1.
Shanghai
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Shanghai is the most populous city proper in the world, with a population of more than 24 million as of 2014. As one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the Peoples Republic of China, it is a financial centre and transport hub. Located in the Yangtze River Delta in East China, Shanghai sits on the edge of the mouth of the Yangtze in the middle portion of the eastern Chinese coast. The municipality borders the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the north, south and west, as a major administrative, shipping and trading city, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to trade and recognition of its favourable port location and economic potential. The city was one of five treaty ports forced open to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the First Opium War, the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1844 Treaty of Whampoa allowed the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession. The city then flourished as a center of commerce between China and other parts of the world, and became the financial hub of the Asia-Pacific region in the 1930s. However, with the Communist Party takeover of the mainland in 1949, trade was limited to other socialist countries, and the citys global influence declined. In the 1990s, the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping resulted in an intense re-development of the city, aiding the return of finance. The two Chinese characters in the name are 上 and 海, together meaning Upon-the-Sea. The earliest occurrence of this dates from the 11th-century Song Dynasty, at which time there was already a river confluence. There are disputes as to exactly how the name should be understood, Shanghai is officially abbreviated 沪 in Chinese, a contraction of 沪渎, a 4th- or 5th-century Jin name for the mouth of Suzhou Creek when it was the main conduit into the ocean. This character appears on all motor vehicle license plates issued in the municipality today, another alternative name for Shanghai is Shēn or Shēnchéng, from Lord Chunshen, a third-century BC nobleman and prime minister of the state of Chu, whose fief included modern Shanghai. Sports teams and newspapers in Shanghai often use Shen in their names, such as Shanghai Shenhua F. C. Huating was another early name for Shanghai. In AD751, during the dynasty, Huating County was established at modern-day Songjiang. Today, Huating appears as the name of a hotel in the city. The city also has various nicknames in English, including Pearl of the Orient, during the Spring and Autumn period, the Shanghai area belonged to the Kingdom of Wu, which was conquered by the Kingdom of Yue, which in turn was conquered by the Kingdom of Chu. During the Warring States period, Shanghai was part of the fief of Lord Chunshen of Chu and he ordered the excavation of the Huangpu River. Its former or poetic name, the Chunshen River, gave Shanghai its nickname of Shen, two important events helped promote Shanghais development in the Ming dynasty
2.
People's Square
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Peoples Square is a large public square in the Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. It is south of Nanjing Road and north of Huaihai Road, Peoples Square is the site of Shanghais municipal government headquarters building and is used as the standard reference point for measurement of distance in the Shanghai municipality. Prior to 1949 and the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China, the Shanghai Metros Peoples Square Subway Station is an interchange among the subways Line 1, Line 2, and Line 8. Several bus stops also ring the north and south sides of the square, Peoples Park Apr.2007 Sept.2007 Oct.2007 Jan.2008 YouTube videos
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Ma Chengyuan
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Ma Chengyuan was a Chinese archaeologist, epigrapher, and president of the Shanghai Museum. He was credited with saving priceless artifacts from destruction during the Cultural Revolution and he was a recipient of the John D. Rockefeller III Award, and was awarded the Legion of Honour by French President Jacques Chirac. Ma was an authority on ancient Chinese bronzes and published more than 80 books and academic papers and he was responsible for recovering ancient relics including the Jin Hou Su bells and Warring States period bamboo strips, which are now considered Chinas national treasures. Ma suffered from depression in his years, and committed suicide in September 2004. Ma Chengyuan was born in 1927 in Shanghai and he worked for the education department of the Shanghai Municipal Government before joining the Shanghai Museum in 1954. Desperate Shanghai collectors sought protection of their antiques at the Shanghai Museum, Ma initially kept the Red Guards out of the museum by organizing his employees as fake Red Guards, and protected the relics by painting Maoist slogans over the display cases. However, some of his own staff were swept by the revolutionary fervour. The extremist faction of the museum workers seized Ma along with senior officials. Trying to coerce the officials into confessing that they were traitors, Ma survived the torture, and was sent to a labour camp in Hubei province for five years. In 1972, after American President Richard Nixons historic visit to China, the Cultural Revolution ended after the death of Mao in 1976. In 1985, Ma was appointed the Director of the Shanghai Museum, when the museum was omitted from Shanghais five-year reconstruction plan in 1992, Ma lobbied Mayor Huang Ju for its rebuilding. 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 US$10 million. The money still ran short, but he persuaded the city government to allocate another 140 million yuan to complete the building. The museum reopened on 12 October 1996 to wide acclaim, and he won the John D. Rockefeller III Award from the Asian Cultural Council in that year. French President Jacques Chirac awarded Ma the Legion of Honour in 1998, the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong commented that Ma seemed to have willed into existence. After the opening up of China from the 1980s, tomb robbery was rampant and many artifacts were looted and smuggled across the border to Hong Kong, Ma Chengyuan was active in recovering many of the items from the Hong Kong antique market. In 1992, he purchased the 3, 000-year-old Jin Hou Su bianzhong, in 1994, Ma recovered more than 1,200 Warring States period bamboo slips from the Kingdom of Chu, now known as the Shanghai Museum bamboo slips. Several ancient texts were written on the strips, including the Kongzi Shi Lun, the discovery caused a sensation in academia, and the texts have been the subject of intense studies by numerous scholars, including Ma himself
5.
People's Square Station
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The station is reputedly the busiest metro station in all of China, handling a daily traffic of over 700,000 passengers. With the opening of the sections of Lines 12 and 13 has allowed for alternative routes around the station. The station is an interchange between Lines 1,2 and 8, making it an important interchange station boasting close to twenty exits and this combination causes it to be extremely busy during peak times, but it remains very busy during the rest of the day as well. In early 2009, a new platform for Line 8 riders heading south opened. This platform was converted from a link to Line 1. Passengers from Shiguang Road station heading south can exit from either door, Peoples Park Peoples Square Nanjing Road shopping street Fuzhou Road Shanghai Concert Hall Yanan Park Huaihai Road Taiwan Strait Tourism Association Shanghai Office
6.
Line 1, Shanghai Metro
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Line 1 is a north-south line of the Shanghai Metro network in Shanghai, China. It runs from Fujin Road in the north, via Shanghai Railway Station to Xinzhuang in the south, Line 1 serves many important points in Shanghai, including Peoples Square, a major interchange. Due to the number of important locations served, this line is extremely busy. The line is colored red on system maps, virtual Interchange with Lines 3 and 4. Peoples Square - This station serves a business and shopping area, Interchange with Lines 2 and 8. Xujiahui - This is a business and commercial area, also with tourist attractions such as the Xujiahui Cathedral, Shanghai Indoor Stadium - This station is located at the sports stadium of the same name and the biggest regional and long distance bus station in the city. Shanghai South Railway Station - This station serves the railway station of the city. Xinzhuang - The southern terminus of Line 1, interchange with Line 5, may 28,1993 - The first 4.4 km long section of the line, from Xujiahui to Shanghai South Railway Station, opens. April 10,1995 - The entire 16.1 km long line, from Shanghai Railway Station to Jinjiang Park. December 28,1996 - Separate southern section from Jinjiang Park to Xinzhuang opens, northern extension continues to operate to Shanghai Railway Station. July 1,1997 - The northern and southern sections are connected, december 28,2004 - Line runs from Gongfu Xincun - Xinzhuang after northern extension opens. December 29,2007 - Second northern extension opens, full line runs from Fujin Road - Xinzhuang
7.
