同治四年乙丑歲 was 1865. Not that old. But the red paint looked new......
Anyway, there are all sort of 'old' head stones in the local wilderness that claimed to be old. I would put a very big question mark on this one.
On the other hand, this stone did not show the full name of its owner. I cannot read the last word at the bottom. The rest of the middle column read 清顯馬門庶室 which means the husband's Surname was 馬, but this is the grave of one of his concubines or second\third wife. Maybe the last word was her surname. The full name of the husband wasn't there either. Just another 馬 engraved on the lower left.
Sorry Tngan, your translation of the Chinese words is wrong. I brought a good friend of mine to Jardine's Lookout to see this inscription and he told me that 同治四年乙丑歲 is not what it says on the gravestone. It actually says 日治四年乙丑歲， which to him means 4th year of Japanese occupation. I think the author of this stone wanted to write that a female named 馬 died up here in 1945.
Allow us to disregard the 同治\日治 argument and pay attention to the 天干地支of the year 乙丑. If we refer to a conversation table to the Gregorian Calendarn, that would be mostly1865 as the 天干地支 cycle and Gregorian calendar is not an exact match. 1865 is matched both 同治四年 and 乙丑年. in the engraving the word 歲 is equivalent to 年, which means year.
If 1954 is concerned, its 天干地支 should be 乙酉.
My 2 cents.
T
PS, When reading Chinese characters, I do not need to translate as Chinese is my native lwritten anguage.
Comments
Re: 同治四年乙丑歲
Hi There,
同治四年乙丑歲 was 1865. Not that old. But the red paint looked new......
Anyway, there are all sort of 'old' head stones in the local wilderness that claimed to be old. I would put a very big question mark on this one.
On the other hand, this stone did not show the full name of its owner. I cannot read the last word at the bottom. The rest of the middle column read 清顯馬門庶室 which means the husband's Surname was 馬, but this is the grave of one of his concubines or second\third wife. Maybe the last word was her surname. The full name of the husband wasn't there either. Just another 馬 engraved on the lower left.
T
Correction
Sorry Tngan, your translation of the Chinese words is wrong. I brought a good friend of mine to Jardine's Lookout to see this inscription and he told me that 同治四年乙丑歲 is not what it says on the gravestone. It actually says 日治四年乙丑歲， which to him means 4th year of Japanese occupation. I think the author of this stone wanted to write that a female named 馬 died up here in 1945.
Re: year reference to the grave stone
Hi There,
Suggest to read this article at the Hong Kong Observatory about the Traditional Chinese Calendar on how they mark the year:
https://www.hko.gov.hk/en/gts/time/stemsandbranches.htm
Allow us to disregard the 同治\日治 argument and pay attention to the 天干地支of the year 乙丑. If we refer to a conversation table to the Gregorian Calendarn, that would be mostly1865 as the 天干地支 cycle and Gregorian calendar is not an exact match. 1865 is matched both 同治四年 and 乙丑年. in the engraving the word 歲 is equivalent to 年, which means year.
If 1954 is concerned, its 天干地支 should be 乙酉.
My 2 cents.
T
PS, When reading Chinese characters, I do not need to translate as Chinese is my native lwritten anguage.