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The Jomon period is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 16,500 years ago to about 2,300 years ago when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity.<br/><br/> The name Jomon or 'cord-marked' was first applied by the American scholar Edward S. Morse who discovered shards of pottery in 1877. The pottery style characteristic of the first phases of Jomon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay. This pottery, dated to around 16,000 years ago, seems to be the second oldest in the world; the oldest one has now been found in China.
The Hemudu culture (5500 to 3300 BCE) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay area in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BCE respectively.<br/><br/> The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu settlements. The Hemudu were one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Scholars view the Hemudu culture as a source of many proto-Austronesian cultures.
The Jomon period is the time in Prehistoric Japan from about 16,500 years ago to about 2,300 years ago when Japan was inhabited by a hunter-gatherer culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity.<br/><br/> The name Jomon or 'cord-marked' was first applied by the American scholar Edward S. Morse who discovered shards of pottery in 1877. The pottery style characteristic of the first phases of Jomon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay. This pottery, dated to around 16,000 years ago, seems to be the second oldest in the world; the oldest one has now been found in China.
The Hemudu culture (5500 to 3300 BCE) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay area in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BCE respectively.<br/><br/> The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu settlements. The Hemudu were one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Scholars view the Hemudu culture as a source of many proto-Austronesian cultures.
The Hemudu culture (5500 to 3300 BCE) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay area in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BCE respectively.<br/><br/> The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu settlements. The Hemudu were one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Scholars view the Hemudu culture as a source of many proto-Austronesian cultures.
The Tang Dynasty ( June 18, 618 – June 1, 907) was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire.<br/><br/> The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty (October 8, 690 – March 3, 705) when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, becoming the first and only Chinese empress regnant, ruling in her own right.
The Hemudu culture (5500 to 3300 BCE) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay area in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BCE respectively.<br/><br/> The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu settlements. The Hemudu were one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Scholars view the Hemudu culture as a source of many proto-Austronesian cultures.
Oriental carpets more than two centuries old have rarely survived and are rarely represented in Islamic Art since Sunni Islam (and to a lesser extent Shia) eschews representational art in favour of precisely the repetetive geometric symbols and arabesques found, for example, in oriental carpets.<br/><br/> This means that most examples of 17th century and earlier oriental carpets, mainly produced in Muslim lands, are only to be found in paintings from Christian lands where rich oriental carpets were associated with wealth, power and taste.<br/><br/> Such carpets featured as an important decorative feature in paintings from the 14th century onwards, leading to the dichotomy that there are more depictions of oriental carpets produced before the 17th century in European paintings than there are actual oriental carpets surviving from the same period.<br/><br/> Because of this European paintings have proved an invaluable source of reference for the study of the history of carpetmaking and carpets.
The revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin (四十七士 Shi-jū-shichi-shi), also known as the Forty-seven Samurai, the Akō vendetta, or the Genroku Akō incident (元禄赤穂事件 Genroku akō jiken) took place in Japan at the start of the 18th century. One noted Japanese scholar described the tale as the country's 'national legend'. It recounts the most famous case involving the samurai code of honor, bushidō.<br/><br/> The story tells of a group of samurai who were left leaderless (becoming ronin) after their daimyo (feudal lord) Asano Naganori was forced to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) for assaulting a court official named Kira Yoshinaka, whose title was Kōzuke no suke. The ronin avenged their master's honor after patiently waiting and planning for two years to kill Kira.<br/><br/> In turn, the ronin were themselves ordered to commit seppuku for committing the crime of murder. With much embellishment, this true story was popularized in Japanese culture as emblematic of the loyalty, sacrifice, persistence, and honor that all good people should preserve in their daily lives. The popularity of the almost mythical tale was only enhanced by rapid modernization during the Meiji era of Japanese history, when it is suggested many people in Japan longed for a return to their cultural roots.<br/><br/> Fictionalized accounts of these events are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularized in numerous plays including bunraku and kabuki. Because of the censorship laws of the shogunate in the Genroku era, which forbade portrayal of current events, the names of the ronin were changed.
