1.
You (vessel)
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A you is a lidded vessel that was used for liquid offerings by the Chinese of the Zhou and Shang Dynasties. It sometimes lacks taotie in favor of smoother surfaces, sometimes these vessels are zoomorphic, especially in the form of two owls back to back. Usually the handle of the you is in the form of a loop that attaches on either side of the lid and they can be quadruped or have a single base. Ringing Thunder- Tomb Treasures from Ancient China, San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art. The great bronze age of China, an exhibition from the Peoples Republic of China, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
You (vessel)
2.
Zhou Dynasty
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The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. This period of Chinese history produced what many consider the zenith of Chinese bronze-ware making, the dynasty also spans the period in which the written script evolved into its almost-modern form with the use of an archaic clerical script that emerged during the late Warring States period. He even received sacrifice as a harvest god, the term Hòujì was probably an hereditary title attached to a lineage. Jus son Liu, however, led his people to prosperity by restoring agriculture and settling them at a place called Bin, tai later led the clan from Bin to Zhou, an area in the Wei River valley of modern-day Qishan County. Taibo and Zhongyong had supposedly fled to the Yangtze delta. Jilis son Wen bribed his way out of imprisonment and moved the Zhou capital to Feng, the Zhou enfeoffed a member of the defeated Shang royal family as the Duke of Song, which was held by descendants of the Shang royal family until its end. This practice was referred to as Two Kings, Three Reverences, according to Nicholas Bodman, the Zhou appear to have spoken a language not basically different in vocabulary and syntax from that of the Shang. A recent study by David McCraw, using lexical statistics, reached the same conclusion, the Zhou emulated extensively Shang cultural practices, perhaps to legitimize their own rule, and became the successors to Shang culture. At the same time, the Zhou may also have connected to the Xirong, a broadly defined cultural group to the west of the Shang. According to the historian Li Feng, the term Rong during the Western Zhou period was used to designate political and military adversaries rather than cultural. The proto-Zhou were first located in the Shaanxi-Shanxi highland, where they absorbed elements from the Guangshe culture, King Liu moved his people to the lower Fen Valley and to the western bank of the Yellow River, where they resumed agriculture. His son Qing Jie, led the Zhou to the valley of the Jing River. They stayed there until Dan Fu moved again to the Wei Valley in order to avoid incursion by the Rongdi nomads. During this period, the Zhou mingled with the Qiang people, in all these stages, the advanced Shang bronze culture constantly imparted its influence on the Zhou. The Qi area was the region in all these influences would come to fruition. The contact among the proto-Zhou, the native Shaanxi Longshan, the Qiang, King Wu maintained the old capital for ceremonial purposes but constructed a new one for his palace and administration nearby at Hao. Although Wus early death left a young and inexperienced heir, the Duke of Zhou assisted his nephew King Cheng in consolidating royal power. Wary of the Duke of Zhous increasing power, the Three Guards, Zhou princes stationed on the eastern plain, to maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system
Zhou Dynasty
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History of China
Zhou Dynasty
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Population concentration and boundaries of the Western Zhou dynasty (1050–771 BC) in China
Zhou Dynasty
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States of the Western Zhou dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
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A Western Zhou bronze gui vessel, c. 1000 BC
3.
Shanghai Museum
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The Shanghai Museum is a museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the Peoples Square in the Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is considered one of Chinas first world-class modern museums, the museum was founded in 1952 and was first open to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house, now at 325 West Nanjing Road. The former Shanghai Municipal Museum was also merged into the new Shanghai Museum, in 1959 the museum moved into the Zhonghui Building at 16 South Henan Road, which previously housed insurance companies and bank offices. During the metal-gathering campaign of the Great Leap Forward, Shanghai Museum participated in rescuing bronzeware from metal that had been confiscated or donated and were sent to be melted down, before the Cultural Revolution, a tradition formed whereby Shanghais wealthy collectors would make annual donations to the museum. The museums work largely halted as a result of the Cultural Revolution, the growth of its collections put enormous pressure on the museums cramped premises. When a new museum was omitted from Shanghais five-year reconstruction plan in 1992, after seeing the dilapidated rooms of the Zhonghui Building, Huang agreed to allocate a prime site on the Peoples Square, but the museum had to raise its own building funds. Ma raised US$25 million by leasing the old building to a Hong Kong developer and he also made many trips abroad to solicit donations, mainly from the Shanghai diaspora who had fled to Hong Kong after the Communist revolution, raising another $10 million. The money still ran short, but he won another 140 million yuan from the city government to complete the building. Construction of the current building started in August 1993 and it was inaugurated on October 12,1996 to wide acclaim. It is 29.5 meters high with five floors, covering an area of 39,200 m². Designed by local architect Xing Tonghe, the building is designed in the shape of an ancient bronze cooking vessel called a ding and it is said that the inspiration for the design was specifically provided by the Da Ke Ding, now on exhibit in the museum. The building has a top and a square base, symbolizing the ancient Chinese perception of the world as round sky. The museum has a collection of over 120,000 pieces, including bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, furniture, jades, ancient coins, paintings, seals, sculptures, minority art and foreign art. The Shanghai Museum houses several items of importance, including one of three extant specimens of a transparent bronze mirror from the Han Dynasty. It has eleven galleries and three special exhibition halls. The collection contains 1783 pieces from the Greeks to the Mongol Empire, ancient Chinese Ceramic Gallery The Shanghai Museum. Shanghai, Shanghai Classics Publishing House,1996
Shanghai Museum
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Shanghai Museum 上海博物馆
Shanghai Museum
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Carved lacquer furniture
Shanghai Museum
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You with zigzag thunder pattern, early
Zhou Dynasty
Shanghai Museum
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Ruyao (汝窑) porcelain wares from the
Northern Song Dynasty
4.
