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Yi (vessel)
A ''yi'' is a shape used in ancient Chinese ritual bronzes. It has the shape of half a gourd with a handle (often in the shape of a dragon) and usually supported by four legs. It is believed it was used to contain water for washing hands before rituals like sacrifices. References * http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/30Arts2067.html (unsafe URL) * http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/30Arts2015.html (unsafe URL) External linksThe great bronze age of China: an exhibition from the People's Republic of China
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on yi Chinese bronzeware {{china-stub ...
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20090822 Shanghai Museum 3256
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Hindu–Arabic digit Circa 300 BC, as part of the Brahmi numerals, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. How the numbers got to their Gupta form is open to considerable debate. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an ascender in most modern typefa ...
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Chinese Ritual Bronzes
From , elaborately decorated bronze vessels were deposited as grave goods in the tombs of royalty and nobility during the Chinese Bronze Age. Documented excavations have found over 200 pieces in a single royal tomb. They were produced for an individual or social group to use in making ritual offerings of food and drink to his or their ancestors and other deities or spirits. Such ceremonies generally took place in family temples or ceremonial halls over tombs. These ceremonies can be seen as ritual banquets in which both living and dead members of a family were supposed to participate. Details of these ritual ceremonies are preserved through early literary records. On the death of the owner of a ritual bronze, it would often 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. Indeed, many surviving examples have been excavated from graves. The bronzes were likely not used for normal eating and ...
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Gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly '' Cucurbita'' and '' Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. Many gourds have large, bulbous bodies and long necks, such as Dipper Gourds, many variations of Bottle Gourd and caveman club gourds. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, '' Lagenaria siceraria'', have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BC. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food. Terminology ''Gourd'' is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons. More specifically, ''gourd'' refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera '' Lagenaria'' and '' Cucurbita'', or also to their hollow, dried-ou ...
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