Line 2, Shanghai Metro
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Line 2 is an east-west line of the Shanghai Metro network. With a length of nearly 64 km, it is the second longest line in the system after Line 11. Line 2 runs from East Xujing in the west to Pudong International Airport in the east, passing Hongqiao Airport, the Huangpu river, with a daily ridership of almost 1.5 million, it is the Shanghai Metros busiest metro line. The eastern portion of the line, from Guanglan Road to Pudong International Airport, the line is colored light green on system maps. This section, which included 12 stations, totaled 16.3 kilometres, a year later, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Station was added to the eastern part of the line, adding 2.8 kilometres. Four new stations, located west of the Zhongshan Park station, opened in December 2006 and this section added 6.15 kilometres to the line. Four years later, in preparation for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, in February, the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park station was rebuilt. In addition, another eastern segment took Line 2 to Guanglan Road Station, a month later, the line was extended westward to Xujing East, adding 8.0 kilometres to the line including stops at the Hongqiao International Airport and the Hongqiao Railway Station. In April, an extension added 8 stations to the line, totaling 26.6 kilometres. The renamed stations are Century Avenue, East Nanjing Road and West Nanjing Road, the line begins at East Xujing at the intersection of Xumin East Road and Zhuguang Road. The line heads northeastward under Xumin East Road for about 0.8 kilometres before veering off the road and heading east, the line then enters the interchange station serving the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station. This station is an interchange with Line 10, shortly thereafter, the line enters the Hongqiao Airport Terminal 2 station. Line 2 then turns northward until it meets Tianshan Road and turns east again, along this road, the line enters the Songhong Road, Beixinjing, and Weining Road stations. At the Loushanguan Road station, Line 2 veers away from Tianshan Road, the line then enters the Zhongshan Park station along Changning Road, an interchange with lines 3 and 4. The subway line runs parallel under Changning Road for a short distance before heading east under Yuyuan Road. Along Yuyuan Road, there is a station at Jiangsu Road, just before entering the West Nanjing Road station, the metro line veers away from West Nanjing Road. Line 2 comes back under the road shortly thereafter, East of the West Nanjing Road station, Line 2 heads eastward along West Nanjing Road, passing under the South-North Elevated Road. It then turns northeast into the Peoples Square station, and interchange with lines 1 and 8, East of the Peoples Square station, the subway line moves under East Nanjing Road to the East Nanjing Road station
8.
Line 8, Shanghai Metro
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Line 8 is a north-south line of the Shanghai Metro network. It runs from Shiguang Road Station, in Yangpu District to Shendu Highway Station, Shiguang Road Station — Shendu Highway Station Middle Yanji Road Station — Oriental Sports Center Station Hongkou Football Stadium - At this station, passengers can transfer to Line 3. Previously they must exit and re-enter the station, but a new linkway has been built via the shopping center, peoples Square - Passengers can interchange to Lines 1 and 2. This is also an important station, as it is located at a major financial district as well as near many tourist attractions. South Xizang Road, The first platform to platform interchange station in the Shanghai Metro network, the subway lines first phase, which opened on December 29,2007, runs between Shiguang Road Station and Yaohua Road Station, excluding Zhoujiadu Station. Trial operation began for the first phase of line on September 16. The second phase, from Yaohua Road Station to Shendu Highway Station, excluding Oriental Sports Center Station, Oriental Sports Center Station opened in April 2011. The third phase will extend Line 8 south from Shendu Highway Station to South Pujin Road and it will use rubber tire Bombardier Innova APM300 technology. On January 13 Bombardier delivered the first out of 44 autonomous people movers to Shanghai, due to the trains relatively small size and capacity compared to A size trains used on other Shanghai Metro lines the line is extremely crowded. This has caused much doubt among the public in the Shanghai Metros ability to accurately predict passenger flows for future lines. It was revealed that line 8 originally was forecasted to have a short term daily ridership of 400, 000-500,000 people/day and this is not surprising given Line 8 is planned to pass by some of Shanghais densest neighborhoods and several major attractions. However the forecast was downgraded to 200,000 people/day which allowed Shanghai Alstom, there are no short term solutions to the overcrowding. The loading gauges of A size trains are incompatible with C size trains but parallel relief bus services have started operating
9.
Shanghai Metro
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The Shanghai Metro is a rapid transit system in Shanghai, China, operating urban and suburban rail transit services to 13 of its 16 municipal districts and to Huaqiao Town, Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. Opening in 1993 with full-scale construction extending back to 1986, Shanghai Metro is the third oldest rapid transit system in China, after the Beijing Subway and the Tianjin Metro. It has seen growth, significantly during the years leading up to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. The metro system is heavily tied with other forms of public transport in Shanghai. Currently, the Shanghai Metro system is the worlds largest rapid transit system by route length and it also ranks second in the world by annual ridership after the Beijing Subway, with 3.4 billion rides delivered in 2016. The daily ridership record was set at 11.7 million on March 20,2017, further plans to connect the Shanghai Metro with the metro systems of Suzhou and Wuxi are under active review. The first line connecting Shanghai Metro Line 11 and Suzhou Metro Line 3 is projected to be completed in 2020, ambitious expansion plans call for 25 Lines with over 1,000 km of length by 2025. By then, every location in the area of Shanghai will be within 600 meters of a subway station. May 28,1993 – Southern section of Line 1 enters operation, April 10,1995 – Line 1 enters operation. December 28,1996 – Southern extension to Line 1 enters operation, sept 20,1999 – Line 2 enters operation. December 26,2000 – The eastern extension to Line 2, november 25,2003 – Line 5 enters operation. December 28,2004 – Northern extension to Line 1 enters operation, December 31,2005 – Line 4 enters operation, except the section between Lancun Road and Damuqiao Road that was delayed due to a construction accident. December 18,2006 – Northern extension to Line 3 enters operation, December 30,2006 – Western extension to Line 2 enters operation. December 29,2007 – Five lines or sections enter operation on the day, Second northern extension to Line 1 Delayed section of Line 4. Line 6 Line 8 Line 9 December 28,2008 – Line 9 is extended from Guilin Road to Yishan Road, July 5,2009 – Southern extension to Line 8 enters operation. December 5,2009 – Line 7 enters operation, December 31,2009 – The downtown section of Line 9 and the first section of Line 11 open. February 24,2010 – Short section of extension of Line 2 enters operation. Zhangjiang Hi-tech Park station is rebuilt underground, March 16,2010 – Second western extension to Line 2 enters operation, connecting Hongqiao Airport to the metro system
10.
Simplified Chinese characters
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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
11.
Traditional Chinese characters
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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
12.
Standard Chinese
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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
13.
Pinyin
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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
14.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
15.
