1.
Haikou
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Hǎikǒu, is the capital and most populous city of Hainan province, China. It is situated on the northern coast of Hainan, by the mouth of the Nandu River, the northern part of the city is the district of Haidian Island, which is separated from the main part of Haikou by the Haidian River, a branch of the Nandu. Administratively, Haikou is a city, comprising four districts. There are 2,046,189 inhabitants in the built up area all living within the 4 urban districts of the city, Haikou was originally a port city. Today, more than half of the total trade still goes through its ports. The city is home to Hainan University, which has its campus on Haidian Island. The hanzi characters comprising the name, 海口, mean ocean/sea and mouth/port. Thus, the name Haikou is also a word for seaport - similar to Portsmouth in England, Haikou originally served as the port for Qiongshan, the ancient administrative capital of Hainan island, located some 5 kilometres inland to the south east. During its early history Haikou was a part of Guangdong province, in the 13th century it was fortified and became a military post under the Ming dynasty. The port is located west of the mouth of the Nandu River, when Qiongshan was opened to foreign trade under the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858, Haikou started to rival the old administrative city. It was known internationally as Hoihow, based on the local dialect, in 1926, Haikou overtook Qiongshan in population and it was declared a separate administrative city. Haikou was developed as a port during the Sino-Japanese War when the Japanese invaded and occupied Hainan Island from early 1939 to 1945, since 1949, Haikou has maintained its position as Hainans main port, handling more than half of the islands total trade. It has replaced Qiongshan as the administrative capital. In 1988, Haikou was made a city as well as the capital of the newly created Hainan Province. Haikou old town contains the oldest buildings in the city and was built by wealthy Chinese from the mainland. The houses are a mixture of styles including Portuguese, French, various projects are currently under discussion to decide the best way to restore and preserve these historical buildings. Most of the city is almost completely flat and only a few metres above sea level and it has an area of 2,304.84 square kilometres. The northern part of Haikou City, the district of Haidian Island, is separated from the part of Haikou by the Haidian River
2.
Hainan
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Hainan is the smallest and southernmost province of the Peoples Republic of China, consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. Hainan Island, separated from Guangdongs Leizhou Peninsula by the Qiongzhou Strait, is the largest island under PRC control and makes up the majority of the province. The province has an area of 33,920 square kilometers, with Hainan Island making up 32,900 square kilometers, there are a total of ten major cities and ten counties in Hainan Province. Haikou on the northern coast of Hainan Island is the capital while Sanya is a well-known tourist destination on the southern coast, the other major cities are Wenchang, Qionghai, Wanning, Wuzhishan, Dongfang, and Danzhou. Chinas controversial claims in the South China Sea, including the Nansha and Xisha Islands, are administered as part of the province. The provincial name derives from its island, Hainan, which is named for its position south of the Qiongzhou Strait. Former names for Hainan Island include Zhuya, Qiongya, and Qiongzhou, the later two gave rise to the provincial abbreviation 瓊 or 琼. Hainan Island first entered history in 110 BC, when the Han dynasty of China established a military garrison there following the arrival of General Lu Bode. In 46 BC the Han court decided that the conquest was too expensive, around that time, Han Chinese people together with military personnel and officials began to migrate to Hainan Island from the mainland. Among them were the offspring of those who were banished to Hainan for political reasons, most of them arrived in Hainan Island from the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi. Li people are the inhabitants of Hainan. They are believed to be the descendants of the ancient tribes from the mainland, some others live elsewhere on Hainan with other ethnic groups in Danzhou, Wanning, Qionghai, Lingshui and Tunchang. The area inhabited by the Li ethnic group totals 18,700 square kilometers, during the Three Kingdoms Period, Hainan was the Zhuya Commandery under the control of Eastern Wu. At the time of the Song dynasty, Hainan became part of Guangxi, under the Mongol Empire the island became an independent province then in 1370 was placed under the administration of Guangdong by the ruling Ming dynasty. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Han people from Fujian and Guangdong began migrating to Hainan, in the eighteenth century, the Li rebelled against the Qing Empire, which responded by bringing in mercenaries from the Miao regions of Guizhou. Many of the Miao settled on the island and their descendants live in the highlands to this day. During the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers referred to the island as Aynam, in 1906, the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen proposed that Hainan should become a separate province although this did not happen until 1988. Hainan was historically part of Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces and as such was the Qiongya Circuit under the 1912 establishment of the Republic of China
3.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
4.
