The Tripiṭaka Koreana or Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-Thousand Tripiṭaka") is a Korean collection of the Tripiṭaka (Buddhist scriptures), carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. 1/
It is the world's most comprehensive and oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Hanja script, with no known errors or errata in the 52,330,152 characters which are organized in over 1496 titles and 6568 volumes. 2/
Each wood block measures 24 centimeters in height and 70 centimeters in length. The thickness of the blocks ranges from 2.6 to 4 centimeters and each weighs about three to four kilograms. 3/
The woodblocks would form a pile 2.74 km high if stacked, measure 60 km long when lined up, and weigh 280 tons in total. The woodblocks are in pristine condition without warping or deformation despite being created more than 750 years ago. 4/
The Tripiṭaka Koreana is stored in Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple in South Gyeongsang Province, in South Korea. 5/
The Tripiṭaka Koreana should more accurately be named the Korean Buddhist Canon, because it's much greater in scale than the actual Tripiṭaka, and includes much additional content such as travelogues, Sanskrit and Chinese dictionaries, and biographies of monks and nuns. 6/
The Tripiṭaka Koreana was designated a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962, and inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2007. It's importance to the Korean people is incalculable - it's an integral part of the national cultural identity. 7/
Work on the first Tripiṭaka Koreana began in 1011 during the Goryeo–Khitan War and was completed in 1087. The act of carving the 6000 woodblocks was considered to be a way of bringing about a change in fortune by invoking the Buddha's help. 8/
This original set of woodblocks was destroyed by fire during the Mongol invasions of Korea in 1232, although scattered volumes printed from these blocks still remain - an example is shown here. 9/
To once again implore divine assistance with combating the Mongol threat, King Gojong ordered the revision and re-creation of the Tripiṭaka. The carving began in 1237 and was completed in 12 years, involving monks from both the Seon and Gyo schools. 10/
This second version is usually what is meant by the Tripiṭaka Koreana today. In 1398, it was moved to the Buddhist temple at Haeinsa, where it has remained housed in four purpose built buildings. 11/
The production of the Tripiṭaka Koreana was an enormous national commitment of money and manpower, perhaps comparable to the US missions to the Moon in the 1960s. Thousands of scholars and craftsmen were employed in this massive project. 12/
The historical value of the Tripiṭaka Koreana comes from the fact that it is the most complete and accurate extant collection of Buddhist treatises, laws, and scriptures. The compilers of the Korean version incorporated older Northern Song Chinese. & Khitan versions. 13/
The quality of the wood blocks is attributed to Sugi, the Buddhist monk in charge of the project, who carefully checked the Korean version for errors. Upon completing the Tripiṭaka Koreana, Sugi published 30 volumes of Additional Records which recorded errors, and omissions. 14/
Because of the supreme accuracy of the Tripiṭaka Koreana, the Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese versions of the Tripiṭaka are all based on this Korean version. 15/
The Tripiṭaka Koreana was one of the most coveted items among Japanese Buddhists in the Edo period. Japan never managed to create a woodblock Tripiṭaka, and made constant requests and attempts to acquire the Tripiṭaka Koreana from Korea since 1388. 16/
45 complete printings of the Tripiṭaka Koreana were given to Japan since the Muromachi period, mostly as diplomatic gifts, and sometimes under duress. The Tripiṭaka Koreana was used as the basis for the modern Japanese Taishō Tripiṭaka. 17/
Each block was made of birch wood from the southern islands of Korea and treated to prevent the decay of the wood. The blocks were soaked in sea water for three years, then cut and then boiled in salt water. 18/
Next, the blocks were placed in the shade and exposed to the wind for three years, at which point they were finally ready to be carved. After each block was carved, it was covered in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects away and then framed with metal to prevent warping. 19/
Every block was inscribed with 23 lines of text with 14 characters per line. Therefore, each block, counting both sides, contained a total of 644 characters. The earliest printings from the woodblocks were kept in scroll format; most of these have not survived. 20/
In 1914-5, three sets of the entire Tripataka Koreana were printed, of which two went to Japan. One survives in the Imperial Household in Tokyo. The other set was apparently lost in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The whereabouts of the third set, is unknown. 21/
During the 1914-15 printing project, a few parts were separately “off-printed.” and this four-volume work is such an example. Another set of this text, which belonged to Naito Konan (1866-1934), the Japanese historian and Sinologist is now held by Kansai University in Osaka. 22/
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One of the masterpieces of ancient Egyptian art, the 'Seated Scribe' was discovered by the French archeologist Auguste Mariette at the Saqqara necropolis just south of Cairo in 1850, and dates to the period of the Old Kingdom, around 2500 BCE. It's now in the collections of @MuseeLouvre.