Tomb of Fu Hao
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The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the ancient Shang dynasty capital Yin, within the modern city of Anyang in Henan Province, China. It is to date the only Shang royal tomb found intact with its contents, in 1976 archaeologists probing the area around Yinxu with a long shovel, called a Luoyang shovel, recovered some samples of red lacquer. The burial pit uncovered, officially titled tomb number 5, is a pit,5.6 metres by 4 m. The tomb has been dated to around BCE1200 and identified, from inscriptions on ritual bronzes and her tomb, one of the smaller tombs, is one of the best-preserved Shang dynasty royal tombs and the only one not to have been looted before excavation. Inside the pit was evidence of a wooden chamber 5 meters long,3.5 m wide and 1.3 m high containing a wooden coffin that has since completely rotted away. The floor level housed the royal corpse and most of the utensils, there is also evidence above ground of a structure built over the tomb that probably served as an ancestral hall for holding memorial ceremonies, this has since been restored. Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, from some 800 years later, website on the tomb 10 minute documentary feature, part 1 of 7
Tomb of Fu Hao
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Burial pit at Tomb of Lady Fu Hao, as now displayed
Tomb of Fu Hao
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Bronze vessel in the form of an owl from the Fuhao Tomb
Tomb of Fu Hao
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Types
5.
Gu (vessel)
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A gu is type of ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It was used to drink wine or to offer ritual libations, a gu is tall and slender, with a slightly flared base that tapers to a slim center section before widening again into a trumpet-like mouth, wider than the base. Its surface is decorated with taotie. A gu from the Shang dynasty was among the 13 works of art stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on 18 March 1990, along with paintings by Rembrandt, the gu vessel was known for its use as a wine drinking vessel. It is said to have developed from other elaborate cups that also had high stems and were found in Neolithic cultures, inscriptions have been found on ancient vessels stating that it was common to drink wine in Chinese cultures. The creation of a such as the gu makes sense in modern times because of its shape. The long stem made it easy to hold and sip from, while allowing it to take on unique. Throughout the hundreds of Neolithic to early dynastic sites discovered in China, the form, shapes, and décor, provide hints to the every vessel’s function as well as the early beliefs that inspired them. Early Chinese religion has been difficult for scholars to understand due to a lack of archaeological evidence on Neolithic religious philosophies. The gu was a wine vessel to be found in high class areas. This wine vessel has been found in such as meeting areas were high class Chinese members would gather for wine with one another. The gu vessel can be unique in a number of ways, the more elegant styled vessels with more relief and design would be found more commonly in the high class surroundings. The simpler, tall and narrow, gu vessels would be throughout the familys households. According to the Tsun family, the gu vessel was found to be listed under the Wine Containers list of artifacts that have found in the Shang civilizations. This allows archaeologists to focus on locations of gu vessels to help indicate the status of the site. In Book 6, verse 25, of the Confucian Analects, the only evidence we have of ritual use of this vessel is its strong association with wine, spirits, and high class rulers. Later engraved vessels help support the significance of ritual wine drinking as part of ritual ceremony. The gu vessel appears in an engraving of a ritual scene found on a yi vessel discovered in a tomb in Shaanxi in which the gu being used in the engraving highly resembles the gu of the Shang
Gu (vessel)
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A gu from the middle Shang Dynasty,
Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China
Gu (vessel)
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A gu from the Shang Dynasty,
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Gu (vessel)
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A pottery gu discovered in 1960 at the Erlitou sites
Gu (vessel)
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Types
6.
Chinese Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
Chinese Bronze Age
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Chalcolithic copper mine in
Timna Valley,
Negev Desert,
Israel.
Chinese Bronze Age
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Diffusion of metallurgy in
Europe and
Asia Minor. The darkest areas are the oldest.
Chinese Bronze Age
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A
Shang Dynasty two-handled bronze gefuding gui (1600–1046 BC).
Chinese Bronze Age
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Spring and Autumn Period pu bronze vessel with interlaced
dragon design (722–481 BC)
7.