Shanghainese
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The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, Hu language or Hu dialect, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, in English, Shanghainese sometimes refers to all Wu languages, variants and dialects, although they are only partially intelligible with one another. Shanghainese proper is a language of Taihu Wu, it contains vocabulary and expressions from the entire Taihu Wu area of southern Jiangsu. With nearly 14 million speakers, Shanghainese is also the largest single form of Wu Chinese and it serves as the lingua franca of the entire Yangtze River Delta region. Shanghainese is rich in vowels and in consonants, like other Taihu Wu dialects, Shanghainese has voiced initials. Neither Cantonese nor Mandarin has voiced initial stops or affricates, the Shanghainese tonal system is also significantly different from other Chinese varieties, sharing more similarities with the Japanese pitch accent. Shanghainese has two level tonal contrasts, while Cantonese and Mandarin are typical of contour tonal languages, Shanghai did not become a regional center of commerce until it was opened to foreign investment during the late Qing dynasty. Consequently, languages and dialects spoken around Shanghai had long been subordinate to those spoken around Jiaxing, in the late 19th century, most vocabulary of the Shanghai region had been a hybrid between Southern Jiangsu and Ningbonese. It underwent sustained growth that reached a hiatus in the 1930s during the Republican era, after 1949, the government imposed Mandarin as the official language of the whole nation of China. The dominance and influence of Shanghainese began to wane slightly, especially since Chinese economic reform began in 1978, Shanghai became home to a great number of migrants from all over the country. Due to the prominence of Mandarin, learning Shanghainese was no longer necessary for migrants. However, Shanghainese remained a vital part of the citys culture. In the 1990s, it was common for local radio. In 1995, the TV series Sinful Debt featured extensive Shanghainese dialogues, the Shanghainese TV series Lao Niang Jiu was broadcast from 1995 to 2007 and received tremendous popularity among Shanghainese residents. Shanghainese programming has since declined, over concerns of regionalist/localist accusations. From 1992 onward, Shanghainese use was discouraged in schools, in addition, Shanghais emergence as a cosmopolitan global city consolidated the status of Mandarin as the standard language of business and services, at the expense of the local language. Since 2005, new movements have emerged to protect Shanghainese from fading away, Shanghais former party boss Chen Liangyu, a native Shanghainese himself, reportedly supported her proposal. There have been talks of re-integrating Shanghainese into pre-kindergarten education, because children are unable to speak any Shanghainese
16.
Museum
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Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
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Chinese art
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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
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Huangpu District, Shanghai
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Huangpu District, makes up the eastern part of Shanghais traditional urban core and is today the most central of Shanghais 18 districts. The Huangpu District is one of the most densely populated districts in the world. The Huangpu District is located in central Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China on the bank of Huangpu River, after which the district is named. It is opposite to Pudong and is bounded by Suzhou Creek to the north, todays Huangpu District is sometimes referred to as new Huangpu to distinguish it from the pre-merger Huangpu District which existed before 2000. In 2000, the pre-merger Huangpu and Nanshi districts were combined to form a new district, in June 2011, the existing Huangpu District was combined with Luwan District to form a further new district, again called Huangpu. As a result of merger, it currently has an area of 20.43 square kilometres and 678,670 inhabitants. Of the three districts that make up todays Huangpu, the pre-merger Huangpu District is located to the north, bounded by Suzhou Creek in the north. South of the per-merger Huangpu District was Nanshi District, bounded by the Huangpu River to the east, west of Nanshi District was Luwan District, bounded by the Huangpu River to the south. Each of these have a history and character. The former Nanshi District, literally southern city, was the core of Shanghai. It included the old, walled city as well as the nearby docklands on both sides of the Huangpu River, Shanghai County was established at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. A city wall was built to repel the Wokou, and this Ming Dynasty wall defined the extent of urban Shanghai for the few centuries. In 1842, the north of the old city was established as the British concession in Shanghai. At the time, the concession was referred to by locals as the city while the walled Chinese city was the southern city. From this reference was derived the name Nanshi. Upon the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II, in 1945, after the Republic of China government took control, the old city was divided into the Third District and the Fourth District. In 1959 these were merged to form Nanshi District, the pre-merger Huangpu District was largely located in the former Shanghai International Settlement. In the later part of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the International Settlement was handed back to the Chinese government in 1943
19.
Nanjing Road
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Nanjing Road is the main shopping street of Shanghai, China, and is one of the worlds busiest shopping streets. The street is named after the city of Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province neighbouring Shanghai, todays Nanjing Road comprises two sections, Nanjing Road East and Nanjing Road West. In some contexts, Nanjing Road refers only to what was pre-1945 Nanjing Road, todays Nanjing Road East, before the adoption of the pinyin romanisation in the 1950s, its name was rendered as Nanking Road in English. Nanjing Road is located in the city center, running in a west-east direction and its eastern section is in Huangpu District and extends from The Bund west to Peoples Square. The western section begins at Peoples Square and continues westward towards Jingan District, the history of Nanjing Road can be traced back to the year 1845. At that time it was called “Park Lane”, which stretched from the Bund to He’nan Road, in 1854, it was extended to Zhejiang Road, and eight years later, once more extended to Xizang Road. In 1862, it was named formally “Nanking Road” by the Municipal Council, in Chinese it was usually referred to as the Main Road. Around 1930 it was a street with at least one reported casino. At the beginning of the 20th century, eight big department stores were established along the street, a series of franchised stores were also set up at that time. On 23 August 1937 a bomb was dropped on Nanjing Road by a Chinese plane in an attempt to lighten its load while being pursued by Japanese planes, the bomb hit two department stores, killing 612 people and injuring another 482. In 2000, as a part of the development plan held by the local government, the width is about 28 meters and the total length is 1,200 meters, which extends from Middle Henan Road to Middle Xizang Road. In 2007, the Jingan and Huangpu governments agreed to coordinate their policy to enhance the development of Nanjing Road and this agreement followed a request by the committee of Champs-Elysees in the perspective of a friendship agreement between both famous streets. Nanjing Road is the worlds longest shopping district, around 5. 5km long, East Nanjing Road is a dedicated commercial zone. At its eastern end is the section of the Bund. Close by is the Central Market, an outdoor market today specialising in electronic components. Further west is the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall, located here are most of Shanghais oldest and largest department stores, as well as a variety of domestic retail outlets, and some traditional eateries with a long history. The pedestrian mall, and East Nanjing Road, ends at Peoples Park, opposite the park are some of Shanghais prestigious historic hotels, including Park Hotel. West Nanjing Road begins here, and features a number of malls, office buildings, the Shanghai Exhibition Centre
20.
Great Leap Forward
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The Great Leap Forward of the Peoples Republic of China was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China from 1958 to 1962. The campaign was led by Chairman Mao Zedong and aimed to transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization. However, it is considered to have caused the Great Chinese Famine. Chief changes in the lives of rural Chinese included the introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farming was prohibited, and those engaged in it were persecuted and labeled counter-revolutionaries, restrictions on rural people were enforced through public struggle sessions and social pressure, although people also experienced forced labor. Rural industrialization, officially a priority of the campaign, saw its development, aborted by the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward. It is widely regarded by historians that The Great Leap resulted in tens of millions of deaths, a lower-end estimate is 18 million, while extensive research by Yu Xiguang suggests the death toll from the movement is closer to 55 million. Historian Frank Dikötter asserts that coercion, terror, and systematic violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward, the years of the Great Leap Forward saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1962 being the only period between 1953 and 1976 in which Chinas economy shrank. Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all, in short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster. In subsequent conferences in March 1960 and May 1962, the effects of the Great Leap Forward were studied by the CPC. Moderate Party members like President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping rose to power, in October 1949 after the defeat of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China. Immediately, landlords and wealthier peasants had their land holdings forcibly redistributed to poorer peasants, in the agricultural sectors, crops deemed by the Party to be full of evil, such as opium, were destroyed and replaced with crops such as rice. Within the Party, there was debate about redistribution. This would allow the state to buy at a low price and sell much higher, before 1949, peasants had farmed their own small pockets of land, and observed traditional practices—festivals, banquets, and paying homage to ancestors. It was realized that Maos policy of using a monopoly on agriculture to finance industrialization would be unpopular with the peasants. Therefore, it was proposed that the peasants should be brought under Party control by the establishment of agricultural collectives which would facilitate the sharing of tools. By 1958 private ownership was abolished and households all over China were forced into state-operated communes. Mao insisted that the communes must produce more grain for the cities, together, taxation and compulsory purchases accounted for 30 percent of the harvest by 1957, leaving very little surplus
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Cultural Revolution
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The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement that took place in China from 1966 until 1976. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward, the movement paralyzed China politically and negatively affected the countrys economy and society to a significant degree. The Revolution was launched in May 1966, after Mao alleged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society at large, to eliminate his rivals within the Communist Party of China, Mao insisted that these revisionists be removed through violent class struggle. Chinas youth responded to Maos appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country, the movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a purge of senior officials, most notably Liu Shaoqi. During the same period Maos personality cult grew to immense proportions, a large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed, Cultural and religious sites were ransacked. Mao officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, after Maos death and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976, reformers led by Deng Xiaoping gradually began to dismantle the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution. In 1958, after Chinas first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for grassroots socialism in order to accelerate his plans for turning China into an industrialized state. In this spirit, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, established Peoples Communes in the countryside, many communities were assigned production of a single commodity—steel. Mao vowed to increase production to twice 1957 levels. The Great Leap was an economic failure, uneducated farmers attempted to produce steel on a massive scale, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. The steel produced was low quality and largely useless, the Great Leap reduced harvest sizes and led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. Furthermore, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, hiding and intensifying the problem for several years, in the meantime, chaos in the collectives, bad weather, and exports of food necessary to secure hard currency resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. Food was in shortage, and production fell dramatically. The famine caused the deaths of millions of people, particularly in poorer inland regions, the Great Leaps failure reduced Maos prestige within the Party. Forced to take responsibility, in 1959, Mao resigned as the President of the Peoples Republic of China, Chinas de jure head of state
22.
