of the alphabet, although

the relationship between the ancient systems is shrouded in mystery and the different

groupings of the stars cannot substantiate a connection.

The argument about who originated ancient astronomy often pits the Egyptians

against the Babylonians, while the Chinese are thought to be a fairly young civilization.

The twenty-eight lunar signs were named “lunar stations” by Ideler, the German

chronologist in 1839, whereas the French scholar J.B. Biot stated that the “lunar stations”

were divisions of the equator. The Hindu lunar nakshastra are clearly derived from the

earlier Chinese calendar system. Even Saussure mixes things up with his support of

Biot’s theory, but goes on to claim that the twenty-eight signs were for a primitive

calendar that was used for finding the best times for planting, harvesting and determining

dates for religious ceremonies.

Moran disputes the use of the lunar signs as a calendar because of the difficulty of

knowing when the moon was in a particular lunar station during the daytime because of

the brightness of the sun and the difficulty of determining the position of the moon by
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primitive peoples using their early means of stellar observations. Moran postulates that

using Saussure’s system would necessitate setting the lunar stations according to existing

holy days or seasonal feasts. Moran saw flaws in the theories of the scholars who

preceded him in their research of this stellar subject.

A similar astronomical and astrological system was spread across the ancient

world, but who first created it? Egypt is often cited as the oldest of early civilizations, but

Babylon is often credited with creating the first astrological system. The Sumerians are

credited with inventing the earliest form of writing, but not the alphabet. The civilization

of Egypt used a form of hieroglyphic writing, but alphabetic symbols have recently been

discovered in Egypt as well. Moran quotes Professor Hermann Ranke, who states that

Egypt had commonalities with Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, but

that there were definite Semitic influences upon the language of the early Egyptians.5

Moran investigated the signs of the lunar and solar zodiacs and their

correspondences to the early alphabet. The Chinese lunar zodiac which is represented by

the “lunar stations” or signs is postulated to have originated before the solar zodiac.

Moran postulates that the lunar signs might have been selected for phonetic use and that

the twenty-eight lunar signs somehow matched up with the twenty-two horary signs on

an early Chinese calendar stone or P’u Pan divining board. Moran provides diagrams of

how some lunar characters were derived directly from the constellation that they

represented, using the example of the Chinese character ching, which means ‘a well’.

Ideas or concepts such as ‘empty’ and ‘peril’ are also associated with the Chinese

constellational signs, providing evidence that the constellations were not always referred

to as nouns or objects.

Moran found evidence that some lunar characters and solar characters had an

exact correspondence, suggesting that they were related somehow. Moran delves into the
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dualistic nature of the constellational symbols, which later scholars tended to ignore,

disguise or distort according to their interpretation or religious agenda. Sexual

connotations were often ignored or rejected as being obscure or incongruous when they

didn’t fit into the accepted belief structure of the researcher who sometimes saw morality

and gender in symbols from a Western point of view and not from the original Chinese

tradition.

Moran investigated the many ‘dipper’ characters found in the Chinese symbols or

characters and how those astrological primitives were combined to form complex

concepts such as ‘to compare’ or ‘opposed’. The combinations of those ancient

astrological primitive symbols gave rise to hundreds of characters with hundreds of

meanings that became the basis of the great Chinese system of writing. Primitive

astrological symbols were combined to create a vast array of characters that often had

multiple meanings depending on their combination with other characters. The Chinese

language began to find its expression in the multitude of constellational characters.

Moran found many strange and wonderful correspondences between the primitive

Chinese symbols and the celestial phenomena that it represented. Moran is able to explain

how a bear with six paws is simply a portrayal of an unusual constellational configuration

and not an actual animal, which was the hsiung, a small black Chinese bear. Absurdities

are explained in ordinary terms when seen from the perspective of an early astronomer

drawing outlines in the constellations using well-known things.

Some of the primitive Chinese symbols appear quite often on the P’u Pan board,

such as the five elements, the ten stems and the twelve branches, all of which go into the

formation of the 44,000 Chinese characters. The twenty-eight lunar stations are also

called asterisms or constellations, although they are quite different than the Western

constellations used in modern times. Moran noted that the Chinese horary characters
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known as the ten stems and twelve branches equal the number twenty-two, which is the

exact number of alphabetic characters used in the ancient alphabet. Moran also noted that

the Chinese horary characters were used phonetically to indicate the pronunciation of the

more complicated Chinese characters.