Shang dynasty
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The Shang dynasty or Yin dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c.1600 to 1046 BC, the Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, the Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king is given, a closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history, the name Yīn is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and in the current text version of the Bamboo Annals for both the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a name for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi, it has often used specifically to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still referred to almost exclusively as the Yin dynasty, however it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the bones, which refer to the state as Shāng. It also does not appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13 generations later, when Xies descendant Tang overthrew the impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the final king Di Xin. According to the Records, the Shang moved their capital five times, Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou. Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive Battle of Muye, according to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody
Shang dynasty
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History of China
Shang dynasty
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Remnants of advanced, stratified societies dating back to the Shang period have been found in the Yellow River Valley.
Shang dynasty
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The site of
Yin, the capital (1350–1046 BC) of the Shang dynasty, also called Yin dynasty
Shang dynasty
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Oracle bones pit at Yin
8.
Grave goods
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Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a type of votive deposit, most grave goods recovered by archaeologists consist of inorganic objects such as pottery and stone and metal tools but organic objects that have since decayed were also placed in ancient tombs. Funerary art is a term but generally means artworks made specifically to decorate a burial place. Where grave goods appear, grave robbery is a potential problem, etruscans would scratch the word śuθina, Etruscan for from a tomb, on grave goods buried with the dead to discourage their reuse by the living. The tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun is famous because it was one of the few Egyptian tombs that was not thoroughly looted in ancient times, Grave goods can be regarded as a sacrifice intended for the benefit of the deceased in the afterlife. Closely related are customs of worship and offerings to the dead, in modern western culture related to All Souls Day, in East Asia the hell bank note. Also closely related is the custom of retainer sacrifice, where servants or wives of a deceased chieftain are interred with the body, evidence for intentional burial is found in Neanderthal sites from 130,000 years ago or earlier. In Homo sapiens burials beginning about 100,000 years ago, the body of the deceased was sprinkled with red ochre, and offerings of food, tools, and fresh flowers may have been deposited in the grave. Beads made of basalt deposited in graves in the Fertile Crescent date to the end of the Upper Paleolithic, the distribution of grave goods are a potential indicator of the social stratification of a society. It is also possible that burial goods indicate a level of concern and consciousness in regard to an afterlife, the expression of social status in rich graves is taken to extremes in the royal graves of the Bronze Age. In the Theban Necropolis in Ancient Egypt, the pyramids and the graves in the Valley of the Kings are among the most elaborate burials in human history. This trend is continued into the Iron Age, an example of an extremely rich royal grave of the Iron Age is the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang. In the sphere of the Roman Empire, early Christian graves lack grave goods, in the Christian Middle Ages, high-status graves are marked on the exterior, with tomb effigies or expensive tomb stones rather than by the presence of grave goods. The importance of goods, from the simple behavioural and technical to the metaphysical. However, care must be taken to avoid naive interpretation of grave goods as a sample of artefacts in use in a culture. Because of their context, grave goods may represent a special class of artifacts. Burial Grave field Necropolis Mingqi, the traditional Chinese burial goods The Earliest Beads, Treasures From the Ancient World, Museum of Ancient and Modern Art, at muma. org
Grave goods
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The
gilded throne of
Pharaoh Tutankhamun is but one of the treasures found within his tomb.
Grave goods
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Warrior's burial from Hamburg-Marmstorf Grave
Grave goods
–
A
Copper Age grave group including a stone wristguard, copper dagger and bone belt fitting found at
Sittingbourne
9.
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
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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.
10.
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
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Job announcement in a Filipino Chinese daily newspaper written in Traditional Chinese characters.
Traditional Chinese characters
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A Series of Reading workbook in Traditional Chinese used in some Elementary schools in the Philippines.
11.
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
12.
Chinese art
–
Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists. The Chinese art in the Republic of China and that of overseas Chinese can also be considered part of Chinese art where it is based in or draws on Chinese heritage, early stone age art dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After this early period Chinese art, like Chinese history, is classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors. After contacts with Western art became increasingly important from the 19th century onwards, traditional Chinese painting involves essentially the same techniques as Chinese calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink, oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made of paper, the finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, the two main techniques in Chinese painting are, Gong-bi, meaning meticulous, uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimits details very precisely. It is often coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. It is often practised by artists working for the court or in independent workshops. Bird-and-flower paintings were often in this style and this style is also referred to as xie yi or freehand style. Artists from the Han to the Tang dynasties mainly painted the human figure, much of what is known of early Chinese figure painting comes from burial sites, where paintings were preserved on silk banners, lacquered objects, and tomb walls. Many early tomb paintings were meant to protect the dead or help their souls get to paradise, others illustrated the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, or showed scenes of daily life. Most Chinese portraits showed a formal full-length frontal view, and were used in the family in ancestor veneration, Imperial portraits were more flexible, but were generally not seen outside the court, and portraiture formed no part of Imperial propaganda, as in other cultures. Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting, the time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period is known as the Great age of Chinese landscape. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer and these two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting. Chinese ritual bronzes from the Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties come from a period of over a thousand years from c,1500, and have exerted a continuing influence over Chinese art. They are cast with complex patterned and zoomorphic decoration, but avoid the human figure, smaller figures in pottery or wood were placed in tombs for many centuries afterwards, reaching a peak of quality in the Tang Dynasty. Buddhism is also the context of all large portrait sculpture, in total contrast to other areas in medieval China even painted images of the emperor were regarded as private. Imperial tombs have spectacular avenues of approach lined with real and mythological animals on a scale matching Egypt, and smaller versions decorate temples and palaces
Chinese art
–
Chinese
jade ornament, with
dragon and
phoenix design, of the late
Spring and Autumn Period (722–482 BC).
