Bench Gallows Writing Order

[Emma May Smith]

I've been looking at the characters known as 'bench gallows' for a little while (the characters ckh, cth, cfh, cph) and there is something I cannot settle.

What order are the characters stroke written in?

I did think this was the order: 1) e, 2) ek, 3) eke, 4) ckh. But now I'm not so sure. I think that the writer could have possible written c-h with a long crossbar first, then inserted k to make ckh.

There are ways to test this, but I wonder if anybody has an insight to share. I think it would be very useful to know and may make some interpretations of the character more likely than others.

[-JKP-]

Emma, I have an unfinished blog on gallows characters that's been sitting for a long time.

It doesn't directly answer your question, but maybe it will indirectly provide some ideas and insight on interpretation of the characters. I'll try to carve out some time this weekend to clean up the grammar, trim the pictures, and get it posted.

[Emma May Smith]

Well, I just want your opinion on the writing order of the character's strokes. Can you tell me?

[-JKP-]

Well, I just want your opinion on the writing order of the character's strokes. Can you tell me?

Sigh, if it were that simple, I wouldn't have to write a blog about it. Once I started studying those confounded gallows characters I discovered I had rather simplistic notions about them. There's much more to it than I originally realized! I'll try to get it posted by this evening.

[davidjackson]

I think that logically and calligraphically, you would write the gallows first, then the cc from right to left (because we write the c from top to bottom).
But thinking about it, we would then drag our hand over the letters and produce an ink mark, so it must be from left to right.  Perhaps looking at the crossbar, to see if we can see a constant different pressure on the stroke which would indicate the scribe lifting his hand in an unusual position to avoid rubbing upon the gallows, could give us an answer.

[-JKP-]

Emma May Smith Well, I just want your opinion on the writing order of the character's strokes. Can you tell me?

Emma, maybe this can partly answer your question, but only for this particular scribe...

Look at the beginning of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of f25r, where the leading c-shape imperfectly lines up with the crossthrough line.

[Emma May Smith]

Emma May Smith Well, I just want your opinion on the writing order of the character's strokes. Can you tell me?

Emma, maybe this can partly answer your question, but only for this particular scribe...

Look at the beginning of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of f25r, where the leading c-shape imperfectly lines up with the crossthrough line.

That only confirms what we already knew about the writing order of ch. Specifically, that the cross bar is drawn after ee, and is drawn from right to left. The leftmost e is typically the worst aligned.

[-JKP-]

Emma May Smith Well, I just want your opinion on the writing order of the character's strokes. Can you tell me?

Emma, maybe this can partly answer your question, but only for this particular scribe...

Look at the beginning of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of f25r, where the leading c-shape imperfectly lines up with the crossthrough line.

That only confirms what we already knew about the writing order of ch. Specifically, that the cross bar is drawn after ee, and is drawn from right to left. The leftmost e is typically the worst aligned.

I would agree that the crossbar is drawn (most of the time) after e e has been laid down and, as far as I can tell, the gallows is added after the base has been drawn. The left e is frequently the least aligned... the connection between the bar and the e is often too short or too long. The exceptions appear to be the ones that don't fully cross through—they are sometimes drawn as one stroke, but more often as two.

[Koen G]

There are quite a number of factors complicating this matter. 
There were at least two different scribes, but Currier thought there were more. Add to that the fact that the "character" is relatively rare. Perhaps not frequent enough to ensure constancy within one scribe's writing, let alone across scribes...

Now, that said, if there were some pattern to emerge in the stroke order, then this would be potentially interesting, especially under the aforementioned circumstances.

[-JKP-]

There are ones like this to complicate the stroke-order picture:


   

"Exceptions" like this make me believe that EVA-e and the "long-e" are two different characters. If the crossbar is drawn first, or separately, every time, to connect EVA-e, then this shape wouldn't happen. However, if there's a long-e and a short-e, then this potentially would occur. Either that, or the scribe is inconsistent in creating the crossbar.