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Damaidi
Damaidi (; ''literally: Big wheat field'') is the location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures. Cliff carving expert Li Xiangshi stated that "The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters," Another expert said "Through arduous research, we have found that some pictographs are commonly seen in up to hundreds of pictures in the carvings," said Liu Jingyun, an expert on ancient Oracle Bone characters. The size, shape and meanings of the pictographs in different carvings are the same. These pictographs may be the origin of Chinese characters. Damaidi itself is a small village located in Zhongwei in Central China, set amid the Weining Mountains on the north bend of the Yellow River. Cliff carvings The dates of these carvings is uncertain. The latest were made during the Western Xia dynasty (1032-1227). Dates for the first carvings ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Character
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; , nearly have been identified and included in '' The Unicode Standard''. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century BCE in w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petroglyph
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs, estimated to be 20,000 years old are classified as protected monuments and have been added to the tentative list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Petroglyphs are found worldwide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek prefix , from meaning " stone", and meaning "carve", and was originally coined in French as . In scholarly texts, a ''petroglyph'' is a rock engraving, whereas a '' petrograph'' (or ''pictograph'') is a rock painting. In common usage, the words are sometimes used interchangeably. Both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art or parietal art. Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oracle Bone Script
Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtles. The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the Late Shang royal family. These divinations took the form of '' scapulimancy'' where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself. Out of an estimated 150,000 inscriptions that have been uncovered, the vast majority were unearthed at Yinxu, the site of the final Shang capital (modern-day Anyang, Henan). The most recent major discovery was the Huayuanzhuang cache found near the site in 1993. Of the 1,608 Huayuanzhang pieces, 579 bear inscriptions. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhongwei
Zhongwei (, Xiao'erjing: جْووِ شِ) is a prefecture-level city of Ningxia, People's Republic of China. It has an area of and a population of 1,174,600 in 2019. The city is known for its wolfberry and Gobi watermelon cultivation. One of the world's largest photovoltaic power station, Tengger Desert Solar Park, is located in Zhongwei. History Under general Meng Tian, the Qin captured the area of Zhongwei and established the Beidi Commandery. In 205 BC a city built at the current location of Zhongwei urban area, which would grow as irrigation systems were built to allow farming. In 1226 Genghis Khan captured Zhongwei, and in 1403 the city was named Zhongwei, part of Shaanxi. In 1920 Zhongwei was struck by the Haiyuan earthquake; and in 1926 the highway from Lanzhou to Zhongwei opened. Tourism Zhongwei's main attraction is Gao Miao, a temple that has hosted Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist ceremonies. A bomb shelter was also built beneath the temple during the Cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weining Mountains
Weining may refer to: * Li Weining (born 1959), acting mayor of the city of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, China * Lin Weining (born 1979), female Chinese weightlifter and Olympic gold medalist * Frederick Weining (born 1965), role-playing game designer * Weining Yi Hui and Miao Autonomous County, Guizhou, China {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellow River
The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan Har Mountains, the river flows generally eastwards before entering the long Ordos Loop, which runs northeast at Gansu through the Ordos Plateau and turns east in Inner Mongolia. The river then turns sharply southwards to form the border between Shanxi and Shaanxi, turns eastwards at its confluence with the Wei River, and flows across the North China Plain before emptying into the Bohai Sea. The river is named for the yellow color of its water, which comes from the large amount of sediment discharged into the water as the river flows through the Loess Plateau. The Yellow River basin was the birthplace of Yellow River civilization, ancient Chinese civilization. According to traditional Chinese historiography, the Xia dynasty originated on it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia ( zh, c=, w=Hsi1 Hsia4, p=Xī Xià), officially the Great Xia ( zh, c=大夏, w=Ta4 Hsia4, p=Dà Xià, labels=no), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over modern-day northwestern China, including parts of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, northern Shaanxi, northeastern Xinjiang, and southwest Inner Mongolia, and southernmost Outer Mongolia, measuring about . The capital of Western Xia was Xingqing (modern Yinchuan); another major Xia city and archaeological site is Khara-Khoto. Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongols in 1227. Most of its written records and architecture were destroyed, so the founders and history of the empire remained obscure until 20th-century research in China and the West. Today the Tangut language and its unique script are extinct, only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ningxia Museum
The Ningxia Museum () is a museum in Jinfeng District, Yinchuan, Ningxia, China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after .... History The original museum building was prepared in 1959 and built in 1973. Construction of a new museum building started in November 2006. The museum was re-opened on 28 August 2008 and the old site was closed. Architecture The museum building is a three-story building with a total floor area of 30,258 m2. It consists of eight exhibition halls. The building was constructed resembling the Hui () character. Exhibitions The museum displays more than 10,000 cultural relics. See also * List of museums in China References External links * Museums in Ningxia 1973 establishments in China Museums established in 1973 National first-grade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by Hominini, hominins, 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene, 11,650 Before Present#Radiocarbon calibration, cal Before Present, BP. The Paleolithic Age in Europe preceded the Mesolithic Age, although the date of the transition varies geographically by several thousand years. During the Paleolithic Age, hominins grouped together in small societies such as band society, bands and subsisted by gathering plants, fishing, and hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic Age is characterized by the use of Knapping, knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hieroglyph
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.In total, there were about 1,000 graphemes in use during the Old Kingdom period; this number decreased to 750–850 during the Middle Kingdom, but rose instead to around 5,000 signs during the Ptolemaic period. Antonio Loprieno, ''Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995), p. 12. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing, as was the Proto-Sinaitic script that later evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphs are the ultimate ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet, the first widely adopted phonetic writing system. Moreover, owing in large part to the Greek and Aramaic sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jiaguwen
Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtles. The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the Late Shang royal family. These divinations took the form of ''scapulimancy'' where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself. Out of an estimated 150,000 inscriptions that have been uncovered, the vast majority were unearthed at Yinxu, the site of the final Shang capital (modern-day Anyang, Henan). The most recent major discovery was the Huayuanzhuang cache found near the site in 1993. Of the 1,608 Huayuanzhang pieces, 579 bear inscriptions. Each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