Chinese art
–
Early Autumn, 13th century, by
Song loyalist painter
Qian Xuan. The decaying lotus leaves and dragonflies hovering over stagnant water are probably a veiled criticism of
Mongol rule.
Chinese art
–
Ju ware bowl in the shape of a lotus, 1086-1106 AD
Chinese art
–
Portrait of the
Yuan dynasty Emperor
Kubilai Khan
13.
Xia Dynasty
–
The Xia dynasty is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese history. It is described in ancient historical chronicles such as the Bamboo Annals, the Classic of History, according to tradition, the dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him. The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang dynasty, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BCE. The first documentary reference to the Xia dates from more than a years later. Therefore, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link the Xia with Bronze Age Erlitou archaeological sites, the Xia dynasty was described in classic texts such as the Classic of History, the Bamboo Annals, and the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. According to tradition, the Huaxia were the people of the Han Chinese. Traditional histories trace the development of the Xia to the legendary Three Sovereigns, according to ancient Chinese texts, before the Xia dynasty was established, battles were frequent between the Xia tribe and Chi Yous tribe. The Xia tribe slowly developed around the time of Zhuanxu, one of the Five Emperors, based on this, tradition ascribes the ancestry of the Xia clan to Zhuanxu. Gun, the father of Yu the Great, is the earliest recorded member of the Xia clan, when the Yellow River flooded, many tribes united together to control and stop the flooding. Gun was appointed by Emperor Yao to stop the flooding and he ordered the construction of large blockades to block the path of the water. The attempt of Gun to stop the flooding lasted for nine years, after nine years, Yao had already given his throne to Shun. Yu was highly trusted by Shun, so Shun appointed him to finish his fathers work, Yu was dedicated to his work. People praised his perseverance and were inspired, so much so that other tribes joined in the work, yus success in stopping the flooding increased agricultural production. The Xia tribes power increased and Yu became the leader of the surrounding tribes, soon afterwards Shun sent Yu to lead an army to suppress the Sanmiao tribe, which continuously abused the border tribes. After defeating them, he exiled them south to the Han River area and this victory strengthened the Xia tribes power even more. As Shun aged, he thought of a successor and relinquished the throne to Yu, yus succession marks the start of the Xia dynasty. As Yu neared death he passed the throne to his son, Qi, instead of passing it to the most capable candidate, the Xia dynasty began a period of family or clan control. It is believed that Zhenxun was one of the capitals of the dynasty, jie, the last king, was said to be corrupt
Xia Dynasty
–
History of China
Xia Dynasty
–
Proposed location of the Xia dynasty
14.
Shang Dynasty
–
The Shang dynasty or Yin dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c.1600 to 1046 BC, the Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, the Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king is given, a closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history, the name Yīn is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and in the current text version of the Bamboo Annals for both the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a name for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi, it has often used specifically to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still referred to almost exclusively as the Yin dynasty, however it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the bones, which refer to the state as Shāng. It also does not appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13 generations later, when Xies descendant Tang overthrew the impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the final king Di Xin. According to the Records, the Shang moved their capital five times, Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou. Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive Battle of Muye, according to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody
Shang Dynasty
–
History of China
Shang Dynasty
–
Remnants of advanced, stratified societies dating back to the Shang period have been found in the Yellow River Valley.
Shang Dynasty
–
The site of
Yin, the capital (1350–1046 BC) of the Shang dynasty, also called Yin dynasty
Shang Dynasty
–
Oracle bones pit at Yin
15.
