Amazing Chinese Characters (615) Rich - 饶（饒）

 The big seal script of character Rich is 

The left is character Eat (Post 190), which is also Food as a noun. The right part is character Emperor Yao (Post 612). If you were a kiln worker of making bricks in ancient time (3000+ years ago), you were doing the most advantaged technical job, you could make big money, therefore you had enough and good foods to eat, the life only rich people could enjoy at that time.

The small seal script of character Rich is

The left is character Eat or Food, the right is character Emperor Yao, similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Rich is 

The left is character Eat or Food, the right is character Emperor Yao.

The simplified song typeface of the character is

The left is Radical Food, the right is simplified song typeface of character Emperor Yao.

The Pinyin of the character is Rao2.

There is another character Rich - 富 (Post 195), which means that there are wine jars in the house. Ancient time, society didn't have enough food to feed people, therefore, people who had extra food to make wine must be rich. 

The two are synonyms, people often put the together to form a word 富饶（富饒）. The meaning is same as any single character, but it is a good way to avoid the confusion caused by homophones. If you only use one character, people may have more difficult to identify its really meaning. If you use two-character word, people are much easier to identify the combination of two characters. There may be other benefits but this one is obvious. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (614) Pour - 浇（澆）

 The big seal script of character Pour is

The left is character Water (Post 13), the right is character Emperor Yao (Post 612), meaning is to make bricks. The bricks are made in kiln by fire, how to control the temperature to avoid too high temperature over burning the bricks and the kiln? Ancient Chinese used water on the top of the kiln where a circle ditch was full of water all the time in the brick making process. The character shows that people pour the water on kiln. When and how much to pour water on the ditch are important, which needs experience, especially for pottery products. It is not so critical for burning bricks, normally just keep the ditch with water since some time point.

The small seal script of character Pour is 

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Pour is

The left is Radical Three Drops, a simplified character Water. The right is character Emperor Yao, similar to older scripts.

Simplified song typeface of character Pour is

Again, the right top 戈 is from nowhere. 

The Pinyin of character Pour is Jiao1. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (613) Burn - 烧（燒）

The big seal script of character Burn is

The left is character Fire (Post 26), the right is character Emperor Yao (Post 612). Using fire to burn the adobe bricks is Burn. Later on all using fire to burn something like pottery are Burn.

The small seal script of character Burn is

Similar to big seal script.

Clerical script of character Burn is

Similar to older scripts.

The simplified song typeface of character Burn is

The right part becomes 尧 with unknown reason.

The Pinyin of character Burn is Shao1.

Amazing Chinese Characters (612) Emperor Yao - 尧（堯）

 The shell bone script of Emperor Yao (2324 - 2255 BC) is

The top are three characters of Soil (Post 223), the bottom is character Unexpected (Post 611). What is this? It is an ancient kiln as the one below,

which is used to fire brick, or pottery. The kiln is a small hill in a flat ground. The bottom is a person carrying heavy adobe bricks on his back into the low kiln. To carry multiple bricks, put the adobe bricks on a wood board, then put the board on kiln worker's shoulder or head. Therefore, we see a person with a flat board with many adobe bricks on, which is what we see in the script of the character.

To make bricks in the old time, still similar today, first is to make adobe bricks as the following

next is to load them in kiln

then burn them with fire

This is a brief procedure of making bricks with kiln.

Right now we know the three characters Soil - 土 are adobe bricks. The character means to make bricks.

It is said that Emperor Yao was kiln worker and brick making expert before he became emperor. People used his job as his name. Because he was emperor, his name couldn't be used in any other situation, therefore, the character is only used for his name, the original meaning of making brick disappeared. 99%+ people don't know the character's original meaning.

The small seal script of character Emperor Yao is

Similar to big seal script. The top 

are adobe bricks. I think that there could be big seal script of 垚, but I didn't find. 

The bottom is character Unexpected - 兀.

The clerical script of character Emperor Yao is

Similar to older scripts.

The simplified song typeface of character Emperor Yao is 

The top become character Dagger-Axe - 戈 (Post 80), nothing to do with adobe bricks. It is unclear where this is from.

The Pinyin of the character is Yao2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (611) Unexpected - 兀

The shell bone script of character Unexpected is

 a person with a head top flat (not the head being cut off). A person without head is very strange, unexpected. Sometimes, people bend head very low, or hold something on shoulder, blocking the head, other people may not see the head from far or in the dark.

Let's compare it with shell bone script of character Person

The flat head may because the person is a kiln worker, kiln is not high, he has to bent low his head (see Post 612 for more information). Another possibility is that the flat is a board on head, we will see the situation in Post 612. 