Huang Ju
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Huang Ju was a Chinese politician and a high-ranking leader in the Communist Party of China. He died in office before he could complete his terms on the Standing Committee, an electrical engineer by trade, Huang was a close confidante of party leader and paramount leader Jiang Zemin, to whom he owed his rise to power. He served as Mayor of Shanghai between 1991 and 1994, then Communist Party Secretary of the metropolis between 1994 and 2002, Huangs career in Shanghai and his familys alleged involvement in several corruption cases in the city generated controversy. After 2002, Huang emerged as one of the least popular and most partisan members of Chinas top leadership, born in Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province as Huang Deyu, Huang was the second of five children. Huang spent the first eighteen years of his life in Zhejiang and he attended Jiashan No.2 Middle School and Jiaxing No.1 Middle School for high school. He attended Tsinghua University between 1956 and 1963 where he graduated in Electrical Engineering, Huang was employed as a technician in the foundry section of the Shanghai Artificial-board Machinery Factory from 1963 to 1967. From 1967 to 1977, Huang worked as Technician in the section of the Shanghai Zhonghua Metallurgical Factory. He became deputy director of the Revolutionary Committee, Deputy Plant Manager, while working as an engineer and he was Assistant Manager of the Shanghai Petrochemical General Machinery Company from 1980 to 1982. From 1982 to 1983 he was Deputy Commissioner of the Shanghai First Mechanical and Electrical Industry Bureau, in 1987, Huang was named as a candidate for the Mayor of Shanghai, but received too few votes supporting his candidacy by the municipal Peoples Congress. Zhu Rongji was subsequently elected mayor instead, when Zhu ascended to Beijing to become governor of Chinas central bank, Huang became mayor of Shanghai in 1991 and then the citys party chief in 1994, serving until October 2002. In September 1994 he entered the Politburo of the Communist Party of China at the 4th Plenum of the 14th Central Committee. Huang was seen as one of Jiangs most trusted confidantes in Shanghai, during Huangs term of party chief of Shanghai, he kept the citys party organization in line, and is remembered by some as having raised the income of Shanghai residents. The Pudong New Area also saw explosive growth under Huang, while Shanghais economic growth continued during Huang Jus time as the citys leader, most observers credit Shanghais success to the work of Zhu Rongji and Xu Kuangdi. Among the mayors of Shanghai in the late 20th century, Huang was the least popular, during his term as Shanghai party chief, Huang often criticized mayor Xu Kuangdi, and opposed Xus holding higher office. Because Xu was a figure in Shanghai, Huangs open suppression of Xu damaged his reputation among ordinary residents. In Shanghai political circles, Huang earned a reputation as being adept at crafting relationships with his superiors. However, both Huangs successor Chen Liangyu and Jiang Zemin evaluated Huangs term in Shanghai with gushing praise, although some of this money did indeed go to charity, there was a large amount of funds unaccounted for. It was unclear what Huangs involvement was in process
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Ding (vessel)
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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
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Bronze
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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
25.
Ceramic
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A ceramic is an inorganic, non-metallic, solid material comprising metal, non-metal or metalloid atoms primarily held in ionic and covalent bonds. This article gives an overview of ceramic materials from the point of view of materials science, the crystallinity of ceramic materials ranges from highly oriented to semi-crystalline, vitrified, and often completely amorphous. Most often, fired ceramics are either vitrified or semi-vitrified as is the case with earthenware, stoneware, varying crystallinity and electron consumption in the ionic and covalent bonds cause most ceramic materials to be good thermal and electrical insulators. With such a range of possible options for the composition/structure of a ceramic, the breadth of the subject is vast. Many composites, such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, while containing ceramic materials, are not considered to be part of the ceramic family. The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with materials like silica, hardened, sintered. Later ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, ceramics now include domestic, industrial and building products, as well as a wide range of ceramic art. In the 20th century, new materials were developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering. The word ceramic comes from the Greek word κεραμικός, of pottery or for pottery, from κέραμος, potters clay, tile, the earliest known mention of the root ceram- is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, workers of ceramics, written in Linear B syllabic script. The word ceramic may be used as an adjective to describe a material, product or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular, or, more commonly, as the plural noun ceramics. A ceramic material is an inorganic, non-metallic, often crystalline oxide, nitride or carbide material, some elements, such as carbon or silicon, may be considered ceramics. Ceramic materials are brittle, hard, strong in compression, weak in shearing and they withstand chemical erosion that occurs in other materials subjected to acidic or caustic environments. Ceramics generally can withstand high temperatures, such as temperatures that range from 1,000 °C to 1,600 °C. Glass is often not considered a ceramic because of its amorphous character. However, glassmaking involves several steps of the process and its mechanical properties are similar to ceramic materials. Traditional ceramic raw materials include minerals such as kaolinite, whereas more recent materials include aluminium oxide. The modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide, both are valued for their abrasion resistance, and hence find use in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations. Advanced ceramics are used in the medicine, electrical, electronics industries. Crystalline ceramic materials are not amenable to a range of processing
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Calligraphy
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Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a broad tip instrument, brush, a contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as, the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner. Modern calligraphy ranges from functional inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the letters may or may not be readable, classical calligraphy differs from typography and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligrapher may practice both. It is also used for props and moving images for film and television, testimonials, birth and death certificates, maps, the principal tools for a calligrapher are the pen and the brush. Calligraphy pens write with nibs that may be flat, round, for some decorative purposes, multi-nibbed pens—steel brushes—can be used. However, works have also created with felt-tip and ballpoint pens. There are some styles of calligraphy, like Gothic script, which require a stub nib pen, Writing ink is usually water-based and is much less viscous than the oil-based inks used in printing. Normally, light boxes and templates are used to achieve straight lines without pencil markings detracting from the work, ruled paper, either for a light box or direct use, is most often ruled every quarter or half inch, although inch spaces are occasionally used. This is the case with litterea unciales, and college-ruled paper often acts as a guideline well, common calligraphy pens and brushes are, Quill Dip pen Ink brush Qalam Fountain pen Western calligraphy is recognizable by the use of the Latin script. The Latin alphabet appeared about 600 BC, in Rome, and by the first century developed into Roman imperial capitals carved on stones, Rustic capitals painted on walls, in the second and third centuries the uncial lettering style developed. As writing withdrew to monasteries, uncial script was more suitable for copying the Bible. It was the monasteries which preserved calligraphic traditions during the fourth and fifth centuries, at the height of the Empire, its power reached as far as Great Britain, when the empire fell, its literary influence remained. The Semi-uncial generated the Irish Semi-uncial, the small Anglo-Saxon, each region developed its own standards following the main monastery of the region, which are mostly cursive and hardly readable. Christian churches promoted the development of writing through the copying of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. Two distinct styles of writing known as uncial and half-uncial developed from a variety of Roman bookhands, the 7th-9th centuries in northern Europe were the heyday of Celtic illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. Charlemagnes devotion to improved scholarship resulted in the recruiting of a crowd of scribes, according to Alcuin, Alcuin developed the style known as the Caroline or Carolingian minuscule. The first manuscript in hand was the Godescalc Evangelistary — a Gospel book written by the scribe Godescalc. Carolingian remains the one hand from which modern booktype descends
27.