Korean dragon jars, also known as cloud-dragon jars are a type of ceremonial porcelain vessel that became popular among the ruling classes of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). They are decorated with large dragons against a background of stylized clouds, painted with underglaze pigments.<br/><br/> In addition to being a generally auspicious symbol, the dragon represented the authority and beneficence of the ruler. In 1754, King Yòngjo decreed that iron pigments were to be used exclusively in ceramic ware, except for jars having a dragon design. Because of the scarcity of the traditional cobalt blue pigment, which was imported from Muslim Turkestan, and was also known as 'Mohammedan blue', an underglaze brown iron oxide pigment was also used between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
Jar with lotus, chrysanthemum motifs. Pattern brown glazed ceramic, Trần dynasty, 13th-14th century. Nam Định province, northern Vietnam. Domestic use. National Museum of Vietnamese History, Hanoi.
Thanh Hoa type ceramics, produced from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, are unique in Asian ceramics, as they represent cultural influences emanating from both India and China.<br/><br/> Using advanced firing and glazing techniques from China, their forms were often influenced by Indian bronzes, sometimes filtered through Cambodian works, brought up through the southern trade routes. Several different Thanh Hoa forms and types are represented in this collection, the most prominent of which is a magnificent lobed jar with its original lid and reticulated foot, all highlighted by iron-oxide brown details.
Giao Chỉ was the name of one bộ, an administrative level equivalent to a district, of the former nation Văn Lang during the Hùng Vương era. Its territory included present-day Hà Nội and the land on the right bank of the Hồng river.
The Eight Immortals (Chinese: Baxian; Pa-hsien) are a group of legendary 'xian' (immortals; transcendents; fairies) in Chinese mythology. Each Immortal's power can give life or destroy evil. Most of them are said to have been born in the Tang Dynasty or Song Dynasty.<br/><br/> They are revered in Daoism (Taoism) and are also a popular element in secular Chinese culture. They are said to live on a group of five islands in the Bohai Sea which includes Penglai Mountain-Island.
Green tea is made solely from the leaves of Camellia sinensis that have undergone minimal oxidation during processing.<br/><br/> Green tea originates in China and has become associated with many cultures throughout Asia. It has recently become more widespread in the West, where black tea is traditionally consumed. Many varieties of green tea have been created in countries where they are grown. These varieties can differ substantially due to variable growing conditions, horticulture, production processing, and harvesting time.<br/><br/> Over the last few decades green tea has been subjected to many scientific and medical studies to determine the extent of its long-purported health benefits, with some evidence suggesting that regular green tea drinkers may have a lower risk of developing heart disease and certain types of cancer.
The Sa Huỳnh culture (Vietnamese: Văn hóa Sa Huỳnh) was a culture in central and southern Vietnam that flourished between c. 1000 BCE and 200 CE. Archaeological sites from the culture have been discovered from the Mekong Delta to just south of the Tonkin region. The Sa Huynh people were most likely the predecessors of the Cham people, the founders of the kingdom of Champa.<br/><br/> The site at Sa Huynh was discovered in 1909. Sa Huynh sites were rich in locally-worked iron artefacts, typified by axes, swords, spearheads, knives and sickles. In contrast, bronze artefacts were dominant in the Dong Son culture sites found in northern Vietnam and elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia.<br/><br/> The Sa Huynh culture cremated adults and buried them in jars covered with lids, a practice unique to the culture. Ritually broken offerings usually accompanied the jar burials. The culture is also typified by its unique ear ornaments featuring two-headed animals. The ornaments were commonly made from jade (nephrite), but also made from glass. Bead ornaments were also commonly found in Sa Huynh burials, most commonly made from glass.<br/><br/> The Sa Huynh culture showed evidence of an extensive trade network. Sa Huynh beads were made from glass, carnelian, agate, olivine, zircon, gold and garnet; most of these materials were not local to the region, and were most likely imported. Han Dynasty-styled bronze mirrors were also found in Sa Huynh sites. Conversely, Sa Huynh produced ear ornaments have been found in archaeological sites in Central Thailand, Taiwan (Orchid Island), and the Philippines (Palawan).