Fish trap
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A fish trap is a trap used for fishing. Fish traps can have the form of a weir or a lobster trap. Some fishing nets are called fish traps, for example fyke nets. A typical trap consists of a frame of steel wire in the shape of a heart. The mesh wraps around the frame and then tapers into the inside of the trap, when a fish swims inside through this opening, it cannot get out, as the chicken wire opening bends back into its original narrowness. In earlier times, traps were constructed of wood and fibre, Traps are culturally almost universal and seem to have been independently invented many times. The Mediterranean Sea, with an area of about of 2.5 million km2, is shaped according to the principle of a bottle trap. It is easy for fish from the Atlantic Ocean to swim into the Mediterranean through the neck at Gibraltar. It has been described as the largest fish trap in the world, the prehistoric Yaghan people who inhabited the Tierra Del Fuego area constructed stonework in shallow inlets that would effectively confine fish at low tide levels. Some of this extant stonework survives at Bahia Wulaia at the Bahia Wulaia Dome Middens archaeological site, in southern Italy, during the 17th century, a new fishing technique began to be used. The trabucco is an old fishing machine typical of the coast of Gargano protected as monuments by the homonym National Park. Indigenous Australians were, prior to European colonisation, most populous in Australias better-watered areas such as the Murray-Darling river system of the south-east, here, where water levels fluctuate seasonally, indigenous people constructed ingenious stone fish traps. Most have been completely or partially destroyed, the largest and best-known are those on the Barwon River at Brewarrina, New South Wales, which are at least partly preserved. The Brewarrina fish traps caught huge numbers of native fish as the Barwon River rose in flood. In southern Victoria, indigenous people created a system of canals. The purpose of these canals was to attract and catch eels, the eels were caught by a variety of traps including stone walls constructed across canals with a net placed across an opening in the wall. Traps at different levels in the marsh came into operation as the level rose. Somewhat similar stone-wall traps were constructed by Native American Pit River people in north-eastern California, a technique called dam fishing is used by the Baka pygmies
5.
Laundry
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Laundry is the washing of clothing and linens. Laundry processes are often done in a reserved for that purpose. An apartment building or student hall of residence may have a laundry facility such as a tvättstuga. A stand-alone business is referred to as a laundrette, the material that is being washed, or has been laundered, is also generally referred to as laundry. Laundry was first done in watercourses, letting the water carry away the materials which could cause stains, laundry is still done this way in some less industrialized areas and rural regions. Agitation helps remove the dirt, so the laundry is often rubbed, twisted, wooden bats or clubs could be used to help with beating the dirt out. These were often called washing beetles or bats and could be used by the waterside on a rock, on a block and they were once common across Europe and were also used by settlers in North America. Similar techniques have also identified in Japan. When no watercourses were available, laundry was done in vats or vessels. Sometimes large metal cauldrons were filled with water and heated over a fire. Wooden or stone scrubbing surfaces set up near a water supply or portable washboards, including corrugated metal ones. A posser could be used to agitate clothes in a tub, once clean, the clothes were wrung out — twisted to remove most of the water. Then they were hung up on poles or clotheslines to air dry, before the advent of the washing machine, laundry was often done in a communal setting. In poor parts of the world today, laundry is still done beside a river or lake, villages across Europe that could afford it built a wash-house. Water was channelled from a stream or spring and fed into a building, such facilities were much more comfortable than washing in a watercourse because the launderers could work standing up instead of on their knees, and were protected from inclement weather. Also, they didnt have to go far, as the facilities were usually at hand in the village or at the edge of a town and these facilities were public and available to all families, and usually used by the entire village. Many of these village wash-houses are still standing, historic structures with no modern purpose. This job was reserved for women, who washed all their familys laundry, washerwomen took in the laundry of others, charging by the piece
6.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
7.
Rattan
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Rattan is the name for roughly 600 species of old world climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. Rattan is also known as manila, or malacca, named after the ports of shipment Manila and Malacca City, the climbing habit is associated with the characteristics of its flexible woody stem, derived typically from a secondary growth, makes rattan a liana rather than a true wood. Calamoideae also includes tree palms such as Raphia and Metroxylon and shrub palms such as Salacca and they dont have spinose stems and climb by means of their reflexed terminal leaflets. Of these only Desmoncus spp. furnish stems of sufficiently good quality to be used as rattan cane substitutes, there are 13 different genera of rattans that include around 600 species. The largest rattan genus is Calamus, distributed in Asia except for one species represented in Africa, the rattan genera and their distribution, In Uhl & Dransfield, and also Dransfield & Manokaran, a great deal of basic introductory information is available. Available rattan floras and monographs by region, Uses by taxon, rattans are also superficially similar to bamboo. Unlike bamboo, rattan stems are solid, and most species need structural support, many rattans have spines which act as hooks to aid climbing over other plants, and to deter herbivores. Rattans have been known to grow up to hundreds of metres long, most of the worlds rattan population exist in Indonesia, distributed among the islands Borneo, Sulawesi, and Sumbawa. The rest of the supply comes from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia. In forests where rattan grows, its value can help protect forest land, by providing an alternative to loggers who forgo timber logging. Rattan is much easier to harvest, requires simpler tools and is easier to transport. It also grows faster than most tropical wood. This makes it a tool in forest maintenance, since it provides a profitable crop that depends on rather than replaces trees. It remains to be seen whether rattan can be as profitable or useful as the alternatives, rattans are threatened with overexploitation, as harvesters are cutting stems too young and reducing their ability to resprout. Unsustainable harvesting of rattan can lead to forest degradation, affecting overall forest ecosystem services, the use of toxic chemicals and petrol in the processing of rattan affects soil, air and water resources, and also ultimately peoples health. Meanwhile, the method of rattan production is threatening the plants long-term supply. Generally, raw rattan is processed into products to be used as materials in furniture making. The various species of rattan range from millimetres up to 5–7 cm in diameter
8.