Furniture
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Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, Furniture can be a product of design and is considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furnitures functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose and it can be made from many materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflect the local culture. People have been using natural objects, such as stumps, rocks and moss. Archaeological research shows that from around 30,000 years ago, people began constructing and carving their own furniture, using wood, stone, early furniture from this period is known from artwork such as a Venus figurine found in Russia, depicting the goddess on a throne. The first surviving extant furniture is in the homes of Skara Brae in Scotland, complex construction techniques such as joinery began in the early dynastic period of ancient Egypt. This era saw constructed wooden pieces, including stools and tables, sometimes decorated with valuable metals or ivory. The evolution of furniture design continued in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, with thrones being commonplace as well as the klinai, multipurpose couches used for relaxing, eating, the furniture of the Middle Ages was usually heavy, oak, and ornamented. Furniture design expanded during the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the seventeenth century, in both Southern and Northern Europe, was characterized by opulent, often gilded Baroque designs. The nineteenth century is defined by revival styles. The first three-quarters of the century are often seen as the march towards Modernism. One unique outgrowth of post-modern furniture design is a return to natural shapes and textures, the English word furniture is derived from the French word fourniture, the noun form of fournir, which means to supply or provide. Thus fourniture in French means supplies or provisions, the practice of using natural objects as rudimentary pieces of furniture likely dates to the beginning of human civilisation. Early humans are likely to have used tree stumps as seats, rocks as rudimentary tables, during the late palaeolithic or early neolithic period, from around 30,000 years ago, people began constructing and carving their own furniture, using wood, stone, and animal bones. The earliest evidence for the existence of constructed furniture is a Venus figurine found at the Gagarino site in Russia, a similar statue of a Mother Goddess was found in Catal Huyuk in Turkey, dating to between 6000 and 5500 BC. The inclusion of such a seat in the figurines implies that these were already common artefacts of that age, a range of unique stone furniture has been excavated in Skara Brae, a Neolithic village in Orkney, Scotland. Each house shows a degree of sophistication and was equipped with an extensive assortment of stone furniture, ranging from cupboards, dressers and beds to shelves, stone seats
28.
Jade
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Jade is an ornamental green rock. The middle member of series with an intermediate composition is called actinolite. The higher the content, the greener the colour. Jadeite is a sodium- and aluminium-rich pyroxene, the precious form of jadeite jade is a microcrystalline interlocking growth of jadeite crystals. The English word jade is derived from the Spanish term piedra de ijada or loin stone, from its reputed efficacy in curing ailments of the loins, nephrite is derived from lapis nephriticus, a Latin translation of the Spanish piedra de ijada. Nephrite and jadeite were used from prehistoric periods for hardstone carving, jadeite has about the same hardness as quartz. Nephrite is slightly softer but tougher than jadeite and it was not until the 19th century that a French mineralogist, Alexis Damour, determined that jade was in fact two different minerals. Among the earliest known jade artifacts excavated from prehistoric sites are simple ornaments with bead, button, additionally, jade was used for adze heads, knives, and other weapons, which can be delicately shaped. As metal-working technologies became available, the beauty of jade made it valuable for ornaments and decorative objects. Jadeite measures between 6.0 and 7.0 Mohs hardness, and nephrite between 6.0 and 6.5, so it can be worked with quartz or garnet sand, of the two, jadeite is rarer, documented in fewer than 12 places worldwide. Translucent emerald-green jadeite is the most prized variety, both historically and today, Burma and Guatemala are the principal sources of modern gem jadeite. In the area of Mogaung in the Myitkyina District of Upper Burma, jadeite formed a layer in the dark-green serpentine, Canada provides the major share of modern lapidary nephrite. Nephrite jade was used mostly in pre-1800 China as well as in New Zealand, the Pacific Coast and the Atlantic Coast of North America, Neolithic Europe, in addition to Mesoamerica, jadeite was used by Neolithic Japanese and European cultures. Dushan Jade was being mined as early as 6000 BC, in the Yin Ruins of the Shang Dynasty in Anyang, Dushan Jade ornaments were unearthed in the tomb of the Shang kings. Jade was used to create many utilitarian and ceremonial objects, from indoor decorative items to jade burial suits, Jade was considered the imperial gem. There, white and greenish nephrite jade is found in quarries and as pebbles. The river jade collection is concentrated in the Yarkand, the White Jade, jadeite, with its bright emerald-green, pink, lavender, orange and brown colours was imported from Burma to China only after about 1800. The vivid green variety became known as Feicui or Kingfisher Jade, in the history of the art of the Chinese empire, jade has had a special significance, comparable with that of gold and diamonds in the West
29.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
30.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
31.
Seal (emblem)
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A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, a wrapper for one such as a modern envelope, the seal-making device is also referred to as the seal matrix or die, the imprint it creates as the seal impression. In most traditional forms of dry seal the design on the matrix is in intaglio. The design on the impression will reverse that of the matrix and this will not be the case if paper is embossed from behind, where the matrix and impression read the same way, and both matrix and impression are in relief. However engraved gems were carved in relief, called cameo in this context. The process is essentially that of a mould and these pendent seal impressions dangled below the documents they authenticated, to which the attachment tag was sewn or otherwise attached. Some jurisdictions consider rubber stamps or specified signature-accompanying words such as seal or L. S. to be the equivalent of, i. e. an equally effective substitute for. In Europe, although coats of arms and heraldic badges may well feature in such contexts as well as on seals, the study of seals is known as sigillography or sphragistics. Seals were used in the earliest civilizations and are of importance in archaeology. In ancient Mesopotamia carved or engraved cylinder seals in stone or other materials were used and these could be rolled along to create an impression on clay, and used as labels on consignments of trade goods, or for other purposes. They are normally hollow and it is presumed that they were worn on a string or chain round the neck, many have only images, often very finely carved, with no writing, while others have both. From Ancient Egypt seals in the form of signet-rings, including some with the names of kings, have been found, recently, seals have come to light in South Arabia datable to the Himyarite age. One example shows a name written in Aramaic engraved in reverse so as to read correctly in the impression, from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC until the Middle Ages, seals of various kinds were in production in the Aegean islands and mainland Greece. In the Early Minoan age these were formed of stone and ivory. By the Middle Minoan age a new set for seal forms, motifs, hard stone requires new rotary carving techniques. The Late Bronze Age is the par excellence of the lens-shaped seal and the seal ring. These were a luxury art form and became keenly collected. His collection fell as booty to Pompey the Great, who deposited it in a temple in Rome, engraved gems continued to be produced and collected until the 19th century
32.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
33.