The bronze script of character Unexpected is

A person with a rounded head. This one may not be character Unexpected, experts are confused. Because a person with a round head is normal.

The small seal script of character Unexpected is

A person with a flat head, the bottom is the body, even not very like.

The clerical script of character Unexpected is

The top is the flat head, the bottom is the body. 

The character original means "A flat top of head of a person", the flat top is bald (no hair). It means "Totally unexpected".

The Pinyin of the character is Wu4.

The character is not used often now. It is exist in a few compound characters.

Amazing Chinese Characters (610) Peck - 啄

The big seal script of character Peck is

The left is character Mouth (Post 16), the right is character Skeleton (Post 607). The meaning of the character is that a bird uses its hard beak to peck food, like woodpecker pecks tree to get insects. 

The small seal script of character Peck is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Peck is

Similar to older scripts.

The Pinyin of character Peck is Zhuo2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (609) Carve - 琢

The big seal of character Carve is

The left is character Jade (Post 244), the right part is character Skeleton (Post 607), here it means very hard and sharp knife used to carve Jade.

The small seal script of character Carve is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Carve is

Similar to older scripts.

The pinyin of the character is Zuo2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (608) Large Grave - 冢

 The bronze script of character Large Grave is

The inside-left is character Skeleton  (Post 607), which is similar to character Pig 

If you look carefully, you could find that the character Skeleton has an extra short line on the bottom of the middle vertical curve, pointing to left. It is a trotter, mainly composed of bone.

The outer-right is a cover.

The character means that a large grave covering bones, here are human skeleton. In the ancient time, after people with power or high rank officials died, they were buried very deep and a large grave on the top to show their important not only when they were alive, but even after they died.

The big seal script of character Large Grave is

The cover is almost a circle, inside is character Skeleton.

The small seal script of character Large Grave is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Large Grave is

The bottom is character Skeleton, the top is the cover, much smaller cover because it can write faster.

Wang-Zhaojun (王昭君）Grave

The Pinyin of the character is Zhong3.

The character is not used often right now. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (607) Skeleton - 豖

 The shell bone script of character Skeleton is

One dot on the left and one 

which is shell bone script of character Pig (Post 111).

All most all dictionary explain the original meaning of the character to be the Pig Leg Bone, the dot indicates the lower part of the pig. I disagree. I think the meaning of the character to be the bones of the pig body, not specific which bone. Therefore, it means Skeleton.

The bronze script of the character Skeleton is

There is a 豕 skeleton, and an Eye outline across the skeleton. 

The small seal script of the character Skeleton is

One short line crosses three legs of the pig. Let's see the corresponding small seal of Pig

The top horizontal line is the pig head, the left three falling down lines + the middle curved left line are four legs, and the right curved down line is the tail. 

However, it looks like a pig's legs tied,  it really means the bones, the all bones of the pig. 

Song typeface of the character Skeleton is

Similar to small seal script.

The pinyin of the character is Chu4.

The character 豖 has been abandoned in simplification of Chinese characters in 1950s, only traditional Chinese keeps the character. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (606) Open - 启（啟）

 The shell bone script of character Open is 

The top left is character Household - 户 （Post 271), meaning a single door. The top right is a hand opening the door. The bottom looks like character Mouth - 口（Post 16). It is believed that the first character had no Mouth. The meaning of the character is to Open the door. Later, the Mouth - 口 was added to mean "Teaching, Guiding for Beginners", open a door for skills and knowledge.

The big seal script of character Open is

Similar to shell bone script.

The small seal script of character Open is

The left 启 is 户（top - character Household) + 口（bottom - Mouth), the right is a hand (lower part) holding a stick (higher part), which means "knock, hit" here. The stick here should be a tool for opening door. 

The clerical script of character Open is

Similar to small seal script but the 口 - Mouth moved to the middle of bottom.

The simplified song type face of character Open is

Just the left half of the small seal script, the right part - Hand eliminated.

The Pinyin of character Open - 启（啓）is Qi3.

There is another character Open - 开 -開 （Post 359), its original meaning is to Open double door. 

The difference between the two: 

开（開）means Open, such as open a door, open to public, open a tournament (e.g. U.S. Open), open to talk, etc.

启（啓）means start up, start, inspire, announcement, notice, etc.

They are similar in most situation, however, 启（啓）is more formal, more mental, conceptal,  and used more in writing; 开（開）is a little bit more informal, could be used both in writing and oral Chinese. Another big difference between the two is 启（啓）is not used in physical open anything anymore, all those open is 开（開）.