1.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese characters
–
Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
–
A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
2.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
Simplified Chinese characters
–
Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
Simplified Chinese characters
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
3.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
–
Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
4.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
5.
China
–
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
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
6.
East Asia
–
East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
East Asia
–
Tokyo is the largest city in the world, both in
metropolitan population and
economy.
East Asia
–
East Asia
East Asia
–
Seoul is the capital and largest city of South Korea (ROK), and is a leading global technology hub.
East Asia
–
Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan.
Kaohsiung Harbor is one of the largest harbors in the world.
7.
Warring States period
–
The Warring States Period derives its name from the Record of the Warring States, a work compiled early in the Han dynasty. The political geography of the era was dominated by the Seven Warring States, namely, Qin, The State of Qin was in the far west, with its core in the Wei River Valley and Guanzhong. This geographical position offered protection from the states of the Central Plains, the Three Jins, Northeast of Qin, on the Shanxi plateau, were the three successor states of Jin. These were, Han, south, along the Yellow River, Zhao, the northernmost of the three. Qi, located in the east of China, centred on the Shandong Peninsula, described as east of Mount Tai, Chu, located in the south of China, with its core territory around the valleys of the Han River and, later, the Yangtze River. Yan, located in the northeast, centred on modern-day Beijing, late in the period Yan pushed northeast and began to occupy the Liaodong Peninsula Besides these seven major states, some minor states also survived into the period. Yue, On the southeast coast near Shanghai was the State of Yue, Sichuan, In the far southwest were the States of Ba and Shu. These were non-Zhou states that were conquered by Qin late in the period, in the Central Plains comprising much of modern-day Henan Province, many smaller city states survived as satellites of the larger states, though they were eventually to be absorbed as well. Zhongshan, Between the states of Zhao and Yan was the state of Zhongshan, the Spring and Autumn period was initiated by the eastward flight of the Zhou court. There is no one single incident or starting point for the Warring States era, some proposed starting points are as follows,481 BC, Proposed by Song-era historian Lü Zuqian, since it is the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals. 476–475 BC, The author, Sima Qian, of Records of the Grand Historian who chose the year of King Yuan of Zhou. 403 BC, The year when Han, Zhao and Wei were officially recognised as states by the Zhou court, author Sima Guang of Zizhi Tongjian tells us that the symbol of eroded Zhou authority should be taken as the start of the Warring States era. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, during the Warring States period, many rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to justify their conquest of other states and spread their influence. Other major states also existed, such as Wu and Yue in the southeast, the last decades of the Spring and Autumn era were marked by increased stability, as the result of peace negotiations between Jin and Chu which established their respective spheres of influence. This situation ended with the partition of Jin, whereby the state was divided between the houses of Han, Zhao and Wei, and thus enabled the creation of the seven major warring states. This allowed other clans to gain fiefs and military authority, and decades of struggle led to the establishment of four major families. The Battle of Jinyang saw the allied Han, Zhao and Wei destroy the Zhi family, with this, they became the de facto rulers of most of Jins territory, though this situation would not be officially recognised until half a century later. The Jin division created a vacuum that enabled during the first 50 years expansion of Chu and Yue northward
Warring States period
–
History of China
Warring States period
–
Warring States about 350 BC
Warring States period
–
Tomb Guardian held at
Birmingham Museum of Art
Warring States period
–
A
jade -carved
dragon garment ornament from the Warring States period
8.
Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
Yuan dynasty
–
History of China
Yuan dynasty
–
Yuan dynasty circa 1294
Yuan dynasty
–
Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty
Yuan dynasty
–
Painting of a 14th-century Yuan dynasty
junk
9.
Qing dynasty
–
It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
Qing dynasty
–
History of China
Qing dynasty
–
Flag (1889–1912)
Qing dynasty
–
An Italian map showing the "Kingdom of the
Nüzhen " or the "
Jin Tartars", who "have occupied and are at present ruling China", north of
Liaodong and
Korea, published in 1682
Qing dynasty
–
Qing era brush container
10.
Copper
–
Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
Copper
–
Native copper (~4 cm in size)
Copper
–
A copper disc (99.95% pure) made by
continuous casting;
etched to reveal
crystallites.
Copper
–
Copper just above its melting point keeps its pink luster color when enough light outshines the orange
incandescence color.
Copper
–
Unoxidized copper wire (left) and oxidized copper wire (right).
11.