Han dynasty
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The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered an age in Chinese history. To this day, Chinas majority ethnic group refers to itself as the Han people and it was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods, the Western Han or Former Han and the Eastern Han or Later Han, the emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States, from the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 AD, the Han dynasty was an age of economic prosperity and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou dynasty. The coinage issued by the government mint in 119 BC remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang dynasty. The period saw a number of limited institutional innovations, the Xiongnu, a nomadic steppe confederation, defeated the Han in 200 BC and forced the Han to submit as a de facto inferior partner, but continued their raids on the Han borders. Emperor Wu of Han launched several campaigns against them. The ultimate Han victory in these wars eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal status as Han tributaries, the territories north of Hans borders were quickly overrun by the nomadic Xianbei confederation. Imperial authority was seriously challenged by large Daoist religious societies which instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion. When Cao Pi, King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, following Liu Bangs victory in the Chu–Han Contention, the resulting Han dynasty was named after the Hanzhong fief. Chinas first imperial dynasty was the Qin dynasty, the Qin unified the Chinese Warring States by conquest, but their empire became unstable after the death of the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Within four years, the authority had collapsed in the face of rebellion. Although Xiang Yu proved to be a commander, Liu Bang defeated him at Battle of Gaixia. Liu Bang assumed the title emperor at the urging of his followers and is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu, Changan was chosen as the new capital of the reunified empire under Han
34.
Chinese ritual bronzes
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Sets of ritual bronzes are the most impressive surviving objects from the Chinese Bronze Age. On the death of the owner they would be placed in his tomb, so that he could continue to pay his respects in the afterlife, other examples were cast specifically as grave goods. The ritual bronzes were not used for normal eating and drinking, they represent larger, more elaborate versions of the types of vessels used for this. Apart from table vessels, weapons and some objects were made in special ritual forms. At least initially, the production of bronze was probably controlled by the ruler, bronzes are some of the most important pieces of ancient Chinese art, warranting an entire separate catalogue in the Imperial art collections. The majority of surviving Chinese ancient bronze artefacts are ritual forms rather than their equivalents made for practical use, weapons like daggers and axes had a sacrificial meaning, symbolizing the heavenly power of the ruler. The ritual books of old China minutely describe who was allowed to use what kinds of sacrificial vessels and her higher status would have been clear not only to her contemporaries, but also, it was believed, to her ancestors and other spirits. Many of the pieces were cast with inscriptions using the form of her name. The most highly prized are generally the sacrificial and wine vessels, often these vessels are elaborately decorated with taotie designs. Dǐng Sacrificial vessel, originally a cauldron for cooking and storing meat, the Shang prototype has a round bowl, wider than it is tall, set on three legs, there are two short handles on each side. Later examples became larger and larger and were considered a measure of power and it is considered the single most important class of Chinese bronzeware in terms of its cultural importance. There is a called a fāngdǐng which has a square bowl. There exist rare forms with lids, 西清古鑒 contains over two hundred examples, and this is the most highly regarded of all Chinese bronzes. Dòu, Sacrificial vessel that was originally a food vessel, Flat, covered bowl on a long stem. Fǔ, Rectangular dish, triangular in vertical cross-section, always with a lid shaped like the dish. Zūn, Wine vessel and sacrificial vessel, Tall cylindrical wine cup, with no handles or legs. The mouth is slightly broader than the body. In the late Zhōu dynasty, this type of vessel became exceedingly elaborate, often taking the shape of animals and these later types are distinguished from gōng by retaining a small, roughly circular mouth
35.
Chinese ceramics
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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
36.
Chinese painting
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Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà, meaning national or native painting. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in ink or coloured pigments. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are 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, Gongbi, 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. Ink and wash painting, in Chinese shui-mo also loosely termed watercolour or brush painting and this style is also referred to as xieyi or freehand style. Landscape painting was regarded as 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 painting and calligraphy distinguish themselves from other arts by emphasis on motion. The practice is traditionally first learned by rote, in which the shows the right way to draw items. The apprentice must copy these items strictly and continuously until the movements become instinctive, in contemporary times, debate emerged on the limits of this copyist tradition within modern art scenes where innovation is the rule. Changing lifestyles, tools, and colors are also influencing new waves of masters, the earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental, they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures. Early pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals and it was only during the Warring States period that artists began to represent the world around them. Calligraphy and painting were thought to be the purest forms of art, the implements were the brush pen made of animal hair, and black inks made from pine soot and animal glue. In ancient times, writing, as well as painting, was done on silk, however, after the invention of paper in the 1st century AD, silk was gradually replaced by the new and cheaper material. Original writings by famous calligraphers have been valued throughout Chinas history and are mounted on scrolls
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Chinese calligraphy
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Chinese calligraphy is a form of calligraphy widely practiced in China and revered in the Chinese cultural sphere, which often includes Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. There is a standardization of the various styles of calligraphy in this tradition. Chinese calligraphy and ink and wash painting are closely related, since they are accomplished using similar tools, Chinese painting and calligraphy distinguish themselves from other cultural arts because they emphasize motion and are charged with dynamic life. According to Stanley-Baker, Calligraphy is sheer life experienced through energy in motion that is registered as traces on silk or paper, with time, Calligraphy has also led to the development of many forms of art in China, including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones. In China, calligraphy is referred to as Shūfǎ, literally, the way/method/law of writing, Shodō in Japan, Chinese calligraphy is normally regarded as one of the arts in the countries where it is practised. Chinese calligraphy focuses not only on methods of writing but also on cultivating ones character, Calligraphy is also considered an art where works are appreciated more or only for their aesthetic qualities. Chinese characters can be retraced to 4000 BC signs, in 2003, at the site of Xiaoshuangqiao, about 20 km southeast of the ancient Zhengzhou Shang City, ceramic inscriptions dating to 1435–1412 BC have been found by archaeologists. These writings are made in cinnabar paint, thus, the dates of writing in China have been confirmed for the Middle Shang period. The ceramic ritual vessel vats that bear these cinnabar inscriptions were all unearthed within the area of this site. They were unearthed mostly in the sacrificial pits holding cow skulls and cow horns, the inscriptions are written on the exterior and interior of the rim, and the exterior of the belly of the large type of vats. The characters are mostly written singly, character compounds or sentences are rarely seen, the contemporary Chinese characters set principles were clearly visible in ancient Chinas Jiǎgǔwén characters carved on ox scapulas and tortoise plastrons around 14th - 11th century BCE. Brush-written examples decay over time and have not survived, during the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone to be later carved. With the development of Jīnwén and Dàzhuàn cursive signs continued, moreover, each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters. In Imperial China, the graphs on old steles — some dating from 200 BC, despite the fact that the main writing implement of the time was already the brush, little paper survives from this period, and the main examples of this style are on steles. The Lìshū style which is more regularized, and in ways similar to modern text, were also authorised under Qin Shi Huang. Kǎishū style — still in use today — and attributed to Wang Xizhi and its spread was encouraged by Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang, who ordered the printing of the classics using new wooden blocks in Kaishu. Printing technologies here allowed shapes to stabilize, the Kaishu shape of characters 1000 years ago was mostly similar to that at the end of Imperial China. But small changes have made, for example in the shape of 广 which is not absolutely the same in the Kangxi Dictionary of 1716 as in modern books
38.
