Chinese charms

The Chinese have been producing coin-shaped charms and amulets in a variety of themes for more than 2,000 years.  One of the most visually appealing types of charms involves scenes of people. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to interpret what historic or legendary scene is being presented. The charm at the left is frequently referred [...]

A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same forward or backwards.  For example, “rats live on no evil star” is the same whether you read it left to right or right to left. Creating palindromes is actually much easier in Chinese, which uses “characters”, than in English which uses an alphabet.  If [...]

Zithers and grasshoppers may seem like an unlikely combination but they  are the theme of an old Chinese charm. The zithers in this case refer to the ancient Chinese musical instruments of the qin (琴) and the se (瑟). The qin or guqin (古琴) is a seven-stringed zither which was the instrument played by the [...]

The Liao Dynasty (辽朝 916-1125) was ruled by a nomadic people known as the Qidan (Khitan 契丹) and occupied an area of the northern prairies of China that included Manchuria, a portion of Mongolia, as well as parts of Hebei and Shanxi provinces. Charms from the Liao Dynasty are fairly rare and, because the Qidan [...]

In ancient China, charms were created to promote good luck and fortune in the major events of a person’s life such as marriage, the birth of children and promotion to an important government position. The celebration of sports was not a major theme of either Chinese coins or charms until very modern times with the [...]