Arecaceae
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The Arecaceae are a botanical family of perennial climbers, shrubs, acaules and trees commonly known as palm trees. They are flowering plants, a family in the monocot order Arecales, currently 181 genera with around 2600 species are known, most of them restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, however, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families and they have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms, and palms are widely used in landscaping, making them one of the most economically important plants. In many historical cultures, palms were symbols for such ideas as victory, peace, for inhabitants of cooler climates today, palms symbolize the tropics and vacations. Whether as shrubs, trees, or vines, palms have two methods of growth, solitary or clustered, the common representation is that of a solitary shoot ending in a crown of leaves. This monopodial character may be exhibited by prostrate, trunkless, some common palms restricted to solitary growth include Washingtonia and Roystonea. Palms may instead grow in sparse though dense clusters, the trunk develops an axillary bud at a leaf node, usually near the base, from which a new shoot emerges. The new shoot, in turn, produces an axillary bud, exclusively sympodial genera include many of the rattans, Guihaia, and Rhapis. Several palm genera have both solitary and clustering members, Palms which are usually solitary may grow in clusters, and vice versa. These aberrations suggest the habit operates on a single gene, Palms have large, evergreen leaves that are either palmately or pinnately compound and spirally arranged at the top of the stem. The leaves have a sheath at the base that usually splits open on one side at maturity. The inflorescence is a spadix or spike surrounded by one or more bracts or spathes that become woody at maturity, the flowers are generally small and white, radially symmetric, and can be either uni- or bisexual. The sepals and petals usually number three each, and may be distinct or joined at the base, the stamens generally number six, with filaments that may be separate, attached to each other, or attached to the pistil at the base. The fruit is usually a single-seeded drupe but some genera may contain two or more seeds in each fruit, like all monocots, palms do not have the ability to increase the width of a stem via the same kind of vascular cambium found in non-monocot woody plants. This explains the shape of the trunk that is often seen in palms. The Arecaceae are notable among monocots for their height and for the size of their seeds, leaves, Ceroxylon quindiuense, Colombias national tree, is the tallest monocot in the world, reaching up to 60 m tall
9.
Bromeliaceae
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They are among the basal families within the Poales and are unique because they are the only family within the order that has septal nectaries and inferior ovaries. These inferior ovaries characterize the Bromelioideae, a subfamily of the Bromeliaceae, the family includes both epiphytes, such as Spanish moss, and terrestrial species, such as the pineapple. Many bromeliads are able to water in a structure formed by their tightly-overlapping leaf bases. The largest bromeliad is Puya raimondii, which reaches 3–4 m tall in vegetative growth with a flower spike 9–10 m tall, Bromeliads are plants that are adapted to various climates. Foliage takes different shapes, from needle-thin to broad and flat, symmetrical to irregular, the foliage, which usually grows in a rosette, is widely patterned and colored. Leaf colors range from maroon, through shades of green, to gold, varieties may have leaves with red, yellow, white and cream variations. Others may be spotted with purple, red, or cream, while others have different colors on the tops, the inflorescences produced by bromeliads are also regarded as considerably more diverse than any other plant family. Some flower spikes may reach 10 meters tall, while others only measure 2–3 mm across, upright stalks may be branched or simple with spikes retaining their color from two weeks up to 12 months, depending on species. In some species, the flower remains unseen, growing deep in the base of the plants, root systems vary according to plant type. Terrestrial bromeliad species have complex systems that gather water and nutrients, while epiphytic bromeliads only grow hard, wiry roots to attach themselves to trees. Some bromeliads are faintly scented, while others are heavily perfumed, blooms from the species Tillandsia cyanea have a fragrance resembling that of clove spice. One study found 175,000 bromeliads per hectare in one forest, a wide variety of organisms takes advantage of the pools of water trapped by bromeliads. A study of 209 plants from the Ecuadorian lowlands identified 11,219 animals, representing more than 300 distinct species, examples include some species of ostracods, small salamanders about 2.5 cm in length, and tree frogs. Some bromeliads even form homes for other species of bromeliads, plants in the Bromeliaceae are widely represented in their natural climates across the Americas. One species can be found in Africa and they can be found at altitudes from sea level to 4200 meters, from rainforests to deserts. 1814 species are epiphytes, some are lithophytes, and some are terrestrial, Bromeliads often serve as phytotelmata, accumulating water between their leaves. The aquatic habitat created as a result is host to an array of invertebrates. These bromeliad invertebrates benefit their hosts by increasing nitrogen uptake into the plant, Bromeliads are among the more recent plant groups to have emerged
10.