Moran goes on to wonder why there were twenty-two symbols in the Hebrew and

Semitic alphabets and postulates that there could have been religious reasons such as the

number of pillars around the temple court or that the number was part of a sacred series

of numbers that was revered in the ancient world. Moran suggests that the first twenty-

two signs were considered favorable and were pressed into use for the alphabet. He goes

on to elaborate on the discussion of Francois Lenormant, an early French Assyriologist

who compares Assyrian words to Hebrew root words and Latin meanings, and finds that

the Chinese dipper symbols might be somehow related.

The lucky and unlucky days of the ancient calendars might also provide clues as

to why only twenty-two symbols were used instead of the full twenty-eight of the

Chinese lunar asterisms. The in-depth investigations of ancient numerological

correspondences to days in the calendar month sheds light on why the ancients possibly

chose twenty-two symbols, but it is difficult to comprehend the complexity of the subject

without training in those ancient languages, their writing systems, religious observances,

and numerological beliefs. That there are some possible parallels between the Chinese

P’u Pan board and the old Babylonian calendar is as much as a neophyte in this

discussion would need to know.

The ten stems are the Chinese horary stems that represent the ten circumpolar

constellations, or in other words, the ten Chinese constellations that surround the pole

star. These ten stems are shown in example drawings that picture them in their current

form drawn by brush, their more primitive forms, their Mandarin phonetic value, and the
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meanings ascribed to them. The constellations that the ten stems are drawn over are not

specified or shown in drawings, but Figure 9 and Figure 11 have the constellation

outlines drawn over the polar stars using the Chinese astronomical-astrological system.

This omission makes it difficult to pursue a more through investigation of the Chinese ten

stems and their relationship to the alphabet. The twelve branches of the Chinese zodiac

are seen in Figure 5, but the symbols are not shown drawn over the constellations of the

zodiac. This omission makes it difficult to pursue a more through investigation of the

Chinese solar zodiac or twelve braches and its relationship to the alphabet.

Moran describes the ancient Chinese zodiac characters found in Figure 5 and

explains that only a few of the Chinese zodiac animals correspond to the Western zodiac

animals, but that the zodiacs from India and Burma have more correspondences in form

and symbolic meaning. The constellations of the zodiac are approximately the same in

both the Chinese and Western systems. The twelve zodiac signs or twelve branches are

used as horary signs and have correspondences to the months of the year, the sixty-year

astrological-historical cycle and the hours of day and night. Horary signs refer to the

hours of the day and are an archaic reference to the horary circle of hours such as found

on a round clock. Moran notes some similarities between the Chinese, Western, Burmese,

Hindu and Mexican zodiacs, but that investigation is more fully explored by David Kelly

in his section of the second edition of the book.

Moran attempted to find some correspondence between the primitive forms and

symbolic meanings of the alphabet to the Chinese ten stems and twelve branches, but

could not find a correlation that satisfied him. It would have taken breaking the order of

the alphabet or Chinese stems and branches to get an alignment. Moran speculates that

the precession of the equinox may have had an effect on the order of the alphabet in
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relation to the Chinese characters, but can only find several instances that offered any

meaningful correspondence.

The correspondences between the alphabet and the Chinese ten stems and

branches may have been obscured by the antiquity of the symbols and their meanings, but

Moran did see a correspondence between the constellation Sagittarius and the alphabetic

letter tsade, which both have a connection to an arrow. Moran was not able to capitalize

on the tip given him by his venerable master Yeh Hsien Seng regarding correspondences

between the twenty-two Chinese horary signs and the early alphabet, but did make

another discovery that became the basis of this thesis.

When Moran compared the alphabet to the Chinese lunar calendar he found a

correspondence that matched. When he consulted the Chinese astrological book called

Yung Tai Ta Ch’eng he noticed that the twenty-eight lunar characters were matched with

stars that were drawn as circles and connected by lines. Figure 6 shows a Map of the

River of Heaven from the Yung Tai Ta Ch’eng and depicts the lunar asterisms with the

Milky Way as the River of Heaven stretched across the northern sky. He immediately

noticed that the Chinese character nui meaning ‘the ox’ and decided that it corresponded

to the Hebrew letter aleph, which means ‘the bull’. He went around the circle of the

Chinese lunar signs and found startling correspondences that could not have arisen from

chance. He then investigated the correspondences and noted the similarities in meanings

between the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the Chinese lunar signs.

