Daily Life

Embroidered Floral Roundels

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:24:03 +0000

Embroidered Floral Roundels

Northern dynasties, 4-6^th centuries

L81cm；W33cm

The floral roundels were embroidered with silk threads in blue, beige, brown and other colors on tabby ground. The flowers are either in six or four petals, indicating that it has been randomly produced.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:24

Dotted Caramel Glazed Porcelain jar

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:42:56 +0000

Dotted Caramel Glazed Porcelain jar

The jars have a curved mouth, convex belly and a round bottom, with caramel and honeysuckle colored figures and flower-dots arranged haphazardly on a pale material.

Height: 8.5cm, caliber: 12.5cm, bottom diameter: 7.5cm

Excavated from the site of the West Market

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 30/06/2015 - 15:42

Alphabet of Ugarit

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:17:13 +0000

Alphabet of Ugarit

This clay tablet was discovered at the site of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) located along the Syrian coast, 10 km north of Latakia. Ugarit was the capital city of the Empire bearing the same name.

The Ugarit excavations present important collections of cuneiform tablets. These tablets reveal the usage of cuneiform script to write various different languages including Sumerian, Acadian- Babylonian, Hurrian, Cypriote, Aegean and Hittite. Also discovered were Egyptian Hieroglyphic scripts. This wide diversity of languages indicates the richness and notability of Ugarit among the nations of the old world, particularly in terms of communication, commercial interaction and cultural openness. It is evident that the scribes of Ugarit knew of the various people’s scripts and languages and used them in their commercial correspondences.

Yet, the greatest role of this city is the thinking of its people and the development of the first ever phonetically based script. To transcend the accumulation of various languages and the confusion this caused, the people of Ugarit developed their own writing system. They changed the cuneiform script to represent the sounds of their spoken tongue. While previously writing was only for a special class of rulers or priests, the people of Ugarit put into writing their own everyday language, and made the capacity for writing and the preservation of knowledge more widely available. Read more about this object on the UNESCO Museums for Intercultural Dialogue website.

Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 15/02/2013 - 11:17

Sutra Book Covers

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:45:00 +0000

Sutra Book Covers

Ming dynasty, 14-17^thcenturies

L: 36.8cm, W: 13cm

Book covers for Buddhist sutras are known as “sutra wrappers” which are used for both the front and back of a book. Usually pasted center front onto the cover is a stripe of yellow paper for inscription, indicating the title and volume number of a book. This piece of book cover is gold brocaded satin in material which was in a variety of applications during the Ming dynasty and overwhelmingly so as a chosen material for sutra covers, with frontal lotus among fret pattern on a red ground.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:45

Light-colored glazed vase with peony and tendril carvings

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 14:40:11 +0000

Light-colored glazed vase with peony and tendril carvings

The vase has a round mouth, curved edge, long neck, wide shoulder, full stomach and a round base. It is covered with lily and peony patterns. There are two round string patterns between neck and shoulder, a round leaf pattern on the shoulder, and both the patterns employ carving and cutting skills. The maker uses tools made of metal or bamboo and draws various patterns on vessels when they are not completely dry. The pattern is carved and other decoration is drawn, the line is then smoothened and boldened. The decoration pattern is thin as silk emphasizing on clarity and order. The pattern is complex but clear, just like the Bas-relief decoration. The decoration pattern layout follows a sequence and the knife skill employed has to be smooth, sharp, free, full of power and strength. This elegant cup is lush and modest.

Caliber: 12.6 CM, Height: 20 CM, Diameter of Bottom: 11.5 CM

Museum collection

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 30/06/2015 - 16:40

Gilded Silver Cup with vinery and grass engraving

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 12:12:47 +0000

Gilded Silver Cup with vinery and grass engraving

The cup’s mouth is slightly wide with pointed lips, concave and arced belly, round bottom and a handle. The cup is entirely gilded. The inside of the cup is simple, while the outside is decorated with curling vinery and grapes, vividly reflecting the scenery of the countryside. The engraving is quite stylish making the cup a masterpiece of Tang Dynasty.

Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 30/06/2015 - 14:12

Robe with Decorative Braided Waist Band

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:38:40 +0000

Robe with Decorative Braided Waist Band

Yuan Dynasty. 13-14^th century

H117cm, W202cm

This type of braided waist band robe was in vogue as costume for men in north China during the Yuan Dynasty. With overlapping collar and front panels opening to the right, this robe has fitting sleeves, a gathered waist and a very loose bottom, an outfit suited for horse riding and hunting. The distinctive feature in this costume is the braided band stitched onto the waist section. The band, usually 15cm in width, is formed by lining up either multiple cords of twisted strips of silk tabby or heavily braided silk threads. The costume is documented in the Yuan Chronicles, Costumes as “Braided Band Robe”. This fragment of the left shoulder is what is left of such a robe. The ground material is a patterned twill with floral scrolls. Embroidered onto the ground in gold couching technique are some clouds, the moon and a bunny inside of it. Although the original right shoulder is missing, it is assumed that the right shoulder bears another embroidered roundel representing the sun and that it should have a three-legged bird in it. Such a combination of motifs with the sun and moon on a different shoulder of a robe is widely recorded in Yuan literature, and also matches, down to the same position, the decorative patterns of the sun and moon on the imperial ceremonial robe of the emperors. This arrangement reflects the prevailing concept of man’s identification of oneness with nature at that time.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:38

Robe with “All-Weather” Sleeves, Twill Damask with Couched Appliqué

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:40:07 +0000

Robe with “All-Weather” Sleeves, Twill Damask with Couched Appliqué

Yuan dynasty, 13-14^th century

L 119cm, W 224 cm

The robe has an overlapping collar with right over left, narrow sleeves. This robe has one remarkable feature. The sleeves, worn at full length during winter, could be folded back in the summer and attached to the robe’s back by slits in the fabric at the shoulders. The loops for attaching the bottom portion of the sleeves to the back are located about 16cm above the cuff, and the button they could be attached to is located at the centre of the back of the robe about 14cm below the collar. In the region of the skirt at the back of the robe (to the right) is a pleat of some 33cm of material to form a vent for horse riding. On each of the shoulders of the robe is an embroidered rosette roundel (about 10cm in diameter) flanked to one side by a triangular configuration of a vine-like motif with ruyi shaped fungus and lotus with a width of 24cm at its bottom. The embroiderer first couched wrapped gold threads on a piece of silk textile, with some padding underneath to form a raised outline, and then stitched the embroidered piece onto the robe in the standard procedure of appliqué. Similar designs to the rosette and scrolling vine plinth can be found in some other Yuan costumes.

The damask of the robe’s exterior layer bears a pattern of lozenges against which is a repeated motif of flying birds. The foundation weave is 221/111 twill in S and Z directions to form the lozenges design, on which the flying birds, one row facing leftwards and the other facing rightwards, are in units of 6.8cm in the warp and 7.2cm in the weft direction.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:40

Resist-dyed Slip Dress on Tabby Ground with Samite Trim

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:36:42 +0000

Resist-dyed Slip Dress on Tabby Ground with Samite Trim

Tang dynasty, 7-8^th centuries

L: 47 cm, W: 137 cm

This piece of silk dress on dark brown tabby ground, consists of three parts: straps, dress, and samite trim. There are 19 horizontal stripes in the fabric below chest dyed with resist-dyeing technology. Two wide jin hems are stitched on the dress, one being large pearl roundels enclosing motifs of goats on brown ground, while the other being confronted birds in pearl roundel on red ground. Both of them are weft-faced twill, typical central Asian and Persian style, similar dresses are also found in tombs in Dulan, Qinghai province.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:36

Silk Robe with Floral Medallion

n_zhou — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 15:43:31 +0000

Silk Robe with Floral Medallion

Tang dynasty. 8th-9^th centuries

L138cm, W248cm

This is a silk robe with overlapping collar and front panels opening to the left, fitting sleeves and a slit up from the hem in the back. Using a patterned compound twill (samite) with brown floral motifs for ground, the dominant motif is a large floral medallion of 44cm in diameter with a warp repeat of 55cm. within the large medallion motif are three layers of different elements, a double-petalled frontal flower in the center, eight whirling cloud elements in the middle, and eight blooming flowers that form the outside layer of the medallion. This gorgeous pattern best exemplifies the typical floral medallion patterns at the height of the Tang dynasty.

There is a floral section on both sleeves with a light tone of brown, where the structure is the same but the motif is slightly different from the rest of the ground patterns in dark tone. Placed in the middle of this light brown section is again a large three-layered medallion of 44cm in diameter with a double petalled frontal flower in the center. Flowers in profile with stems and foliage are nested in the middle layer and eight budding flowers form the outside layer of the medallion. There are some birds beneath the flowers, making these sections into medallion motifs into a scene.

The cuffs are decorated with a band of patterned cloth of the same material, a 1:3 weft-faced compound twill in four colors, yellows for ground and white, green and brown for figure. The motif is also a highly decorative floral medallion, with an estimated diameter of 16cm.

n_zhou Mon, 04/07/2016 - 17:43