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A Complete Map of the World (Detail), 1674, by Ferdinand Verbiest (Flemish, 1623–1688). China; Beijing. Eight-panel woodblock print; ink on paper. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., G3200 1674.V4.
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Exchanging Information: European Conceptions of China

Grade Level: 
Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

In the early years of Western sea exploration, traders and missionaries began returning to Europe with stories and goods from their visits to China. Information about China was spread through books, prints, and export items, such as porcelain and textiles. Reports compiled by Jesuit missionaries fueled the curiosity of the public and inspired chinoiserie, the evocation of Chinese motifs in art, furniture, architecture, and gardens. Just as Jesuits translated important authors such as Euclid into Chinese, they also translated Confucian works into Latin.

Great Wild Goose Pagoda
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Great Wild Goose Pagoda

Grade Level: 
Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), College and Beyond
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

The stone pagoda structure is called the Great Wild Goose Pagoda enclosed within the Ci’en (Temple of Mercy) monastery in present-day Xi’an. It was erected in 652 to commemorate the return of the temple’s abbott, the celebrated monk Xuanzang. This heroic figure to Chinese Buddhist history traveled west across the Silk Road and throughout India for sixteen years, exploring the homeland of Buddhism before returning with hundreds of sutras (Buddhist texts).

Seated Buddha, 200–300
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How to Identify a Buddha

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Elementary School (4-5), Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12)
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

The earliest surviving representations of the Buddha date from hundreds of years after his death, so they are not portraits in the usual sense. Buddha images vary greatly from place to place and period to period, but they almost always show these conventional features . . .

Ritual bell (the so-called Wangsun Yizhe yongzhong)
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Hundred Schools of Philosophy

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Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), College and Beyond
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

Beginning in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (ca. 1071‒ 221 BCE) was the development of the so-called ‘hundred schools’ of philosophy, a creative flowering of genius that laid the foundations for all major schools of Chinese thought with the exception of Buddhism. At this time, philosophers began to travel around from court to court offering advice on everything from how to run the state, how to achieve victory in battle and how to achieve immortality. The most famous systems of thought to develop during this time were . . .

A Complete Map of the Ten Thousand Countries of the World, 1602, by Matteo Ricci (Italian, 1552–1610), with Li Zhizao (Chinese, 1565–1630), printed by Zhang Wentao (Chinese, dates unknown). China; Beijing. Six-panel woodblock print; ink on paper. Owned by the James Ford Bell Trust, held at the James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota.
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Mapping New Worlds: Cartography at the Intersection of East and West

Grade Level: 
Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), College and Beyond
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

We think of maps as tools for getting from one place to another, as sources of information about the geography of the world, as political objects for claiming territory and demarcating boundaries. They can represent real or imagined lands: districts to be taxed or cosmological realms to be contemplated in meditation. At their core, maps represent the known world, yet fantasy lurks in their peripheries. Maps, above all, give us a glimpse of how people at a certain time and location envisioned their world and their place in it.

Fragment of oracle bone, approx. 1300-1050BCE
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Oracle Bones

Grade Level: 
Middle School (6-8), High School (9-12), College and Beyond
Resource Type: 
Background Information
Description: 

While Bronze vessels were the most visible implements used in the ancestor rites of the Shang dynasty (approx. 1600-1050 BCE), it was through oracle bones that actual communication with ancestors took place. These bones, primarily the shoulder blades of cattle and the undershells of turtles, were dried and had holes drilled in them at regular intervals.

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