Art
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In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art. The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, during the Romantic period, art came to be seen as a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science. Though the definition of what art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency. The nature of art, and related such as creativity. One early sense of the definition of art is related to the older Latin meaning. English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, however, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art, Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness in the Phaedrus, and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homers great poetic art, in Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, the forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is an imitation of men worse than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankinds advantages over animals. The second, and more recent, sense of the art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. The creative arts are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks that are compelled by a drive and convey a message, mood. Art is something that stimulates an individuals thoughts, emotions, beliefs, works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are considered applied art
11.
Ancient Greek art
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The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality. The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods, the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years. The 7th century BC witnessed the development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. From some point in the 1st century BC onwards Greco-Roman is used, in reality, there was no sharp transition from one period to another. Forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, strong local traditions, and the requirements of local cults, enable historians to locate the origins even of works of art found far from their place of origin. Greek art of various kinds was widely exported, the whole period saw a generally steady increase in prosperity and trading links within the Greek world and with neighbouring cultures. The survival rate of Greek art differs starkly between media and we have huge quantities of pottery and coins, much stone sculpture, though even more Roman copies, and a few large bronze sculptures. Almost entirely missing are painting, fine metal vessels, and anything in perishable materials including wood, the stone shell of a number of temples and theatres has survived, but little of their extensive decoration. By convention, finely painted vessels of all sorts are called vases, sculptural or architectural pottery, also very often painted, are referred to as terracottas, and also survive in large quantities. In much of the literature, pottery means only painted vessels, pottery was the main form of grave goods deposited in tombs, often as funerary urns containing the cremated ashes, and was widely exported. Other colours were limited, normally to small areas of white. Within the restrictions of these techniques and other conventions, vase-painters achieved remarkable results, combining refinement. White ground technique allowed more freedom in depiction, but did not wear well and was made for burial. Conventionally, the ancient Greeks are said to have made most pottery vessels for everyday use, not for display. Most surviving pottery consists of vessels for storing, serving or drinking liquids such as amphorae, kraters, hydria, libation bowls, oil and perfume bottles for the toilet, jugs, painted vessels for serving and eating food are much less common. Painted pottery was affordable even by people, and a piece decently decorated with about five or six figures cost about two or three days wages
12.
Wicker
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Wicker is a kind of furniture woven from any one of a variety of cane-like materials, including rattan, willow, reed and bamboo. As such, it is not a material, but a technique. The word wicker is believed to be of Scandinavian origin, wika which means to bend in Swedish, Wicker is traditionally made of material of plant origin, but plastic fibers are now also used. Wicker is light yet sturdy, making it suitable for furniture that will be moved often like porch, a variety of plants are used such as reeds, grasses, creepers, and thin tree branches. Rushwork and wickerwork are terms used in England, Wicker has been documented as far back as ancient Egypt, made from indigenous reed and swamp grasses. Middle-class families could afford a few pieces, such as small tables. However, archaeologists working on the tombs of the wealthy pharaohs have uncovered a variety of wicker items, including chests, baskets, wig boxes. Wicker even found use in the Achaemenid Empire on the battlefield, the popularity of wicker passed from ancient Egypt and Persia to ancient Rome. Wicker baskets were used to carry items in Pompeii, furniture was manufactured out of wicker in the Roman style. It has been proposed that the use of wicker in the Iron Age may have influenced the development of the woven patterns used in Celtic art. By the 16th and 17th centuries, wicker was quite common in European countries like Portugal, Spain, Wicker received a boost during the Age of Exploration, when international sea traders returned from southeast Asia with a species of palm called rattan. Rattan is stronger than traditional European wicker materials, although the stem can be separated so the softer inner core can be used for wicker. The 19th century brought immense popularity for wicker in Europe, England and it was used outdoors as well as indoors. People in the Victorian Era believed it to be more sanitary than upholstered furniture and it was inexpensive, resisted harsh weather and was adaptable to many styles. In the United States, Cyrus Wakefield began constructing rattan furniture in the 1850s and he first used rattan that had been offloaded from ships, where it was used as ballast, but as his designs became well-known, he began importing the material himself. In recent times, its aesthetic was influenced heavily by the Arts and Crafts movement at the turn of the 20th century, Wicker is still a popular material. Antique wicker products are sought after by collectors. Reproductions of furniture and accent pieces are sold for indoor and outdoor use
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"Basket". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). 1911.
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