Chinese porcelain
–
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era, Porcelain is so identified with China that it is still called china in everyday English usage. Most later Chinese ceramics, even of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, many of the most important kiln workshops were owned by or reserved for the Emperor, and large quantities of ceramics were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date. The earliest Chinese pottery was earthenware, which continued in production for utilitarian uses throughout Chinese history, but was increasingly less used for fine wares. Porcelain, on a Western definition, is a term comprising all ceramic ware that is white and translucent. The Chinese tradition recognizes two categories of ceramics, high-fired and low-fired, so doing without stoneware, which in Chinese tradition is mostly grouped with porcelain. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used for stonewares with porcelain-like characteristics, the Erya defined porcelain as fine, compact pottery. Chinese pottery can also classified as being either northern or southern, the kiln types were also different. Southern materials have high silica, low alumina and high potassium oxide, the northern materials are often very suitable for stoneware, while in the south there are also areas highly suitable for porcelain. Chinese porcelain is made by a combination of the following materials. Porcelain stone - decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks, historically known as petunse. Feldspar Quartz In the context of Chinese ceramics, the term lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made, claims have been made for the late Eastern Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period, the Six Dynasties period, and the Tang dynasty. Chinese kiln technology has always been a key factor in the development of Chinese pottery, the Chinese developed effective kilns capable of firing at around 1, 000°C before 2000 BC. These were updraft kilns, often built below ground, two main types of kiln were developed by about 200 AD and remained in use until modern times. Both could reliably produce the temperatures of up to 1300°C or more needed for porcelain, in the late Ming, the egg-shaped kiln or zhenyao was developed at Jingdezhen, but mainly used there. This was something of a compromise between the types, and offered locations in the firing chamber with a range of firing conditions. According to Science, pottery dating from 20,000 years ago were found at the Xianrendong Cave site
Chinese porcelain
–
Covered red jar with
dragon and sea design from the
Jiajing period in the
Ming dynasty
Chinese porcelain
–
19th century porcelain vase with cover painted with overglaze enamels from
Guangdong province. This type of ware, known for its colourful decoration that covers most of the surface of the piece, was popular as an export ware.
Chinese porcelain
–
A qingbai porcelain vase, bowl, and model of a
granary, including most everyday kitchen and tablewares until modern times, but also very fine pottery, notably the sculptures especially associated with
Han and
Tang dynasty tombs.
Chinese porcelain
–
A black pottery cooking cauldron from the
Hemudu culture (c. 5000 – c. 3000 BC)
16.
Ding (vessel)
–
Ding were prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons, standing upon legs with a lid and two facing handles. They are one of the most important shapes used in Chinese ritual bronzes and they were made in two shapes, round vessels with three legs and rectangular ones with four, the latter often called fanding. They were used for cooking, storage, and ritual offerings to the gods or to ancestors, under the Zhou, the ding and the privilege to perform the associated rituals became symbols of authority. In Chinese history and culture, possession of one or more ancient ding is often associated with power, therefore, the ding is often used as an implicit symbolism for power. The term inquiring of the ding is often used interchangeably with the quest for power, in the early Bronze Age of China, the use of wine and food vessels served a religious purpose. While ding were the most important food vessels, wine vessels were the more prominent ritual bronzes of this time, likely due to the belief in Shamanism, Ding were used to make ritual sacrifices, both human and animal, to ancestors. They varied in size, but were quite large, indicating that whole animals were likely sacrificed. The sacrifices were meant to appease ancestors due to the Shang belief that spirits had the capability to affect the world of the living, if the ancestors were happy, the living would be blessed with good fortune. During the Early Western Zhou Dynasty, the people underwent a political and cultural change, King Wu of Zhou believed that the Shang people were drunkards. He believed that their over-consumption of wine led their king to lose the Mandate of Heaven, because of this belief, food vessels replaced wine vessels in importance. Bronze vessels underwent what has been the Ritual Revolution and this theory suggests that because there was a change in decor as well as the types and variations of vessels found in tombs, their function shifted from solely religious to a more secular one. Instead of sacrificing food to ancestors, the Zhou used ding to show off the status of the deceased to both the living and spirits. For example, emperors were buried with nine ding, feudal lords with seven, ministers with five, the vessels served as symbols of authority for the elite far into the Warring States period. This is the period to which the oldest examples of bronze dings date, inscriptions found on dings and zhongs are used to study bronzeware script. The most commonly believed bronze vessel casting process of ancient Chinese vessels is the mold process. The model would then be shaved down to form the core, when the bronze had cooled, the clay would be broken away from the vessel, and the process was complete. A newer variation on the mold process was put forth as a way to explain asymmetrical faces on vessels which, as a rule. It was proposed that décor was not made on a model and then transferred to the outer mold layer, décor was added in a variety of ways
Ding (vessel)
–
A ding from the late
Shang Dynasty.
Ding (vessel)
–
Square ding; the human face is highly unusual decoration
Ding (vessel)
–
Ceramic tripod ding,
Han Dynasty
Ding (vessel)
–
Shang dynasty, 1300-1046 BC
17.