Bronze
–
These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin
Bronze
–
Yoruba bronze head sculpture, Ife, Nigeria c. 12th century AD
Bronze
–
Bronze deer figurine dating from between the 9th and 6th centuries BC,
National Archaeological Museum of
Sofia
Bronze
–
A hoard of bronze socketed axes from the
Bronze Age found in modern Germany. This was the top tool of the period, and also seems to have been used as a store of value.
Bronze
–
Chinese Ding,
Western Zhou (1046–771 BC)
12.
Iron
–
Iron is a chemical element with symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series and it is by mass the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earths outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earths crust, like the other group 8 elements, ruthenium and osmium, iron exists in a wide range of oxidation states, −2 to +6, although +2 and +3 are the most common. Elemental iron occurs in meteoroids and other low oxygen environments, but is reactive to oxygen, fresh iron surfaces appear lustrous silvery-gray, but oxidize in normal air to give hydrated iron oxides, commonly known as rust. Unlike the metals that form passivating oxide layers, iron oxides occupy more volume than the metal and thus flake off, Iron metal has been used since ancient times, although copper alloys, which have lower melting temperatures, were used even earlier in human history. Pure iron is soft, but is unobtainable by smelting because it is significantly hardened and strengthened by impurities, in particular carbon. A certain proportion of carbon steel, which may be up to 1000 times harder than pure iron. Crude iron metal is produced in blast furnaces, where ore is reduced by coke to pig iron, further refinement with oxygen reduces the carbon content to the correct proportion to make steel. Steels and iron alloys formed with metals are by far the most common industrial metals because they have a great range of desirable properties. Iron chemical compounds have many uses, Iron oxide mixed with aluminium powder can be ignited to create a thermite reaction, used in welding and purifying ores. Iron forms binary compounds with the halogens and the chalcogens, among its organometallic compounds is ferrocene, the first sandwich compound discovered. Iron plays an important role in biology, forming complexes with oxygen in hemoglobin and myoglobin. Iron is also the metal at the site of many important redox enzymes dealing with cellular respiration and oxidation and reduction in plants. A human male of average height has about 4 grams of iron in his body and this iron is distributed throughout the body in hemoglobin, tissues, muscles, bone marrow, blood proteins, enzymes, ferritin, hemosiderin, and transport in plasma. The mechanical properties of iron and its alloys can be evaluated using a variety of tests, including the Brinell test, Rockwell test, the data on iron is so consistent that it is often used to calibrate measurements or to compare tests. An increase in the content will cause a significant increase in the hardness. Maximum hardness of 65 Rc is achieved with a 0. 6% carbon content, because of the softness of iron, it is much easier to work with than its heavier congeners ruthenium and osmium. Because of its significance for planetary cores, the properties of iron at high pressures and temperatures have also been studied extensively
Iron
–
Iron, 26 Fe
Iron
–
Spectral lines of iron
Iron
–
Iron meteorites, similar in composition to the Earth's inner- and outer core
Iron
–
Hydrated
iron(III) chloride, also known as ferric chloride
13.
Lead
–
Lead is a chemical element with atomic number 82 and symbol Pb. When freshly cut, it is bluish-white, it tarnishes to a dull gray upon exposure to air and it is a soft, malleable, and heavy metal with a density exceeding that of most common materials. Lead has the second-highest atomic number of the stable elements. Lead is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal and its weak metallic character is illustrated by its amphoteric nature and tendency to form covalent bonds. Compounds of lead are found in the +2 oxidation state. Exceptions are mostly limited to organolead compounds, like the lighter members of the group, lead exhibits a tendency to bond to itself, it can form chains, rings, and polyhedral structures. Lead is easily extracted from its ores and was known to people in Western Asia. A principal ore of lead, galena, often bears silver, Lead production declined after the fall of Rome and did not reach comparable levels again until the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, global production of lead is about ten million tonnes annually, Lead has several properties that make it useful, high density, low melting point, ductility, and relative inertness to oxidation. In the late 19th century, lead was recognized as poisonous, Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones, damaging the nervous system and causing brain disorders and, in mammals, blood disorders. A lead atom has 82 electrons, arranged in a configuration of 4f145d106s26p2. The combined first and second ionization energies—the total energy required to remove the two 6p electrons—is close to that of tin, leads upper neighbor in group 14. This is unusual since ionization energies generally fall going down a group as an elements outer electrons become more distant from the nucleus, the similarity is caused by the lanthanide contraction—the decrease in element radii from lanthanum to lutetium, and the relatively small radii of the elements after hafnium. The contraction is due to shielding of the nucleus by the lanthanide 4f electrons. The combined first four ionization energies of lead exceed those of tin, for this reason lead, unlike tin, mostly forms compounds in which it has an oxidation state of +2, rather than +4. Relativistic effects, which become particularly prominent at the bottom of the periodic table, as a result, the 6s electrons of lead become reluctant to participate in bonding, a phenomenon called the inert pair effect. A related outcome is that the distance between nearest atoms in crystalline lead is unusually long, the lighter group 14 elements form stable or metastable allotropes having the tetrahedrally coordinated and covalently bonded diamond cubic structure. The energy levels of their outer s- and p-orbitals are close enough to allow mixing into four hybrid sp3 orbitals
Lead
–
Lead, 82 Pb
Lead
–
A sample of freshly solidified lead (from molten state)
Lead
–
World lead production peaking in the
Roman period and the rising
Industrial Revolution
Lead
–
Lead
ingots from
Roman Britain on display at the
Wells and Mendip Museum
14.
