> [...]
> In any case, if these gallows are merely ornamental,
> then either they are like 'nulls' or they are
> like beautified versions of other characters.
> A consistent explanation has not yet been found.
> Maybe there was no consistent 'rule'.
Regarding the theory that the gallows characters represent some kind of flourish to ornament other characters - one of the first posts I made to this group pointed out an interesting (to me, anyway!) observation.
In a number of places, it appears as though the gallows characters were drawn in stages, so that the bottom halves of the 'legs' were drawn separately from the top halves. I observed this in a number of places - sometimes it looks as though the pen paused, sometimes as though there is an actual gap in the lines, sometimes just a 'kink'. Could it be that the gallows are, at least sometimes, ornaments to standard /i/ or /e/ characters?
Here's a small image containing various examples of what I'm talking about.
Cheers,
Jon.
Attachment:
Gallows.jpg
Description: JPEG image
