#china sheep

[blueiskewl]

A Rare 2,000-Year-Old Sheep-Drawn Chariot Discovered Near China’s First Emperor

Only the sheep's skeletons remain, but such vehicles appear in Chinese lore.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of what appears to be an ancient sheep-drawn chariot near the famous "Terracotta Army" in northwestern China.

The English-language website China Daily, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, reported that the remains were found in the "western tomb" at the site of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum, a few miles northeast of the city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province.

Archaeologist Jiang Wenxiao, who is leading the excavations of the tomb, told China Daily that the main structure of the chariot had rotted away after spending more than 2,000 years in the ground. (The mausoleum dates to the third century B.C.)

But the team did find a row of six sheep skeletons wearing accessories used for pulling a chariot, so they inferred this was a sheep-drawn chariot, Wenxiao said.

Drawn by sheep

Horse-drawn chariots and ox-drawn carts were common in ancient China, but a sheep-drawn chariot is an extremely rare find, Wenxiao said.

They appear in Chinese history, however, as well as in Chinese lore. The founder of the Western Jin dynasty, Emperor Wu (or Sima Yan), who ruled from A.D. 266 to 290, is said to have ridden in a sheep-drawn carriage around his palace complex every night and would sleep wherever the sheep stopped.

His practice may be the origin of the modern Chinese phrase "seeking luck in a sheep cart"; it's said the emperor had a harem of 10,000 wives, and this seems to have been Sima Yan's method of choosing among them.

Wenxiao presented the discoveries at the Fourth Congress of Chinese Archaeology, which was held in Xi'an in October, according to the state-owned website ECNS.cn.

The team hopes laboratory analysis on the western tomb's burial chamber, which is currently underway, will help them determine who was buried there, the report said.

Chinese chariots

In addition to the six-sheep chariot, archaeologists unearthed a four-wheeled wooden chariot, presumably drawn by horses, equipped with an ornate rectangular umbrella. It is the oldest of its type ever found, according to Wenxiao.

They also found a wealth of copper chariot and horse-related artifacts, as well as iron tools and copper weapons, providing new insight into the period when iron tools first began to appear.

The mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who ruled from 221 to 210 B.C. and is considered the first emperor of a united China, is spread over about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) and took 38 years to complete. Three immense pits in the mausoleum site hold more than 8,000 life-sized sculptures that depict the emperor's soldiers and their horses — the so-called Terracotta Army.

By Tom Metcalfe.

[elitesheepi]

Was forcibly reminded about how much I used to love this mfer when I was 13

[sitting-on-me-bum]

An overlooked crisis: Despite humans keeping more than two billion domesticated goats and sheep, people are still poaching their wild counterparts—some to near extinction. Their declining populations, particularly in places like the Himalaya, could spell trouble for conservation’s more traditional stars like snow leopards. (Wild blue sheep, pictured above in northwest China, are declining in Myanmar.)

PHOTOGRAPH BY XI ZHINONG, MINDEN PICTURES

[thirstys8n]

Watched Scott Pilgrim 2 moons ago and I gotta say that Knives is a bad bitch i loved it when she turned into a warrior. Scott deserved to get dumped by her because she's already too cool for him AND she was like 17 while he was like what 22?

KNIVES CHAU SUPREMACY !!!!

[crehador]

i think at this point i've spent more time trying to pick clothes for nuis than i ever have for myself. it's more important.........

[eastwestimage]

Figure of a sheep, Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). China. Pure pale green jade.

"This is a typical Han dynasty jade sheep, detailed on the head and legs and with a hole between the tucked-in legs and body so that it could be worn as a pendant or belt-toggle. The Han dynasty dictionary Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 interprets the character for sheep or antelope (yang) as xiang 祥 ('auspicious or a good omen'). In later traditions, three sheep (or goats) denote the pun sanyang kaitai 三羊開泰: 'With the return of the yang energy after the long winter, prosperity will come your way.'

Jade sheep first appear in the late Shang period (two were discovered in the Fuhao tomb). From the Shang and succeeding Zhou dynasties, only carved heads or masks have been found. They were normally carved from a thin jade sheet, on one side only. Jade sheep were rare after the Western Zhou dynasty, but reappeared in the Han and the Southern and Northern dynasties."

From "Translucent World: Chinese Jade from the Forbidden World" by Yang Liu and Edmund Capon, published in 2007.

[cxsmicmyeon]

yixing in the wild omg (saw the ad when walking to the tattoo shop)

@colognedecigarette @eternalnostos @leewalberg (:(:

[getitoncamera]

exo might drive me insane sometimes but damn it if i don’t love them so much-

[mothmiso]

2021 NeiMongol (2) (3) (4) (5) by Xuanian Wu

[jigszaw]

Omg I made it on a social justice fail page for defending China against the false uyghur genocide claims… I did not know ppl still did that on here LMFAO ‘no links to back this up’ literally u can just google whether or not the UN said the genocide wasn’t happening. They said no btw.