Zinc
–
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table, in some respects zinc is chemically similar to magnesium, both elements exhibit only one normal oxidation state, and the Zn2+ and Mg2+ ions are of similar size. Zinc is the 24th most abundant element in Earths crust and has five stable isotopes, the most common zinc ore is sphalerite, a zinc sulfide mineral. The largest workable lodes are in Australia, Asia, and the United States, Zinc is refined by froth flotation of the ore, roasting, and final extraction using electricity. Zinc metal was not produced on a large scale until the 12th century in India and was unknown to Europe until the end of the 16th century, the mines of Rajasthan have given definite evidence of zinc production going back to the 6th century BC. To date, the oldest evidence of pure zinc comes from Zawar, in Rajasthan, alchemists burned zinc in air to form what they called philosophers wool or white snow. The element was named by the alchemist Paracelsus after the German word Zinke. German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf is credited with discovering pure metallic zinc in 1746, work by Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta uncovered the electrochemical properties of zinc by 1800. Corrosion-resistant zinc plating of iron is the application for zinc. Other applications are in batteries, small non-structural castings. A variety of compounds are commonly used, such as zinc carbonate and zinc gluconate, zinc chloride, zinc pyrithione, zinc sulfide. Zinc is an essential mineral perceived by the public today as being of exceptional biologic and public health importance, Zinc deficiency affects about two billion people in the developing world and is associated with many diseases. In children, deficiency causes growth retardation, delayed sexual maturation, infection susceptibility, enzymes with a zinc atom in the reactive center are widespread in biochemistry, such as alcohol dehydrogenase in humans. Consumption of excess zinc can cause ataxia, lethargy and copper deficiency, Zinc is a bluish-white, lustrous, diamagnetic metal, though most common commercial grades of the metal have a dull finish.6 pm. The metal is hard and brittle at most temperatures but becomes malleable between 100 and 150 °C, above 210 °C, the metal becomes brittle again and can be pulverized by beating. Zinc is a conductor of electricity. For a metal, zinc has relatively low melting and boiling points, the melting point is the lowest of all the transition metals aside from mercury and cadmium. Many alloys contain zinc, including brass, Other metals long known to form binary alloys with zinc are aluminium, antimony, bismuth, gold, iron, lead, mercury, silver, tin, magnesium, cobalt, nickel, tellurium, and sodium
Zinc
–
Zinc, 30 Zn
Zinc
–
Sphalerite (ZnS)
Zinc
–
Zinc acetate
Zinc
–
Zinc chloride
15.
Silver
–
Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
Silver
–
Electrolytically refined silver
Silver
–
Silver 1000
oz t (~31 kg) bullion bar
Silver
–
Cessna 210 equipped with a silver iodide generator for
cloud seeding
Silver
–
A Canadian 50 cent piece from 1951, with King George the 6th on the obverse and Canada's (now former) coat of arms on the reverse. It is made of 80% silver and 20% copper.
16.
Gold
–
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
Gold
–
Gold, 79 Au
Gold
–
Moche gold necklace depicting feline heads.
Larco Museum Collection. Lima-Peru
Gold
–
Mirror for the future
James Webb Space Telescope coated in gold to reflect infrared light
Gold
–
The
world's largest gold bar has a mass of 250 kg.
Toi museum,
Japan.
17.