Moran then went on to investigate the meanings of the letters and lunar signs from

the point of view of a dualistic philosophy that tied the two systems together using word

meanings and their possible correspondences to the Chinese lunar signs, while also taking

into account their forms and resemblances to constellations and ‘subconstellations’ or

minor asterisms. He notes that the letters of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets have both a
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numerical and phonetic value and suggests that the use of the alphabet for numerical

purposes may have predated its use as a phonetic tool. He also states that the letters of the

alphabet could have been directly derived from constellations. He simply saw the

alphabet arising from astrological signs.

Moran theorized that writing was first used to record astronomical information

that corresponded to harvests, equinoxes and solstices, lunar phases, lucky and unlucky

days and events such as eclipses. The writing system that evolved into the alphabet could

have been based upon the existing symbols used to record celestial symbols such as the

sun, moon and constellations. Moran notes that the phonetic symbols by the Chinese,

Sumerians and Egyptians could have had an astrological basis. He suggests that the

alphabet was a form of shorthand that was inevitable as the written form became

simplified and presents a theory about a clever priest or leader that experimented with

written characters and developed a form of shorthand using the astrological symbols

available in the area, but only used twenty-two symbols because that was all that was

necessary for the Semitic languages they used.

The area that used the Semitic languages and similar constellations extended from

Egypt through the Middle East into Lebanon and beyond. Moran suggests that the use of

these symbols could have been in use about the third millennium B.C.E. due to the

alphabet beginning with the symbol for the bull, which was worshipped around that time.

Moran suggests that this early alphabet spread across the ancient world by

those speaking Semitic languages, but was not used by the Egyptians who already had a

system of hieroglyphs and literature. The Sumerians also had already developed a system

of writing so a new alphabet would not be useful to them. The Hebrews, Phoenicians and

later the Greeks were able to adapt their spoken language to the written characters in the

early alphabet even though vowels were not used until the Greeks modified the alphabet
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to their liking. The traveling astrologers most likely carried this new system of

alphabetical writing to the nations and peoples in the area, who made use of its simplicity

and modified it for their words and speech.

Moran also suggests that the extra letters necessary for some languages could

have borrowed from the unused lunar signs that would have been from twenty-three to

twenty-eight and provides some possible evidence for that. The Latin alphabet could have

also taken letters from the Chinese lunar signs that were not used to form the alphabet,

but does not provide drawings or correspondences that can be examined. He does go on

to disparage astrology as an unscientific pseudoscience that is grossly superstitious and

disreputable, yet provided Western civilization with the alphabet which is regarded as

one of the greatest tools ever invented. Moran goes on to state that he has met the

requirements of providing the source of the alphabet.

Moran relates the alphabet to astrological signs by their identification with

specific stars or star groups. He returns to the letter aleph, which is the first letter of the

alphabet, and relates it to the Chinese lunar sign niu, both of which mean ‘ox’. He

continues to compare the alphabet letters with lunar signs but concedes that there are

problems that cannot be solved without adequate mastery of many ancient languages,

astronomy, astrology, archaeology and paleography to begin with. There are many

approaches to the riddle of the alphabet and he wonders which way is best to unravel the

mysteries of its construction. How should the celestial poles be seen in relation to the

lunar signs and the alphabetic letters if indeed there is a relationship between the letters

of the alphabet and the constellations in the sky?

Moran wonders when the alphabet was first created because it undoubtedly had an

effect on how the sky looked although the planisphere of stars would not change much

even taking into account the precession of the equinoxes. How would calendar reformers
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and astrologers change the order of the alphabetic letters, possibly at the whim of their

employers such as the priests or kings as was the case of the constellational symbols in

the Chow dynasty? He wonders how the alphabet could have retained its consistency

during the centuries of use. It came down to simply experimenting with the order of the

alphabets, zodiacs, meanings, and phonetic values.

Moran’s method was to try various combinations and arrangements of

alphabetical letters with the Chinese astrological characters in order to find possible

correspondences. He continued to use the ten stems and twelve branches to find an

answer to the enigma of the origin of the alphabet, but even when he reversed those

letters and characters in relation to each other he could not find a satisfactory

correspondence. He noted that the ancient solar zodiacs were probably set in stone about

the twenty-fourth century B.C.E. when Taurus was in ascendancy and was worshipped

around the world by many early peoples. He also noted that the order of the solar and

lunar symbols may have been in reverse order due to demands of the rulers of the day

such as the Chow dynasty.