Gui (vessel)
–
A gui is a type of bowl-shaped ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel used to hold offerings of food, probably mainly grain, for ancestral tombs. As with other shapes, the ritual bronzes followed early pottery versions for domestic use, the shape changed somewhat over the centuries but constant characteristics are a circular form, with a rounded, wide, profile or shape from the side, standing on a narrower rim or foot. There are usually two, or sometimes four, handles, and there may be a cover or a square base, the Kang Hou Gui, an 11th-century BC example in the British Museum was chosen as object 23 in the A History of the World in 100 Objects. The British Museum bowl inscription on the inside of the bowl tells that King Wus brother, Kang Hou, the inscription relates a rebellion by remnants of the Shang, and its defeat by the Zhou, which helps us to date it. Because historians know exactly when this unsuccessful rebellion against the Zhou dynasty took place then the bowl can be dated very accurately, ringing Thunder- Tomb Treasures from Ancient China. San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art, the great bronze age of China, an exhibition from the Peoples Republic of China. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, media related to Gui at Wikimedia Commons The development of the Gui, illustrated by examples in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 12th century B. C. Shang dynasty late 11th–early 10th century B. C, western Zhou early 9th century B. C
Gui (vessel)
–
Shang dynasty bronze gui
Gui (vessel)
–
Gui with four handles, a cover and a square base
Gui (vessel)
–
The "
Kang Hou Gui ", early
Western Zhou (11th century BC).
British Museum,
London.
18.
Song dynasty
–
The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Song dynasty
–
History of China
Song dynasty
–
Northern Song in 1111
Song dynasty
–
Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Song dynasty
–
Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
19.
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
20.
Qianlong Emperor
–
The Qianlong Emperor was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. This turned around in his years, the Qing empire began to decline with rampant corruption and wastefulness in his court. Hongli was adored both by his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor and his father, the Yongzheng Emperor, some historians argue that the main reason why the Kangxi Emperor appointed the Yongzheng Emperor as his successor was because Hongli was his favourite grandson. He felt that Honglis mannerisms were similar to his own. As a teenager, Hongli was very capable in martial arts, after his fathers enthronement in 1722, Hongli was made a qinwang under the title Prince Bao of the First Rank. For many years, the Yongzheng Emperor did not designate any of his sons as the crown prince, Hongli went on inspection trips to the south, and was known to be an able negotiator and enforcer. He was also appointed as the regent on occasions when his father was away from the capital. Honglis accession to the throne was already foreseen before he was proclaimed emperor before the assembled imperial court upon the death of the Yongzheng Emperor. The name in the box was to be revealed to other members of the family in the presence of all senior ministers only upon the death of the emperor. When the Yongzheng Emperor died suddenly in 1735, the will was taken out and read before the entire Qing imperial court, Hongli adopted the era name Qianlong, which is composed of the characters 乾 and 隆 and which collectively mean Lasting Eminence. The Qianlong Emperor was a military leader. Immediately after ascending the throne, he sent armies to suppress the Miao rebellion and his later campaigns greatly expanded the territory controlled by the Qing Empire. This was made not only by Qing military might, but also by the disunity. Under the Qianlong Emperors reign, the Dzungar Khanate was incorporated into the Qing Empires rule and renamed Xinjiang, while to the west, the incorporation of Xinjiang into the Qing Empire resulted from the final defeat and destruction of the Dzungars, a coalition of Western Mongol tribes. The Qianlong Emperor then ordered the Dzungar genocide, historian Peter Perdue has argued that the decimation of the Dzungars was the result of an explicit policy of massacre launched by the Qianlong Emperor. Khalkha Mongol rebels under Prince Chingünjav had plotted with the Dzungar leader Amursana, the Qing army crushed the rebellion and executed Chingünjav and his entire family. Poems glorifying the Qing conquest and genocide of the Dzungar Mongols were written by Zhao, Zhao Yi wrote the Yanpu zaji in brush-notes style, where military expenditures of the Qianlong Emperors reign were recorded. The Qianlong Emperor was praised as being the source of eighteenth-century peace, the Dzungar genocide has been compared to the Qing extermination of the Jinchuan Tibetan people in 1776, which also occurred during the Qianlong Emperors reign
Qianlong Emperor
–
Qianlong Emperor 乾隆帝
Qianlong Emperor
–
Military attire of the Qianlong Emperor.
Musée de l'Armée, Paris.
Qianlong Emperor
–
A soldier from the Qianlong era, by
William Alexander, 1793.
Qianlong Emperor
–
The Qianlong Emperor Viewing Paintings
21.
Xiqing gujian
–
The Xiqing Gujian is a 40-volume catalogue of Chinese ritual bronzes in the collection of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty. It was compiled from 1749 to 1755 and documents 1529 bronze artefacts in the imperial collection, each entry contains a detailed woodcut illustration of the item catalogued, and a detailed description including the dimensions and weight of the artefact. Each volume is 29.5 cm by 22.6 cm, with 10 lines per page, the frontispiece in marked with the date 乾隆十四年十一月初七日 and the officials involved in the production of the catalogue. A supplement, called the Xīqīng xùjiàn, was published in 1793, the supplement added a further 1875 items to the catalogue and included another 900 items stored at the imperial palace in Shengjing. As the Qianlong Emperor was a collector of antique bronzes. Being so comprehensive, the catalogue has therefore been extremely influential in the study of Chinese bronzes
Xiqing gujian
–
Types
22.
