https://www.christopherdecou.com/the-hourglass daily 0.75 2026-09-25 https://www.christopherdecou.com/the-hourglass/you-want-to-be-a-merchant-in-late-ming-china-but-from-where-do-you-get-your-abacus monthly 0.5 2026-09-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/d2e1d080-6804-42cf-b802-62c92e7c9543/Qiankun+yidan+image.jpg The Hourglass - You want to be a merchant in late Ming China. But from where do you get your abacus? - Make it stand out Plate 47 in Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting, Vol. 6. The left-most carriage contains the abacus. It is one of the objects behind the drum. There are other versions of the image which make it somewhat clearer than this example. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/6536b0b9-7e79-402d-a145-58a459fe9e63/wooden+abacus.png The Hourglass - You want to be a merchant in late Ming China. But from where do you get your abacus? - Make it stand out Chinese Abacus (suanpan), ca. late 16th century, (the late Ming Dynasty), North China, Hefei Zimuyuan Museum https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/ef07715c-c7e5-4b29-a753-af8e8f93d5cb/abacus+with+ivory+beads.png The Hourglass - You want to be a merchant in late Ming China. But from where do you get your abacus? - Make it stand out Ivory Bead Abacus, Ming, National Museum of China https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/a786a5bf-8914-415c-9898-9336dbeb1778/knick+knack+peddlar+with+abacus+.png The Hourglass - You want to be a merchant in late Ming China. But from where do you get your abacus? - Make it stand out There are two abaci hanging from the back side of the knick-knack peddler’s cart in this genre painting from the Song. “The Knick-Knack Peddler” 貨郎圖, attributed to Su Hanchen 蘇漢臣, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 故畫00009000000 https://www.christopherdecou.com/the-hourglass/the-combined-maps-from-china-and-the-west-of-xu-chaojun monthly 0.5 2025-09-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/63d91046-f9b0-4335-be20-4bf466c98980/ni05_00811_p0001.jpg The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out Here is a full view of the map. The map treats the heavens as a sphere and uses the north celestial pole as the center of one image, and the south celestial pole as the center for the second image. The blue strip through the images is the Milky Way galaxy. The yellow line is the path of the ecliptic (the path of the sun), and the red line is a projection of the earth’s equator. Source: Waseda University https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/8a336274-a577-4337-8d1a-e90e9b952abb/close+up+2.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/ce1015ba-5b82-4672-aa4c-1ba1b0d1d28b/image.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out Here are two different views of the scroll edition. Look near the center, and you will find a line where the edges of the two sheets of paper were combined and attached. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/cacf8b33-6ef8-41a8-9e60-afecd97d7266/Elegant+gathering+apricot+garden.jpg The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out This image is a section from the Ming painting “Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden”. The painting includes scenes of gatherings and includes this example of viewing a painting. There are many others in this genre which illustrate the practice as well. Source: Metropolitan Museum https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/05980b30-7be3-4ef9-8944-83c0b2c37127/close+up+crouch.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Notice how the outer circle has several broken lines that are not simply explained by the folded paper. (The Crouch edition does contain paper folds, which seems to indicate that it was stored folded, but the broken lines here are not the same as the rest of the paper creases.) Source: Daniel Crouch From the Crouch Rare Books Edition. Notice how the outer circle has several broken lines that are not simply explained by the folded paper. (The Crouch edition does contain paper folds, which seems to indicate that it was originally in a square fold, but the broken lines here are not the same as the rest of the paper creases.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/51907c50-d8ba-4047-a1d2-a8604be6dad8/close+up+waseda.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - In the Waseda University map there are also some broken lines that have nothing to do with folding, which seem to be additional indicators for the kind of printed woodblock here. Source: Waseda University In the Waseda University map there are also some broken lines that have nothing to do with folding, which seem to be additional indicators for the kind of printed woodblock here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/19b74c83-746b-4f0d-a68d-11dc48281868/22141332_006_01_s004_i0001.jpg The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out Here is one of the printed versions of the Kogler map. Source: Pegg, The Star Charts of Ignatius Kögler (1680–1746) in the Korean Court https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/7f5cba13-0c90-4f7c-9464-238ed96dc300/Suzhou_numbers.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out An example of Suzhou numerals. Source: Wikimedia https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/e8f66345-96e2-4d05-9125-5ee6cd208816/Screenshot+2025-09-15+083010.png The Hourglass - The Combined Maps from China and the West of Xu Chaojun - Make it stand out This is from the introduction to the southern hemisphere. On the left-hand side, Xu includes a list of the legend for the stars, and he prints Arabic and Chinese numerals matched together. Source: Waseda University https://www.christopherdecou.com/the-hourglass/research-practice-organizing-with-paper-notes monthly 0.5 2025-08-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/0b363591-9de0-4a65-a54b-587fcf598f93/NoteCard-samplecard.png The Hourglass - Research Practice: Organizing with Paper Notes - Notecard Example This image from Gallaudet’s resources on researching is a similar example to the type of indexing system I was https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/ebdac88a-d6fc-499d-a261-57887f342542/PXL_20230226_004801809.jpg The Hourglass - Research Practice: Organizing with Paper Notes - Make it stand out Not technically “research notes”, but the method has also been useful for constructing other kinds of outlines like I did while working on my exams and course outlining. https://www.christopherdecou.com/the-hourglass/an-early-post monthly 0.5 2025-08-21 https://www.christopherdecou.com/home daily 1.0 2025-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/3488b28c-0481-4dbb-b377-fcf117c52418/MPHOTO-HIST_HDSday2_24_146.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/165a27b8-7922-4fe0-b24b-d987c6d49eac/b+and+w+PXL_20230722_021117334.png https://www.christopherdecou.com/about daily 0.75 2025-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/4e4b6326-32b6-4de2-bec9-f2708952a8bc/MPHOTO-HIST_HDSday2_24_147.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/a0c95919-921d-4101-8834-97b650928be5/20170828_210001-EDIT.jpg https://www.christopherdecou.com/teaching-courses daily 0.75 2025-08-10 https://www.christopherdecou.com/research-projects daily 0.75 2025-08-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/da109892-88cb-444e-8433-9cabfb1de0ec/xu-chaojun-sundial.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/9e7bbf9c-a3e3-42a8-ad59-2d308c6815d9/illustration-zhou-lianggong-sna.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/688aa6aa63dc6e6d342eeff4/12d21e9f-59e8-45c4-a0c4-e32dad751f0f/false-positive-example.png https://www.christopherdecou.com/publications daily 0.75 2025-08-10