Japanese Interpretation Needed

[deoxy99]

Can someone interpret this Japanese writing on this antique?

[Naru523]

東

[Darvince]

東

[deoxy99]

I am going to lock this topic until someone posts what all of it says in English.

[Naru523]

I am going to lock this topic until someone posts what all of it says in English.

Oh, I thought you mean for the text.

Anyways, the first letter should mean 'east' ( or thats what I know)

[space guy1]

try this site:
http://japanese.nciku.com/
you can draw the characters as they look on the antique

[deoxy99]

The third column is the only characters I need to know now. No website, not even yours [Space Guy 1], can ever find the third column characters.

[space guy1]

 do you mean third the way we would read it or the way it is read in japanese? is you mean japanese than, the top one is east, the middle one seems to be not yet, the last one seems to be revolve or turn
maybe turn to the east in the future? the middle one seems to be not yet but the characters weren't an exact match.  if you mean the column on the right than i cant see enough to translate

[deoxy99]

do you mean third the way we would read it or the way it is read in japanese? is you mean japanese than, the top one is east, the middle one seems to be not yet, the last one seems to be revolve or turn
maybe turn to the east in the future? the middle one seems to be not yet but the characters weren't an exact match.  if you mean the column on the right than i cant see enough to translate

The column on the right are probably ancient Japanese characters.

[deoxy99]

Here is my table of the characters:

east eastward	in front, forward preceding
big vast high	gate door entrance opening
market, fair city, town trade	out, outside external foreign

[atomic7732]

Table

east	forward	event
dog	bar/bolt	?
revolve	out of	symbol

Your "big" is in fact dog if the picture is right. Note the little dot marking next to the top bar of the "asterisk".

My thoughts:

Maybe this is biased, but it could be a historical record with the time based on astronomy. It could be saying when an even happened, or it could be a poem.

"east dog revolve" could be speaking of Sirius, the dog star when it is in the east.
"forward bolt out of" could mean to run... if it's an event, maybe it's an army charging
"event ? symbol" speaking of the event

Overall it could mean something like
When Sirius is in the east, an army charged in the war. Or something like that.

[deoxy99]

I think all you said is wrong.
The reason of that is that the dot is an error in stamping, and that Japanese is read left to right.

[atomic7732]

And you know how?

All I'm saying is, that in fact is a character.  

[space guy1]

japanese is actually read top to bottom right to left.  the first character is in the upper left then the one below it.

[deoxy99]

japanese is actually read top to bottom right to left.  the first character is in the upper left then the one below it.

Why is printed Japanese read right to left then? Explain that.

[Naru523]

japanese is actually read top to bottom right to left.  the first character is in the upper left then the one below it.

Why is printed Japanese read right to left then? Explain that.

Because countries, cultures, and etc. are different. Just because we live on one planet, doesn't mean we have the same customs.

[space guy1]

japanese is actually read top to bottom right to left.  the first character is in the upper left then the one below it.

Why is printed Japanese read right to left then? Explain that.

it is done that way to fit in with western culture and computers