Cast coinage
–
Cast coinage refers to coins made by pouring melted metal into a mold, i. e. casting. It has been used for coins, particularly in the Far East. The method differs from the current mode of production, which is done by striking coin blanks that have been cut out of metal sheets. The method has also used by forgers. Traditional Far Eastern cast coins—so-called cash coins—are the most famous example of cast coinage, and were issued from the 4th century BC until circa 1912, predominantly in bronze, brass or iron. Traditional Far Eastern coins were generally cast base metal coins, although silver and gold bars were manufactured, e. g. Chinese sycee, Japanese obans and kobans. Cast potins circulated in Kent from around 100 BC to around 50 BC, at a point during the first century of the Christian era, cast bronze coins were produced in Dorset with archaeological evidence pointing towards Hengistbury Head as the source. By AD200, cast copies of silver denarii were being produced in a number of areas of Britain, while these may have been straightforward forgeries the context in which some of the moulds have been found suggest there may have been at least some elements of semi officialdom
Cast coinage
–
Numismatics
18.
Milled coinage
–
In numismatics, the term milled coinage is used to describe coins which are produced by some form of machine, rather than by manually hammering coin blanks between two dies or casting coins from dies. Until 1550, coinage techniques used in European mints had not progressed from the coinage of Ancient Greece. This was problematic because an increase in the supply of bullion from central Europe and that led to low quality coins which were easily forged or clipped, i. e. precious metal was shaved from the edges of the coins. In accordance with Greshams law, the clipped and forged coins drove good coins out of circulation and this technology was significantly more advanced than the general manufacturing processes of the sixteenth century making the coins difficult to counterfeit. The negotiations which obtained rights to the process for France were so secret that the inventor was identified with a codename, but he was most likely Marx Schwab. Aubin Olivier went to Augsburg to learn the technique and Henry II of France made him chief engineer of a mint in Paris, called the Moulin des Étuves. This mint produced well-struck and perfectly round gold and silver coins, in England, a 1560 proclamation of Elizabeth I exchanged old debased coins for new pure coins. The Tower Mint added machinery to its hammering for this “great recoinage”, eloy Mestrelle did the technology transfer from France but when the great recoinage ended mint authorities found him redundant and in 1578 he was hanged for counterfeiting. Yet another Frenchman, Peter Blondeau, provided machinery for a proposed coinage designed by Thomas Simon with Oliver Cromwell’s portrait, the restoration of 1660 ended that, but in 1662 Charles II recalled Blondeau to establish a permanent machine made coinage. He employed a secret process for placing lettering or other designs on the edges of coins, the inscription chosen for the edge—DECVS ET TVTAMEN, meaning an ornament and a safeguard—refers to the protection against clipping which the lettered edge provided. In accordance with Gresham’s law, however, the inferior hammered coins limited the circulation of his coins until the coins were demonetized in 1695. Meanwhile, in continental Europe, France readopted machine made coins in 1639, both machine made and hammered coins continued through the recoinage of French silver in 1641, but this time machine made coinage’s time had come and hammered French coinage ended in 1645. Zurich and Heidelberg experimented with coinage machinery in 1558 and 1567 respectively, unlike the screw press used in France and England, Hall used a roller press. Here two cylindrical dies impressed designs on bullion which rolled between them, coins were then cut from the rolled and impressed metal. This technique spread from Hall to Cologne in 1568, Dresden in 1574, Kremnica in 1577, Danzig in 1577, and other small mints. Its most significant impact occurred when Philip II of Spain used his funds to build a mint at Segovia which used this technique to convert silver from the Americas to coins efficiently. This allowed the king to pay his debts at a better rate than he otherwise could, the Segovia mint was owned by the King’s Royal House but other Spanish mints, which were run by the National Treasury, continued hammered coinage for decades. The Industrial Revolution shifted the focus of the economy from a rural to an urban, money based, the main technology of the Industrial Revolution, the Watt steam engine, also increased the overall level of economic activity
Milled coinage
–
A mill for the production of 'milled' coins with both coin dies illustrated.
Milled coinage
–
A mill for inscribing or milling the edges of coin flans or planchets.
Milled coinage
–
French-made coining press from 1831 (
M.A.N.,
Madrid)
19.