Seal (East Asia)
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China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea currently use a mixture of seals and hand signatures, and increasingly, electronic signatures. It is used to an extent in Vietnam by authorised organisations and businesses. Chinese seals are made of stone, sometimes of metals, wood, bamboo, plastic, or ivory. The colloquial name chop, when referring to these kinds of seals, was adapted from the Hindi word chapa, in the past, fingerprints and handprints were used in East Asia for this function, being first impressed in clay, then printed on paper. This has been recorded since the 3rd century BCE in China – continuing for at least a millennium, see history of fingerprints for details and reference. Earlier similar devices are the seals used in Babylonia to make impressions on clay tablets. Zhuwen seals imprint the Chinese characters in red ink, sometimes referred to as yang seals, baiwen seals imprint the background in red, leaving white characters, sometimes referred to as yin seals. These were usually made of jade, and were square in shape. They were changed to a rectangular form during the Song dynasty, the Heirloom Seal was passed down through several dynasties, but had been lost by the beginning of the Ming dynasty. These seals typically bore the titles of the offices, rather than the names of the owners, different seals could be used for different purposes, for example, the Qianlong Emperor had a number of informal appreciation seals used on select paintings in his collection. The most popular style of script for government seals in the eras of China is the Nine-fold Script. The government of the Republic of China has continued to use traditional square seals of up to about 13 centimetres each side, known by a variety of names depending on the users hierarchy. Part of the ceremony for the President of the Republic of China includes bestowing on him the Seal of the Republic of China. In the Peoples Republic of China, the seal of the Central Peoples Government from 1949 to 1954 was a square, the inscription reads Seal of the Central Peoples Government of the Peoples Republic of China. Notably, the uses the relatively modern Song typeface rather than the more ancient seal scripts. Government seals in the Peoples Republic of China today are usually circular in shape, the name of the governmental institution is arranged around the star in a semicircle. There are many classes of personal seals, are the equivalent of todays email signature, and can contain the persons personal philosophy or literary inclination. These can be any shape, ranging from ovals to dragon-shaped, carry the name of the persons private studio 書齋, which most literati in ancient China had, although probably in lesser forms
39.
Numismatics
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Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. Early money used by people is referred to as Odd and Curious, the Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit and gave small change in lambskins, the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horse is not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as shells, precious metals, cocoa beans, large stones. Today, most transactions take place by a form of payment with either inherent, standardized, Numismatic value may be used to refer to the value in excess of the monetary value conferred by law, which is known as the collector value. Economic and historical studies of use and development are an integral part of the numismatists study of moneys physical embodiment. First attested in English 1829, the word comes from the adjective numismatic. It was borrowed in 1792 from French numismatiques, itself a derivation from Late Latin numismatis, genitive of numisma, throughout its history, money itself has been made to be a scarce good, although it does not have to be. Many materials have been used to form money, from naturally scarce precious metals and cowry shells through cigarettes to entirely artificial money, called fiat money, many complementary currencies use time as a unit of measure, using mutual credit accounting that keeps the balance of money intact. Modern money is essentially a token – an abstraction, paper currency is perhaps the most common type of physical money today. However, goods such as gold or silver retain many of the properties of money, such as volatility. However, these goods are not controlled by one single authority, coin collecting may have existed in ancient times. Caesar Augustus gave coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings, petrarch, who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vinediggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first Renaissance collector. Petrarch presented a collection of Roman coins to Emperor Charles IV in 1355, the first book on coins was De Asse et Partibus by Guillaume Budé. During the early Renaissance ancient coins were collected by European royalty and nobility, Numismatics is called the Hobby of Kings, due to its most esteemed founders. Professional societies organized in the 19th century, the Royal Numismatic Society was founded in 1836 and immediately began publishing the journal that became the Numismatic Chronicle. The American Numismatic Society was founded in 1858 and began publishing the American Journal of Numismatics in 1866, in 1931 the British Academy launched the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum publishing collections of Ancient Greek coinage. The first volume of Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles was published in 1958, after World War II in Germany a project, Fundmünzen der Antike was launched, to register every coin found within Germany. This idea found successors in many countries, in the United States, the US mint established a coin Cabinet in 1838 when chief coiner Adam Eckfeldt donated his personal collection
40.
Chinese furniture
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] The forms of Chinese furniture evolved along three distinct lineages which dates back to 1000 BC, based on frame and panel, yoke and rack and bamboo construction techniques. Chinese home furniture evolved independently of Western furniture into many forms including chairs, tables, stools, cupboards, cabinets, beds. Until about the 10th century CE the Chinese sat on mats or low platforms using low tables, in typical Asian style, but then gradually moved to using high tables with chairs. Chinese furniture is mostly in plain polished wood, but from at least the Song dynasty the most luxurious pieces often used lacquer to cover the whole or parts of the visible areas. All the various sub-techniques of Chinese lacquerware can be found on furniture, and become increasingly affordable down the social scale and it was especially popular on screens, which were common in China. Lacquer inlaid with mother of pearl was especially a technique used on furniture, Chinese furniture is usually light where possible, anticipating Europe by several centuries in this respect. Openwork in carved wood or other techniques is very typical for practical purposes such as chair-backs, the Ming period is regarded as the golden age of Chinese furniture, though very few examples of earlier pieces survive. What is now considered the Chinese aesthetic had its origins in China as far back as 1500-1000 BC, the furniture present in some of the artwork from that early period shows woven mats on elevated floors, sometimes accompanied by arm rests, providing seating accompanied by low tables. In this early period both unadorned and intricately engraved and painted pieces were already developing, high chairs, usually single ones, had existed as status symbols, effectively thrones, since at least the Eastern Zhou period, but were not used with tables at the same level. Buddhism, entering China around AD200, brought with it the idea of sitting upon a platform instead of simply mats. The platform was adopted as a seat for special guests. Longer versions were used for reclining as well, which eventually evolved into the bed and daybed. Taller versions evolved into higher tables as well, later, woven hourglass-shaped stools evolved, a design still in use today throughout China. Some of the now widely regarded as Chinese began appearing more prominently in the Tang Dynasty. It is here that evidence of early versions of the round and yoke back chairs are found, by the next two Dynasties the use of varying types of furniture, including chairs, benches, and stools was common throughout Chinese society. Two particular developments were recessed legs and waisted tables, newer and more complex designs were generally limited to official and higher class use. It was from this basis that more modern Chinese furniture developed its distinguishing characteristics, use of thick lacquer finish and detailed engraving and painted decoration as well as pragmatic design elements would continue to flourish. Significant foreign design influence would not be felt until increased contact with the West began in the 19th century, during the Ming and Qing dynasties previous bans on imports were lifted, allowing for larger quantities and varieties of woods to flood in from other parts of Asia
41.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
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Qing dynasty
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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
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Ethnic minorities in China