Taotie
–
The taotie is both one of the four evil fiends in Chinese mythology and a motif commonly found on Chinese ritual bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasty. The design typically consists of a mask, described as being frontal, bilaterally symmetrical, with a pair of raised eyes. Some argue that the design can be traced back to jade pieces found in Neolithic sites such as the Liangzhu culture. In ancient Chinese mythology like Classic of Mountains and Seas, taotie is one of the four creatures of the world or four fiends along with Hundun, Qiongqi. On the opposite side, there are Four Holy Creatures in Chinese mythology which called Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, the once-popular belief that the faces depicted the animals used in the sacrificial ceremonies has now more or less been rejected. As one scholar writes art styles always carry some social references and it is interesting that even Shang divination inscriptions shed no light on the meaning of the taotie. The word taotie itself was glossed by a Zuo Zhuan commentator as glutton, nonetheless, the association of the term taotie with the motif on the Zhou bronzes is sufficiently ancient. It comes from the passage in the Lu’s Spring and Autumn Annals, The taotie on Zhou bronzes has a head. When it eats people, it does not swallow them, in Sarah Allans view, association between gluttony and the dings use for food sacrifices to the insatiable spirits of the dead is significant. To alien clans and tribes, it symbolized fear and force, to its own clan or tribe and this religious concept, this dual nature, was crystallized in its strange, hideous features. What appears so savage today had a historical, rational quality in its time, as it was with Homer’s epic poems and African masks, so it was with the taotie, in whose hideous features was concentrated a deep-seated historic force. It is because of this irresistible historic force that the mystery, li Zehou further notes, Some scholars consider that the meaning of taotie is not eating people but making a mysterious communication between people and Heaven. During the Ming dynasty, a number of compiled lists of traditional motifs seen in architecture and applied art. Some scholars believed that the Taotie motif is a reference to Chi You and is used to serve as a warning to people who covet power, according to notes by the Qing dynasty painter Luo Ping/Luo Pin, Huang Di ordered his men to have Chi You beheaded. Seeing that Chi Yous head was separated from his body, later sages had his image engraved on sacrificial vessels as a warning to those that would covet power and wealth. In the Book of Imaginary Beings Jorge Luis Borges interpreted the figures as representing a dog-headed, double-bodied monster that represented greed, the Tao Tei are the primary antagonists in the 2017 historical-fantasy epic film The Great Wall. Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual, The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Li, Zehou, The Path of Beauty, A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, Oxford in Asia paperbacks, New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 30–31, ISBN 0-19-586526-X, there is an excerpt on taotie at AsianArt Study Guide
Taotie
–
Taotie on a
ding bronze vessel from late Shang era
Taotie
–
A vessel with a taotie design from
Cernuschi Museum
Taotie
–
Types
23.
Houmuwu ding
–
The Houmuwu ding, formerly called Simuwu ding, is a rectangular bronze ding of the ancient Chinese Shang dynasty. It is the largest piece of bronzeware to survive anywhere in the ancient world. It was unearthed in Wuguan Village, Anyang, Henan in 1939, the ding is named for the inscription in bronze ware script on the interior wall, which reads 后母戊, meaning Queen Mother Wu. This identifies the dedicatee as the wife of King Wu Yi of Shang, the dedicator was presumably her son, King Wen Ding. The inscription was originally misinterpreted as 司母戊, but since the 1970s scholars have reached the consensus that the first character should be read as Hou, the National Museum of China has officially corrected its name. The ding is of the type, with four legs. It is 133 centimetres high,110 centimetres wide, and 79 centimetres deep, compared to earlier ding, such as the Duling rectangular ding, it is wider and its walls are thicker, making it much more massive. Each side has a space in the middle, surrounded by a band of decoration featuring taotie. There are two handles, each decorated on the exterior with two facing each other, their jaws closing around a human head in between them, an image which is also found on Fu Hao battle axes
Houmuwu ding
–
Houmuwu ding at
National Museum of China
Houmuwu ding
–
Types
24.
Jue (vessel)
–
A jue is a shape of Chinese ritual bronze, a tripod vessel or goblet used to serve or warm wine. It was used for ceremonial purposes by the Chinese of the Xia, Shang, often the jue had a handle, sometimes in the shape of a dragon. It also has two protuberances on the top of the vessel, which were used when lifting the vessel out of heat. As with other shapes, the surface may be decorated with taotie, ringing Thunder- Tomb Treasures from Ancient China. San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art, the great bronze age of China, an exhibition from the Peoples Republic of China, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on jues
Jue (vessel)
–
Excavated at Yanshi, Henan Province, 1984
Jue (vessel)
–
From the collection of the
Shanghai Museum
Jue (vessel)
–
Reproduction
Jue (vessel)
–
Types
25.