Traditional Chinese medicine
–
It is primarily used as a complementary alternative medicine approach. TCM is widely used in China and is becoming prevalent in Europe. One of the tenets of TCM holds that the bodys vital energy circulates through channels, called meridians. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, scientific investigation has not found histological or physiological evidence for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians, and acupuncture points. The TCM theory and practice are not based upon scientific knowledge, the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine remains poorly researched and documented. There are concerns over a number of toxic plants, animal parts. There are also concerns over illegal trade and transport of endangered species including rhinoceroses and tigers, a review of cost-effectiveness research for TCM found that studies had low levels of evidence, but so far have not shown benefit outcomes. Pharmaceutical research has explored the potential for creating new drugs from traditional remedies, proponents propose that research has so far missed key features of the art of TCM, such as unknown interactions between various ingredients and complex interactive biological systems. The doctrines of Chinese medicine are rooted in such as the Yellow Emperors Inner Canon and the Treatise on Cold Damage, as well as in cosmological notions such as yin-yang. Starting in the 1950s, these precepts were standardized in the Peoples Republic of China, including attempts to integrate them with modern notions of anatomy, in the 1950s, the Chinese government promoted a systematized form of TCM. TCMs view of the body places little emphasis on anatomical structures, while health is perceived as the harmonious interaction of these entities and the outside world, disease is interpreted as a disharmony in interaction. Traces of therapeutic activities in China date from the Shang dynasty, which Shang elites usually attributed to curses sent by their ancestors. There is no evidence that the Shang nobility used herbal remedies, according to a 2006 overview, the Documentation of Chinese materia medica dates back to around 1,100 BC when only dozens of drugs were first described. By the end of the 16th century, the number of drugs documented had reached close to 1,900, and by the end of the last century, published records of CMM had reached 12,800 drugs. Stone and bone found in ancient tombs led Joseph Needham to speculate that acupuncture might have been carried out in the Shang dynasty. The earliest evidence for acupuncture in this sense dates to the second or first century BC, the Yellow Emperors Inner Canon, the oldest received work of Chinese medical theory, was compiled around the first century BC on the basis of shorter texts from different medical lineages. It was also one of the first books in which the doctrines of Yinyang. The Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and Miscellaneous Illnesses was collated by Zhang Zhongjing sometime between 196 and 220 CE, at the end of the Han dynasty
Traditional Chinese medicine
–
Traditional Chinese medicines/dried goods shop in
Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Traditional Chinese medicine
–
Acupuncture chart from Hua Shou (
fl. 1340s,
Yuan Dynasty). This image from Shi si jing fa hui (Expression of the Fourteen Meridians). (Tokyo: Suharaya Heisuke kanko, Kyoho gan 1716).
Traditional Chinese medicine
–
Old Chinese medical chart on acupuncture meridians
Traditional Chinese medicine
–
Acupuncture chart from the
Ming Dynasty (c. 1368–1644)
20.
Feng shui
–
Feng Shui is a Chinese philosophical system of harmonizing everyone with the surrounding environment. It is closely linked to Taoism, the term feng shui literally translates as wind-water in English. The feng shui practice discusses architecture in terms of invisible forces that bind the universe, earth. There is no scientific evidence that feng shuis mystical claims are real. Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings—often spiritually significant structures such as tombs, depending on the particular style of feng shui being used, an auspicious site could be determined by reference to local features such as bodies of water, stars, or a compass. Qi rides the wind and scatters, but is retained when encountering water, Feng shui was suppressed in mainland China during the state-imposed Cultural Revolution of the 1960s but has since then regained popularity. The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience briefly summarizes the history and practice of feng shui and it states that the principles of feng shui related to living harmoniously with nature are quite rational, but does not otherwise lend credibility to the nonscientific claims. Its also a matter to dismiss the mystical energies said to be at its core. As of 2013 the Yangshao and Hongshan cultures provide the earliest known evidence for the use of feng shui, until the invention of the magnetic compass, feng shui apparently relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe. In 4000 BC, the doors of Banpo dwellings aligned with the asterism Yingshi just after the winter solstice—this sited the homes for solar gain. During the Zhou era, Yingshi was known as Ding and used to indicate the time to build a capital city. The late Yangshao site at Dadiwan includes a building at the center. The building faces south and borders a large plaza and it stands on a north-south axis with another building that apparently housed communal activities. Regional communities may have used the complex, a grave at Puyang that contains mosaics— actually a Chinese star map of the Dragon and Tiger asterisms and Beidou — is oriented along a north-south axis. Cosmography that bears a resemblance to modern feng shui devices and formulas appears on a piece of jade unearthed at Hanshan. Archaeologist Li Xueqin links the design to the astrolabe, zhinan zhen. Beginning with palatial structures at Erlitou, all cities of China followed rules of feng shui for their design. During the Zhou era, the Kaogong ji codified these rules, the carpenters manual Lu ban jing codified rules for builders
Feng shui
–
A
Luopan, Feng shui compass.