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Ethnic minorities in China are the non-Han Chinese population in the Peoples Republic of China. China officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within China in addition to the Han majority, as of 2010, the combined population of officially recognised minority groups comprised 8. 49% of the population of mainland China. In addition to officially recognized ethnic minority groups, there are PRC nationals who privately classify themselves as members of unrecognized ethnic groups. The ethnic minority officially recognized by the PRC reside within mainland China and Taiwan. The Republic of China in Taiwan officially recognises 14 Taiwanese aborigine groups, while the PRC classifies them all as an ethnic minority group. Hong Kong and Macau do not use this classification system. By definition, these minority groups, together with the Han majority. Chinese minorities alone are referred to as Shaoshu Minzu, the Chinese-language term for ethnic minority is shaoshu minzu. In early PRC documents, such as the 1982 constitution, the word minzu was translated as nationality, however, the Chinese word does not imply that ethnic minorities in China are not Chinese citizens, as in fact they are. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, governmental and scholarly publications have retranslated minzu in the ethnic minority sense into English as ethnic groups. Some scholars, to be more precise, use the neologism zuqun to unambiguously refer to ethnicity when minzu is needed to refer to nationality. Throughout much of recorded Chinese history, there was attempt by Chinese authors to separate the concepts of nationality, culture. The self-conceptualization of Han largely revolved around this center-periphery cultural divide, thus, the process of Sinicization throughout history had as much to do with the spreading of imperial rule and culture as it did with actual ethnic migration. This understanding persisted up until the Communists took power in 1949, Stalinist thinking about minorities was that a nation was made up of those with a common language, historical culture, and territory. Each nation of people then had the theoretical right to secede from a proposed federated government. The Stalinist model as applied to China gave rise to the regions in China. It tackled the question of why Muslims who were Chinese were considered a different race from other Chinese, the first problem was posed with a comparison to Chinese Buddhists, who were not considered a separate race. The Japanese were trying to spread the lie that Chinese Muslims were one race, to determine how many of these nations existed within China after the revolution of 1949, a team of social scientists was assembled to enumerate the various ethnic nations
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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
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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
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Sogdia
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Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great. In the Avesta, Sogdiana is listed as the second best land that the supreme deity Ahura Mazda had created and it comes second, after Airyanem Vaejah, homeland of the Aryans, in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, indicating the importance of this region from ancient times. Sogdiana was conquered by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC and later formed part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centred on the main city of Samarkand. Sogdiana lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, embracing the valley of the Zeravshan. Sogdian territory corresponds to the provinces of Samarkand and Bokhara in modern Uzbekistan as well as the Sughd province of modern Tajikistan. During the High Middle Ages, Sogdian cities included sites stretching towards Issyk Kul such as that at the site of Suyab. Sogdian, an Eastern Iranian language, is no longer a spoken language and it was widely spoken in Central Asia as a lingua franca and even served as one of the Turkic Khaganates court languages for writing documents. Sogdians also lived in Imperial China and rose to prominence in the military. Sogdian merchants and diplomats traveled as far west as the Byzantine Empire and they played an important part as middlemen in the trade route of the Silk Road. The Sogdian conversion to Islam was virtually complete by the end of the Samanid Empire in 999, coinciding with the decline of the Sogdian language, as it was largely supplanted by Persian. The restored Scythian name is *Skuda, which among the Pontic or Royal Scythians became *Skula, according to Szemerényi, Sogdiana was named from the Skuda form. This large-scale migration included Eastern Iranian speaking peoples such as the Sogdians, Achaemenid ruler Cyrus the Great conquered Sogdiana while campaigning in Central Asia in 546–539 BC, a fact mentioned by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories. Darius I introduced the Aramaic writing system and coin currency to Central Asia, in addition to incorporating Sogdians into his army as regular soldiers. A contingent of Sogdian soldiers fought in the army of Xerxes I during his ultimately failed invasion of Greece in 480 BC. A Persian inscription from Susa claims that the palace there was adorned with lapis lazuli, given the absence of any named satraps for Sogdiana in historical records, modern scholarship has concluded that Sogdiana was governed from the satrapy of nearby Bactria. The satraps were often relatives of the ruling Persian kings, especially sons who were not designated as the heir apparent, Sogdiana likely remained under Persian control until roughly 400 BC, during the reign of Artaxerxes II. Rebellious states of the Persian Empire took advantage of the weak Artaxerxes II, persias massive loss of Central Asian territory is widely attributed to the rulers lack of control. However, unlike Egypt, which was recaptured by the Persian Empire
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Sancai
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Sancai is a versatile type of decoration on Chinese pottery mainly using the three colors of brown, green, and a creamy off-white for decoration. It is particularly associated with the Tang Dynasty and its tomb figures, therefore, it is commonly referred to as Chinese, 唐三彩 Tang Sancai in Chinese. Flatware dishes and other vessels were made in the technique as well as figures, the body of sancai ceramics was made of white clay, coated with colored glaze, and fired at a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. Sancai is a type of lead-glazed earthenware, lead oxide was the principal flux in the glaze, the polychrome effect was obtained by using as coloring agents copper, iron, and less often manganese and cobalt. Sancai follows the development of green-glazed pottery dating back to the Han period, predecessors to the sancai style can also be seen in some Northern Qi ceramic works. Northern Qi tombs have revealed some beautiful artifacts, such as porcellaneous ware with splashed green designs, such a jar has been found in a Northern Qi tomb, which was closed in 576 AD, and is considered as a precursor of the Tang sancai style of ceramics. The sancai technique dates back to the Tang Dynasty, however, the colors of the glazes used to decorate the wares of the Tang Dynasty generally were not limited to three in number. In the West, Tang sancai wares were sometimes referred to as egg-and-spinach by dealers, for their use of green, yellow, Sancai wares were northern wares made using white and buff-firing secondary kaolins and fire clays. At kiln sites located at Tongchuan, Neiqui county in Hebei and Gongxian in Henan, the burial wares were fired at a lower temperature than contemporaneous whitewares. Large figures made for goods in burials, such as the well-known representations of camels and horses, were cast in sections. In some cases, a degree of individuality was imparted to the figurines by hand-carving. Sancai continued to be produced in later periods, very often for large items made for temples, sets of sancai luohan figures up to life-size were often displayed in special luohan halls in temples. Few of these remained in place survived the Cultural Revolution. The Yixian glazed pottery luohans are a Liao dynasty set that is now distributed between various Western museums, and so well known. Unusually, these were constructed around internal supporting iron bars, pairs of large guardian figures flanking shrines were also made. Sancai travelled along the Silk Road, to be extensively used in Syrian, Cypriot. Sancai also became a style in Japanese and other East Asian ceramic arts. In the 1980s and early 1990s reproductions of Tang sancai pieces were sent by the Chinese government to foreign leaders as gifts, at one point there were more than 3,000 factories, mostly tiny and shabby, sprinkled around Luoyang City, cradle of the craft
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Tang dynasty
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The Tang dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It is generally regarded as a point in Chinese civilization. Its territory, acquired through the campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The dynasty was founded by the Lǐ family, who seized power during the decline, the dynasty was briefly interrupted when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Second Zhou dynasty and becoming the only Chinese empress regnant. In two censuses of the 7th and 8th centuries, the Tang records estimated the population by number of registered households at about 50 million people. Various kingdoms and states paid tribute to the Tang court, while the Tang also conquered or subdued several regions which it controlled through a protectorate system. Besides political hegemony, the Tang also exerted a powerful influence over neighboring states such as those in Korea, Japan. Like the previous Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty maintained a service system by recruiting scholar-officials through standardized examinations and recommendations to office. This civil order was undermined by the rise of military governors known as jiedushi during the 9th century. Chinese culture flourished and further matured during the Tang era, it is considered the greatest age for Chinese poetry. Two of Chinas most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, there was a rich variety of historical literature compiled by scholars, as well as encyclopedias and geographical works. The adoption of the title Tängri Qaghan by the Tang Emperor Taizong in addition to his title as emperor was eastern Asias first simultaneous kingship, there were many notable innovations during the Tang, including the development of woodblock printing. Buddhism became an influence in Chinese culture, with native Chinese sects gaining prominence. However, Buddhism would later be persecuted by the state, subsequently declining in influence, although the dynasty and central government were in decline by the 9th century, art and culture continued to flourish. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage, which includes the Tang poet Li Bai, the Tang Emperors also had Xianbei maternal ancestry, from Emperor Gaozu of Tangs Xianbei mother Duchess Dugu. He had prestige and military experience, and was a first cousin of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan rose in rebellion in 617, along with his son and his equally militant daughter Princess Pingyang, who raised and commanded her own troops. In winter 617, Li Yuan occupied Changan, relegated Emperor Yang to the position of Taishang Huang or retired emperor, and acted as regent to the puppet child-emperor, Emperor Gong of Sui. On the news of Emperor Yangs murder by General Yuwen Huaji on June 18,618, Li Yuan declared himself the emperor of a new dynasty, the Tang