Additional problems were seen in the practice of assigning the same meaning to

multiple star groups, such as having a bear or ox being seen in multiple places in the sky

like we have the large bear Ursa Major and the small bear Ursa Minor. Compounding this

problem is determining what star group was important to what group of people at a

certain point in history, such as having their new year begin at the winter solstice or

spring equinox and use different star groups to determine the start of those years.

Moran comes to the conclusion that astrology originated in Western Asia and was

taken intact to China, but that the alphabet and its correspondence to the Chinese lunar

signs was keyed by aligning the constellation Taurus the Bull with letter A or aleph with

the Chinese lunar sign niu ‘the ox’. Figure 10 presents Moran’s comparison of the
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Western alphabet with the Chinese astrological signs and is the Fifth Edition of the chart

that was first presented to the American Oriental Society at Princeton in March, 1923.

Moran then compares the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the Roman alphabet, the

Western astronomical solar zodiac constellation where applicable, the Chinese lunar

zodiac sign, and the Chinese solar zodiac sign where applicable. He goes into great detail

about the meanings of each letter and includes the letter meanings from the Phoenician,

Assyrian, Greek and Egyptian where available. The Hebrew letters are fully explained

and compared to the Chinese lunar signs and the symbolism is described in great detail.

Additional astrological and astronomical information is used to help explain the more

difficult concepts as well as give a background to the framework of ancient thinking.

Moran uses references from many sources and even presents derivative names

associated with the Hebrew letters and also provides insight into the inscrutable thinking

of the ancient Chinese astrologers. The startling correspondences he finds between the

meanings of the Hebrew alphabet letters and the Chinese lunar sign meanings may be

taken as irrefutable evidence of a close correspondence between the two systems. This

letter-by-letter comparison to the Chinese lunar signs has intrigued both Western and

Chinese scholars who have studied this book.

Moran postulates that there must have been a list of twenty-eight or twenty-nine

symbols available to the creators of the first alphabet, but that only twenty-two were

chosen. Perhaps another alphabet script might be unearthed that used a full twenty-eight

letters that corresponds to the Chinese lunar signs. Moran goes further and spreads the

twenty-two symbols of the alphabet around the calendar in a symbolic manner that he

compares to the method used by the Chinese on their P’u Pan board. Moran again states

that all attempts to correlate the Chinese horary signs with the Semitic alphabet have met
 19
with failure and have not been proven as practical, but he reiterates that the meanings of

the Hebrew alphabet closely correspond to the Chinese lunar sign meanings.

Moran concludes his section of The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs by

introducing the concepts of Dr. David Kelly who presents a chapter full of text, tables,

charts and maps that illustrate the diffusion of the ancient calendar to many parts of the

world. In his last chapter of the book, Dr. Moran adds more details and descriptions that

provide more insight into the beginnings of writing and provides greater detail about the

alphabet and the conclusions he arrived at after finishing the main text. Additional details

that go beyond the intent of the previous chapters are presented in this chapter and offer

more of his personal opinions and conjectures that deserve further investigation. The last

chapter in the second edition by Dr. David Kelly is not covered in this book report, which

is focused on the material contained in the first edition which was solely by Dr. Moran.

This is an interesting book for those interested in the alphabet, but it is not for

everyone. The subjects discussed are too technical for the casual reader and the

references are in many cases outdated. The thesis of the work is valid in my opinion, but

the information is in a format that is not understandable by those without a keen interest

in the origin of the alphabet. The work is complete as it is and in the context and time that

it was written.

I would not recommend this book to anyone unless they are willing to accept its

limitations and regard it as a monograph that addresses a historical controversy with a

thesis that is not supported by primary sources or literary works that conclusively prove

its contentions. In general, this book does add to the historical knowledge in its field,

although many of the references used are too out of date to be obtainable or of use to the

modern user. This book will no doubt remain a subject of conjecture and debate between
 20
scholars of etymology and cultural historians, but it will require the finding of an actual

primary source evidence to support its conclusions. - Lance Carter, November 23, 2010.
 21

Notes and References

1. Moran, Hugh Anderson, Kelly, David H., The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs,
Palo Alto, Daily Press, 2nd Edition, 1969.
2. Diringer, David, The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, New York, Philosophical
Library, 1948.
3. Moran, Hugh Anderson, Kelly, David H., The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs,
Palo Alto, Daily Press, 2nd Edition, 1969, p. XVII.
4. Ibid., p.18.
5. Ibid., p.31.