Feng shui
–
A feng shui
spiral at
LA Chinatown 's
Metro station
Feng shui
–
A traditional
turtle-back tomb of southern
Fujian, surrounded by an
omega -shaped ridge protecting it from the "noxious winds" from the three sides
Feng shui
–
A building in
Hong Kong with a hollow middle hole, utilizing feng shui benefits
21.
Japanese mon (currency)
–
The mon was the currency of Japan from the Muromachi period in 1336, until 1870. It co-circulated with the new sen until 1891, the Kanji for mon is 文 and the character for currency was widely used in the Chinese-character cultural sphere, e. g. Chinese wen Korean mun. Coins denominated in mon were cast in copper or iron and circulated alongside silver and gold ingots denominated in shu, bu and ryō, in 1869, due to depriciation against gold, the new fixing officially was set for 1 ryo/yen = equal to 10.000 mon. The yen started to replace the old duodecimal denominations in 1870, in 3rd quarter of 1870, smaller sen coins did not appear before spring,1873. So the mon coins remained a necessity for ordinary peoples commodities,1,1954 onward the mon became invalid, postwar inflation had removed sen, mon etc. denominations smaller than 1 Yen. Due to the missing small coinage, the Japanese posts e. g. issued their first stamps in mon, during the co-existence with the sen, the metal content of the old currency became important. Official exchange for coins from 1871.6.27,4 mon copper =2 rin,1 mon bronze =1 rin, so a mon was not a mon, but its metal kind counted after switchover to decimal sen, bronze was better than copper. There were no rin coins before 1873, it was just accounting unit, by the way, the most current coin, the Tempo was accounted merely with 8 rin in that sen period. Mon coins were holed, allowing them to be together on a piece of string. In the Edo-period of Japan, stringed-together coins received a discount when presented like this. E. g. for 100 Mon payment, if those 1 Mon coins were all tied in a row, discount given was 4 mon, similar discounts existed probably for other bulk payments with small coinage in stringed form. Through Japanese history, there were different styles of currency of many shapes, styles, designs, sizes and materials, including gold, silver, bronze. Wadōkaichin Economy of Japan Tokugawa coinage Chinese wen Korean mun Vietnamese van Titsingh, nipon o daï itsi ran, ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. ]Paris, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Click for digitized, full-text copy of this book
Japanese mon (currency)
–
Kan'ei Tsūhō (寛永通宝) coins. The top ones were each worth 4 mon, the middle and bottom ones were worth 1 mon each.
Japanese mon (currency)
–
Bunkyū ēhō (文久永宝). Branched ("Edasen" 枝銭) Mon coins of the
Bunkyū period. This shows the foundry technique to make the coins: the coins would then be clipped and filed to obtain the final round shape.
22.
Korean mun
–
The mun was introduced as the main currency of Korea in 1633 and stayed in use until 1892. It resembled and was derived from the Chinese wen, Coins denominated in mun were cast in copper or bronze and were round with square holes. In 1888, coins were struck in small numbers denominated in mun, the mun was replaced in 1892 when the yang was introduced. The first definitive record of use in Korea appears in the Goryeo period. Early in that period, even though some imported Chinese currency was in circulation, commodity currency such as grain, in the 10th and 11th centuries, iron and copper coins along with silver vase-shaped coins were issued, but never widely circulated. It was not until the beginning of the Joseon period that copper coins were minted for wide circulation, from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century, coins denominated in mun bearing the inscription Sangpyeong Tongbo were the most widely circulated currency. Chinese wen Vietnamese van Japanese mon Kurt Schuler, tables of modern monetary history, Asia. Op Den Velde and Hartill Cast Korean Coins and Charms
Korean mun
–
Sangpyeong Tongbo
23.
