Refine your search

The results of your search are listed below alongside the search terms you entered on the previous page. You can refine your search by amending any of the parameters in the form and resubmitting it.

Select all Deselect all Add selection to lightbox
Large Small
Thumbnails per page
Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.<br/><br/> The atolls, formed of great rings of coral based on the submarine Laccadive-Chagos ridge, vary greatly in size. Some are only a few kilometres square, but in the far south the great atoll of Suvadiva is sixty-five kilometres across, and has a central lagoon of more than 2000 square kilometres. The northern and central atolls are separated from each other by comparatively narrow channels of deep water, but in the south Suvadiva is cut off by the eighty-kilometre-wide One-and-a-half-Degree Channel. Addu Atoll is still more isolated, being separated from the atoll of Suvadiva by the seventy-kilometre-wide Equatorial Channel.
Japan: Short-lived Second Brother Ruan Xiaowu or Tanmeijiro Gen Shogo, one of the 'One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Water Margin', underwater holding a rope, with a sword in his other hand. Woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1863), 1827-1830. The Water Margin (known in Chinese as Shuihu Zhuan, sometimes abbreviated to Shuihu, known as Suikoden in Japanese, as well as Outlaws of the Marsh, Tale of the Marshes, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang in English, is a 14th century novel and one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese.
Peng Qi, Japanese name Tenmokusho Hoki, standing in the snow in a black bearskin cloak stands ready with a rope.<br/><br/> The Water Margin (known in Chinese as Shuihu Zhuan, sometimes abbreviated to Shuihu, 水滸傳), known as Suikoden in Japanese, as well as Outlaws of the Marsh, Tale of the Marshes, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang in English, is a 14th century novel and one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.<br/><br/> Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese, the story, set in the Song Dynasty, tells of how a group of 108 outlaws gathered at Mount Liang (or Liangshan Marsh) to form a sizable army before they are eventually granted amnesty by the government and sent on campaigns to resist foreign invaders and suppress rebel forces.<br/><br/> In 1827, Japanese publisher Kagaya Kichibei commissioned Utagawa Kuniyoshi to produce a series of woodblock prints illustrating the 108 heroes of the Suikoden. The 1827-1830 series, called '108 Heroes of the Water Margin' or 'Tsuzoku Suikoden goketsu hyakuhachinin no hitori', made Utagawa Kuniyoshi's famous.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡 芳年, 30 April 1839 – 9 June 1892, also named Taiso Yoshitoshi 大蘇 芳年) was a Japanese artist.<br/><br/> He is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing. He is additionally regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock printing.<br/><br/> Eimei nijūhasshūku (英名 二十八 衆句 or ‘28 Famous Murders with Verse’), also known as the 'Bloody Prints', is a collection of Japanese ukiyo-e from the 1860s, which depicted gruesome acts of murder or torture based on historical events or scenes in Kabuki plays. Although most of the works are solely violent by nature, it is perhaps the first known example of ero guro or the erotic grotesque in Japanese culture, an art sub-genre which depicts either erotic or extreme images of violence and mutilation.
Hand-coloured illustration from a Japanese miscellany on traditional trades, crafts and customs in mid-18th century Japan, dated Meiwa Era (1764-1772) Year 6 (c. 1770 CE).
Hand-coloured illustration from a Japanese miscellany on traditional trades, crafts and customs in mid-18th century Japan, dated Meiwa Era (1764-1772) Year 6 (c. 1770 CE).
Hanoi's Old Quarter lies immediately north of Ho Hoan Kiem lake. It's better known locally as Bam Sau Pho Phuong or the ‘Thirty Six Streets’. 'Phuong' means a trade guild, and most of the streets begin with the word 'hang' meaning merchandise. This ancient section of the city has long been associated with commerce, and it remains very much so today.
The Tea Horse Road (Cha Ma Dao) was a network of mule caravan paths winding through the mountains of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet in Southwest China.<br/><br/> It is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Silk Road and Ancient Tea and Horse Road. From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea-producing regions, to India via Burma, to Tibet, and to central China via Sichuan Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt.<br/><br/> It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea bricks) first spread across China and Asia from its presumed origins in Pu'er county, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan.
Kinbaku (緊縛) means 'tight binding' Kinbaku-bi (緊縛美) which literally means 'the beauty of tight binding'. Kinbaku is a Japanese style of bondage or BDSM. Shibari (縛り) is a Japanese word that literally means 'to tie' or 'to bind'.<br/><br/>Bondage as a sexual activity first came to notice in Japan in the late Edo period. Generally recognized as 'father of Kinbaku' is Seiu Ito, who started studying and researching Hojōjutsu is credited with the inception of Kinbaku, though it is noted that he drew inspiration from other art forms of the time including Kabuki theatre and Ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
Abdul Hamid II (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد ثانی, `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i sânî; Turkish: İkinci Abdülhamit; 22 September 1842 – 10 February 1918) was the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the last Sultan to exert effective autocratic control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, including widespread pogroms and government massacres against the minorities of the Empire (named the Hamidian massacres after him) as well as an assassination attempt, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed shortly after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, on 27 April 1909. He was succeeded by his brother Mehmed V.<br/><br/> Despite his conservatism and belief in absolute monarchy, Abdul Hamid was responsible for some modest modernization of the Ottoman Empire during his long reign, including reform of the bureaucracy, the ambitious Hijaz Railway project, the establishment of a system for population registration and control over the press, and the founding of the first modern law school in 1898.<br/><br/> Often known as the Red Sultan or Abdul the Damned due to the atrocities committed against the Empire's minorities under his rule and use of a secret police to silence dissent, Abdul Hamid became more reclusive toward the end of his reign, his worsening paranoia about perceived threats to his personal power and his life leading him to shun public appearances.
A ninja (忍者) or shinobi (忍び) was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan who specialized in unorthodox warfare. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, and open combat in certain situations.<br/><br/> Their covert methods of waging war contrasted the ninja with the samurai, who observed strict rules about honor and combat. The shinobi proper, a specially trained group of spies and mercenaries, appeared in the Sengoku or 'warring states' period, in the 15th century, but antecedents may have existed in the 14th century, and possibly even in the 12th century (Heian or early Kamakura era).