The eyes are especially amazing. I'll explain why. 🧵
The eyes of the scribe are sculpted from red-veined white magnesite, inlaid with pieces of polished rock crystal. The inner side of the crystal was painted with resin which gives a piercing blue colour to the iris and also holds them in place. 2/
Two copper clips hold each eye securely in place. The eyebrows are marked with fine lines of dark paint. The scribe stares calmly out to the viewer as though he is waiting for them to start speaking. 3/
This is the Rongorongo script of Easter Island. Rongorongo lacks an accepted decipherment but is generally presumed to encode an earlier stage of Rapa Nui, the contemporary Polynesian language of the island. It is possible that it represents an independent invention of writing. 1/
Hundreds of tablets written in Rongorongo existed as late as 1864 but most were lost or destroyed in that period and only 26 of undoubted authenticity remain today; almost all inscribed on wood. Each text has between two and over two thousand glyphs (some have what appear to be compound glyphs). 2/
The longest surviving text is that on the ‘Santiago Staff’: around 2,500 glyphs, depending upon how the characters are divided. The glyph-types are a mixture of geometric figures and standardized representations of living organisms; each glyph is around one centimetre in height. 3/
Oy. Forget about being a "rabbi", if you had even a kindergarten level knowledge of Hebrew (or Judaism for that matter) you'd know that this is not old, not Jewish, not an amulet, and nothing to do with kabbalah (which you grotesquely mischaracterize). It's a crude mishmash of… https://t.co/3IJjWrqnIp https://t.co/U7OBn124MNtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
When looking at any purportedly ancient Jewish manuscript, bear in mind: 1. Jewish manuscripts are generally austerely plain and written in black ink only. Red ink is seen occasionally as a highlight color in for example Yemenite manuscripts, but gold ink is essentially never… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Oi u luzi chervona kalyna - Oh, the Red Guelder Rose in the Meadow - is the anthem of 🇺🇦 Ukrainian resistance to Russian oppression.
Written in 1875, it was adapted by Stepan Charnetsky in 1914 to honor the Sich Riflemen of the First World War. 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The red guelder rose or viburnum of the song ('kalyna' in Ukrainian) - a shrub that grows four to five metres tall - is referenced throughout Ukrainian folklore. It is depicted in silhouette along the edges of the flag of the President of Ukraine. 2/
Due to the song's association with the Ukrainian people's aspiration for independence, singing of the song was banned during the period in which Ukraine was a Soviet Republic(1919-1991). Anyone caught singing it was jailed, beaten, and even exiled. 3/
Bought this this morning at our regular Sunday market in Bon-Encontre.
This bread is called a 'tortillon', and has been made since the late 17th century ONLY in this one tiny village just outside Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne, ONLY on Sundays and holidays in the month of May.
The tortillon celebrates the feast days of Notre-Dame de Bon-Encontre in May.
The flour is blanched and then boiled in hot water, before being baked in a wood oven. It's traditionally eaten with sausages and white wine. 2/
The idea that there's an entirely unique type of bread that exists exclusively in one tiny French village for 5 or 6 days of the year only - and that this has been the unchanged situation for over 300 years - is exactly the kind of thing that makes me love living in France. 3/
This is the 2001 first edition of the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-styled Türkmenbaşy, President of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006, intended to serve as the "spiritual guidance of the nation" and the "centre of the Turkmen universe". 1/ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture in a gradual but increasingly all-pervasive way. Niyazov first placed copies in all the nation's schools and libraries - but by the end of his reign, an exam on its teachings was an essential element of the driving test... 2/
It was mandatory to study the Ruhnama in all schools, universities and governmental organisations. New governmental employees were tested in detail on the book in job interviews. 3/