Vietnamese cash
–
Vietnamese cash is a cast round coin with a square hole. The same type of currency circulated in China, Japan and Korea for centuries, the first Vietnamese coins were cast under the rule of the Đinh Dynasty. Cash coins circulated in the 19th century along with silver and gold bars, as well as silver, denominations up to 10 tien were minted, with the 7 tiền coins in gold and silver being similar in size and weight to the Spanish 8 real and 8 escudo pieces. These coins continued to be minted into the 20th century, albeit supplanted by French colonial coinage. After the introduction of coinage by the French in 1878. The last king whose name was cast on cash coins, Emperor Bảo Đại, there were several efforts by French administration to produce machine-struck cash, Emperors Khải Định and Bảo Đại produced both cast and machine-struck cash. Vietnamese dynasties Cash Chinese cash Japanese mon Korean mun Pham Quoc Quan, Nguyen Dinh Chien, Nguyen Quoc Binh and Xiong Bao Kang, Bao Tang Lich Su Viet Nam. Collection Banknotes of Vietnam and the World Coins and Banknotes of Vietnam and French Indochina Cash coins of Vietnam 968 -1945
Vietnamese cash
–
French Cochinchina 1/1000 Piastre 1878 copper
Vietnamese cash
–
First Vietnamese cash: Thai Binh Hung Bao 太平興寶 Đinh Dynasty (968-981)
Vietnamese cash
–
French Indochina 1/500 Piastre 1902 copper
Vietnamese cash
–
Tonkin 1/600 Piastre 1905 zinc
24.
English language
–
English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩
English language
–
The opening to the Old English epic poem
Beowulf,
handwritten in
half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
–
Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
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Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales c.1400
25.
Tamil language
–
Tamil is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka, and also by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is a language of two countries, Singapore and Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and it is also used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and it is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. Tamil is one of the classical languages in the world. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from 500 BC have been found on Adichanallur and 2 and it has been described as the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past. The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as one of the classical traditions. A recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years, the earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from ca.300 BC – AD300. It has the oldest extant literature among other Dravidian languages, the earliest epigraphic records found on rock edicts and hero stones date from around the 3rd century BC. More than 55% of the inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India are in the Tamil language. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka, the two earliest manuscripts from India, acknowledged and registered by the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, were written in Tamil. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiraan Vanakkam, the Tamil Lexicon, published by the University of Madras, was one of the earliest dictionaries published in the Indian languages. According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent. It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, the closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam, the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. According to linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Tamil, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BC, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of the associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India. The next phase in the reconstructed proto-history of Tamil is Proto-South Dravidian, the linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-South Dravidian was spoken around the middle of the second millennium BC, and that proto-Tamil emerged around the 3rd century BC. The earliest epigraphic attestations of Tamil are generally taken to have been shortly thereafter
Tamil language
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Silver coin of king
Vashishtiputra Sātakarni (c. AD 160). Obv: Bust of king; Rev: Ujjain/Sātavāhana symbol, crescented six-arch chaitya hill and river with
Tamil Brahmi script
Tamil language
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Tamil
Tamil language
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Agastya, Chairman of first Tamil
Sangam,
Madurai,
Pandiya Kingdom
Tamil language
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Mangulam Tamil Brahmi inscription
26.
South India
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The region occupies 19. 31% of Indias land area. Covering the southern part of the peninsular Deccan Plateau, South India is bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west, and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse, with two ranges, the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari River, Krishna River, Kaveri, Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Coimbatore and Kochi are the largest urban areas. Majority of the people in South India speak one of the four major Dravidian languages, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. During its history, a number of kingdoms ruled over parts of South India whose invasions across southern and southeastern Asia impacted the history. Major dynasties that were established in South India include the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas, Satavahanas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas, european countries entered India through Kerala and the region was colonised by Britain and other nations. HDI in the states is high and the economy has undergone growth at a faster rate than most northern states. Literacy rates in the states are higher than the national average with approximately 80% of the population capable of reading and writing. The fertility rate in South India is 1.9, the lowest of all regions in India, South India also known as Peninsular India has been known by several other names. Carnatic derived from Karnād or Karunād meaning high country has also associated with South India. Carbon dating on ash mounds associated with Neolithic cultures in South India date back to 8000 BCE, artefacts such as ground stone axes, and minor copper objects have been found in the region. Towards the beginning of 1000 BCE, iron technology spread through the region, however, the region was in the middle of a trade route that extended from Muziris to Arikamedu linking the Mediterranean and East Asia. Trade with Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, Jews, the region was part of the ancient Silk Road connecting the Asian continent in the East and the West. C. to 14th century A. D. The Vijayanagara Empire, founded in 14th century A. D. was the last Indian dynasty that ruled over the region. The Europeans arrived in the 15th century and by the middle of the 18th century, the French, the British Empire took control of the region from the British East India Company in 1857. During the British colonial rule, the region was divided into the Madras Presidency, Hyderabad state, Mysore, Travancore, Kochi, Vizianagaram and a number of other minor princely states. After the independence of India in 1947, the region was organised into four states, Madras State, Mysore State, Hyderabad State and Travancore-Cochin
South India
–
Jog Falls are the highest plunge waterfalls in India.