Guang (vessel)
–
A guang or gong is a particular shape used in Chinese art for vessels, originally made as Chinese ritual bronzes in the Shang dynasty, and sometimes later in Chinese porcelain. They are a type of ewer which was used for pouring rice wine at ritual banquets, the guang has a single thick foot, and a thick hollow body that represents one or more stylized animals. Guangs have a handle at one end and a spout at the other. The back and animal head at the end usually are a removable lid. Their main period of use was during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, from around 1700 to 900 BCE, the Ritual wine server, Indianapolis Museum of Art,60.43 is a fine example from about 1100 BC. This use, for storage and serving, is suggested through the form of the vessel and it is typically supported by one oval-shaped foot, while the bronze itself takes the form of several animals and fantastical creatures metamorphosed. Each guang also has a neck and head, which serve as the channel for the wine. A lid accompanies the vessel to complete the form, according to Robert Bagley, this lid is the chief idiosyncrasy, or characteristic, of the guang, for it is where the largest relief and decoration often takes place. Guang bronze vessels were used not only in life to honor the deceased, because of this, the ritual vessels are not only apotropaic but useful to the living as well. They are both everyday functioning items, but also objects which serve religious and spiritual purposes, the Guang is distinguishable by its zoomorphic lid and handle, and its one-footed base. Some guang lids also depict animals, typically birds, at the back of the vessel facing or transitioning into the handle, the animals on the lid and handle are presented in the round. The surface of the vessel is decorated in low- to mid-relief and this relief may depict the bodies belonging to creatures rendered on the lid or other complete animal figures. It is not uncommon for one animal to transition directly into another, the lower sections of the guang are also often divided into registers and quadrants by flanges. This flange can be the central divider of a taotie, a mask-like creature motif with curving horns, other surface embellishments include geometric background shapes such as the squared-spiral, the lei-wen. These were used both to fill in empty space between more representational imagery and sometimes as smaller detail in those images. See Also, Shang Dynasty The guang, one of many types of Chinese ritual bronze vessels, is late to come into the world of bronze vessels, and lasts a very short amount of time. The earliest account of guang vessels comes from late in the Shang dynasty, during the Anyang Period and these vessels were distinct from other guang objects in early Chinese history because of their decoration. In the Shang Dynasty, the guang featured ornamentation which had not been fully developed, in a late twelfth century to early eleventh century guang, the decoration is lacking on the bottom register, but more innovative in design in the lid and upper registers
Guang (vessel)
–
Late
Shang Dynasty guang,
Shanghai Museum
Guang (vessel)
–
Ritual Wine Vessel (Guang), 13th-11th century B.C.E. Bronze.
Brooklyn Museum
Guang (vessel)
–
Types
26.
Jia (vessel)
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A jia is a ritual vessel type found in both pottery and bronze forms, it was used to hold libations of wine for the veneration of ancestors. It was made either with four legs or in the form of a tripod, the earliest evidence of the Jia vessel type appears during the Neolithic Period. It was a prominent form during the Shang and early Western Zhou dynasties, the vessels had a ceremonial function. They were decorated with varying designs and zoomorphic motifs, possibly symbolizing varying religious beliefs. There are several theories as to the origin and meaning of the symbolic iconography, Early Chinese scholars extended their traditional beliefs as regarded the symbolic meanings of the designs and motifs. They believed them to have a religious, cosmic, or mythical function, the Western historian Max Loehr has argued that the designs and motifs are ornamental and have no inherent symbolic meaning. There are no extant texts or sources contemporary with the creation of the Shang bronzes that offer descriptions or explanations of the meanings of the Jia vessels. The Jia bronze type functioned as a wine vessel, the bronze vessels were used at feasts as drinking vessels, they were exhibited in ancestral halls and temples, and most prominently buried in tombs for use in the afterlife. These bronze vessels were not for use, as the ancients typically used lacquerware or earthenware for eating and drinking. The Shang were practitioners of a form of worship, which incorporated ritual sacrifices. They would make their offerings based on a calendar of ritual sacrifices, the sacrifices would include the presentation of food and drink, depending on the vessel type. The bronze vessels were used to prepare, and or present these offerings, when it comes to the décor of the jia vessel, simple designs are most common. The lack of design is due to the jia vessel being one of the oldest vessel forms. As time progressed, vessel décor got more elaborate, while one simple band of décor was prevalent in Early Shang times, towards the middle and late Shang periods more than one band of décor was more common. As the Zhou period began it was not unlikely to see a jia covered in ornamentation, the vessel shape changed to accommodate the change in decoration, and vice versa. When more elaborate designs are seen it is normally the taotie motif, the taotie motif shows two dragon-like figures in profile, that together to form the taotie mask. Whorl circles were also a common decoration on the jia vessel, the décor on the jia can be classified by Max Loehrs five styles of Anyang bronzes. Style I is classified by thin thread relief designs, they are described as being light and airy, Style II uses a thicker ribbon relief
Jia (vessel)
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Three examples of the Jia vessel form from the 14th century BCE
Jia (vessel)
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Types
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