The Chinese character 牛 (niu), meaning ‘ox’ or ‘cow’, remains remarkably close to its ancient pictographic form. The graph represents the frontal view of a bovine head, with curved horns and ears projecting symmetrically from a central axis. As one of the earliest agricultural signs in Chinese writing, it reflec...

The Gengzhi Tu (耕织图, Pictures of Tilling and Weaving) was first created during the Shaoxing era of the Southern Song dynasty (12th century) by Lou Shu, a magistrate of Yuqian County. It comprised 21 Tilling Scenes and 24 Weaving Scenes, combining poetry and illustrations to systematically document agricultural a...