South India
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South India shown in red
South India
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Kanyakumari,
Tamil Nadu is the southernmost tip of the peninsular landmass
South India
–
Ancient city of
Hampi,
Karnataka the seat of the
Vijayanagara empire
27.
Chinese language
–
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
Chinese language
–
The
Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the
Chinese Buddhist canon
Chinese language
–
Hànyǔ (Chinese) written in
traditional (left) and
simplified (right) characters
Chinese language
–
"
Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion " by
Wang Xizhi, written in
semi-cursive style
28.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
29.
Casting
–
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting materials are usually metals or various cold setting materials that cure after mixing two or more together, examples are epoxy, concrete, plaster and clay. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods. The oldest surviving casting is a frog from 3200 BC. In metalworking, metal is heated until it becomes liquid and is poured into a mold. The mold is a cavity that includes the desired shape. The mold and the metal are then cooled until the metal solidifies, the solidified part is then recovered from the mold. Subsequent operations remove excess material caused by the casting process, when casting plaster or concrete, the material surface is flat and lacks transparency. Often topical treatments are applied to the surface, for example, painting and etching can be used in a way that give the appearance of metal or stone. Alternatively, the material is altered in its initial casting process, by casting concrete, rather than plaster, it is possible to create sculptures, fountains, or seating for outdoor use. A simulation of high-quality marble may be made using certain chemically-set plastic resins with powdered stone added for coloration, raw castings often contain irregularities caused by seams and imperfections in the molds, as well as access ports for pouring material into the molds. The process of cutting, grinding, shaving or sanding away these unwanted bits is called fettling, simulation accurately describes a cast component’s quality up-front before production starts. The casting rigging can be designed with respect to the component properties. This has benefits beyond a reduction in sampling, as the precise layout of the complete casting system also leads to energy, material. The software supports the user in component design, the determination of melting practice and casting methoding through to pattern and mold making, heat treatment and this saves costs along the entire casting manufacturing route. Since the late 80s, commercial programs are available which make it possible for foundries to gain new insight into what is happening inside the mold or die during the casting process
Casting
–
Molten metal prior to casting
Casting
–
Casting iron in a sand mold
Casting
–
Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial (Nameless Library), by
Rachel Whiteread. Concrete cast of books on library shelves turned inside out.
30.
Brass
–
Brass is a metal alloy made of copper and zinc, the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties. It is an alloy, atoms of the two constituents may replace each other within the same crystal structure. By comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin, however, bronze and brass may also include small proportions of a range of other elements including arsenic, phosphorus, aluminium, manganese, and silicon. The term is applied to a variety of brasses. Modern practice in museums and archaeology increasingly avoids both terms for objects in favour of the all-embracing copper alloy. It is also used in zippers, Brass is often used in situations in which it is important that sparks not be struck, such as in fittings and tools used near flammable or explosive materials. Brass has higher malleability than bronze or zinc, the relatively low melting point of brass and its flow characteristics make it a relatively easy material to cast. By varying the proportions of copper and zinc, the properties of the brass can be changed, allowing hard, the density of brass is 8.4 to 8.73 grams per cubic centimetre. Today, almost 90% of all alloys are recycled. Because brass is not ferromagnetic, it can be separated from ferrous scrap by passing the scrap near a powerful magnet, Brass scrap is collected and transported to the foundry where it is melted and recast into billets. Billets are heated and extruded into the form and size. The general softness of brass means that it can often be machined without the use of cutting fluid, aluminium makes brass stronger and more corrosion-resistant. Aluminium also causes a highly beneficial hard layer of oxide to be formed on the surface that is thin, transparent. Tin has an effect and finds its use especially in seawater applications. Combinations of iron, aluminium, silicon and manganese make brass wear and tear resistant, to enhance the machinability of brass, lead is often added in concentrations of around 2%. Since lead has a melting point than the other constituents of the brass. The pattern the globules form on the surface of the brass increases the available surface area which in turn affects the degree of leaching. In addition, cutting operations can smear the lead globules over the surface and these effects can lead to significant lead leaching from brasses of comparatively low lead content
Brass
–
Brass
die, along with zinc and copper samples.
Brass
–
Brass
lectern with an eagle. Attributed to
Aert van Tricht,
Limburg (Netherlands), c. 1500.
Brass
–
Microstructure of rolled and
annealed brass (400X magnification)
Brass
–
Brass sampling cock with stainless steel handle.
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This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.