Also I’m not arguing w ppl who have done so little research that they don’t know the intergovernmental council of the world and peace said the genocide isn’t happening like im sorry if i scared u little sheep. Go back to the western media echo chamber… my posts were not meant for u… I’m seeking those who genuinely can consider that somethings are manufactured western propaganda… I fear it is too late for u..

[lionfloss]

Dozens of sheep spent 12 days in a row walking in a nearly perfect circle on a farm in China’s Inner Mongolia region.

[thesheepcultleader]

I spent a couple days in West Cork with my boyfriend and his parents. I encountered many sheep.

It was a very nice trip, apparently I’m the embodiment of a 75 year old man according to my boyfriend’s dad. This is because I like finding 1920’s china antique shops and arguing about inflation

[headspace-hotel]

you know how people say "cats domesticated themselves?" I find this statement irksome because as i've been studying plants and particularly weeds, a theory has slowly been forming in my head about domestication that makes a lot more sense than other theories.

Basically, I think everything domesticated itself. Or rather, domestication involves adaptation and active participation on both sides.

Evidence for this is found in studying weed and crop plants—truth be told, most weeds are or were also crops.

Amaranthus, the genus that gives us the most costly USA agricultural weeds? All edible and healthy, and several members of the genus are domesticated. They were staple crops for Mesoamerican empires.

Kudzu, the vine so aggressive in the USA it turns trees into looming kudzu monoliths? It's been bred and cultivated by humans since the Neolithic in its native range, in China it was one of the main sources of fiber for cloth for MILLENNIA to the point that the Zhou dynasty had a whole government office of kudzu affairs. Kudzu roots are edible and they can be as tall as a human and weighing over 200 pounds, you can make them into flour, make noodles out of the flour, you can process them down into a starch and use it just like potato or tapioca starch and make all sorts of sauces and confections and stuff out of it. In Japan it was used for clothes too, if you see pictures of clothes worn by a samurai that's probably kudzu! It has loads of unresearched phytochemicals that probably have medicinal use, it's good for making paper, a researcher even made a biodegradable alternative to plastic out of it

Yellow Nutsedge is a food crop, Purslane is a food crop, at least some species of morning-glories are food crops, crabgrass is a food crop, Nettles are food AND fiber, Milkweed is food and fiber too, Broadleaf Plantain is food and medicinal, Dandelion is food and medicinal AND great companion plant (they used to sell them in seed catalogues around the 1890's or so!) and have y'all ever seen queen-anne's-lace along the side of the road? THATS CARROTS. That's the wild ancestor of carrots! (ofc don't eat anything you aren't 1000% sure you can identify)

Simply put. A weed is a plant that has co-evolved with humans. And most of them are Like That because they co-evolved with us. And honestly I reckon that many plants were domesticated in the first place because they liked to grow in disturbed environments near human settlements and agricultural fields.

Now thinking about this in terms of animals...when our domestic species were first domesticated, there weren't fences, there wasn't "inside" or any controlled environment to bring animals into, and if you tried to overpower or coerce any of those species, they would 100% just kill you. It makes a lot more sense if the humans were just following herds around, and it gradually developed into protecting those herds from predators and tending to them more intentionally until we were kind of just part of the herds ourselves.

a lot of people are familiar with Biblical stories and metaphors about shepherds...it's clear those guys were basically living with sheep 24/7. They were assimilated to the sheep lifestyle.

this theory kinda suggests that we've lost the ability to domesticate new animal species to some extent because domestication has never really involved removing an animal from its natural environment. Feeding wild animals and trying to socialize them to humans isn't in line with the mutualistic nature of domestication because it's trying to change the animal to our whims, and usually decreases the fitness of the animal rather than increases it. And domestication probably takes a long long time to reach the level where an animal can be a "pet" instead of a more distant form of domestication where the association is not as close.

EXCEPT. Animals that adapt to our environment are prime candidates for domestication. This actually checks out because rats and mice are some of the most recently domesticated animals, iirc. Basically, pest animals are the most likely to be domesticated because they've already started evolving into a relationship with us. Just like weeds.

An interesting side note is how both animals and plants can de-domesticate and become "weeds/pests" again. Like "weedy rice" is becoming a problem in some crops where rice has evolved into a weed. And with animals, there's pigeons who were domesticated by us and now their habitat is cities because they co-evolved with us.

[lyditefence]

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[cxsmicmyeon]

laychen crumbs🥹

[image ID: a screenshot of twitter. lay zhang rewtweeted promo tweet for chen’s third mini album last scene]

[getitoncamera]

because it’s almost exo day where i live and i’m going to be extremely busy tomorrow, happy 11 years to one of my ult groups!!