title: Han dynasty

text: Even before the Han's expansion into Central Asia, diplomat Zhang Qian's travels from 139 to 125 BC had established Chinese contacts with many surrounding civilizations. Zhang encountered Dayuan (Fergana), Kangju (Sogdiana), and Daxia (Bactria, formerly the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom); he also gathered information on Shendu (Indus River valley of North India) and Anxi (the Parthian Empire). All of these countries eventually received Han embassies. These connections marked the beginning of the Silk Road trade network that extended to the Roman Empire, bringing Han items like silk to Rome and Roman goods such as glasswares to China.


title: Han dynasty

text: From roughly 115 to 60 BC, Han forces fought the Xiongnu over control of the oasis city-states in the Tarim Basin. The Han was eventually victorious and established the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BC, which dealt with the region's defense and foreign affairs. The Han also expanded southward. The naval conquest of Nanyue in 111 BC expanded the Han realm into what are now modern Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam. Yunnan was brought into the Han realm with the conquest of the Dian Kingdom in 109 BC, followed by parts of the Korean Peninsula with the Han conquest of Gojoseon and colonial establishments of Xuantu Commandery and Lelang Commandery in 108 BC. In China's first known nationwide census taken in 2 AD, the population was registered as having 57,671,400 individuals in 12,366,470 households.


title: Han dynasty

text: To pay for his military campaigns and colonial expansion, Emperor Wu nationalized several private industries. He created central government monopolies administered largely by former merchants. These monopolies included salt, iron, and liquor production, as well as bronze-coin currency. The liquor monopoly lasted only from 98 to 81 BC, and the salt and iron monopolies were eventually abolished in the early Eastern Han. The issuing of coinage remained a central government monopoly throughout the rest of the Han dynasty.


title: Han dynasty

text: The government monopolies were eventually repealed when a political faction known as the Reformists gained greater influence in the court. The Reformists opposed the Modernist faction that had dominated court politics in Emperor Wu's reign and during the subsequent regency of Huo Guang (d. 68 BC). The Modernists argued for an aggressive and expansionary foreign policy supported by revenues from heavy government intervention in the private economy. The Reformists, however, overturned these policies, favoring a cautious, non-expansionary approach to foreign policy, frugal budget reform, and lower tax-rates imposed on private entrepreneurs.


title: Han dynasty

text: Wang Zhengjun (71 BC – 13 AD) was first empress, then empress dowager, and finally grand empress dowager during the reigns of the Emperors Yuan ( BC), Cheng ( BC), and Ai ( BC), respectively. During this time, a succession of her male relatives held the title of regent. Following the death of Ai, Wang Zhengjun's nephew Wang Mang (45 BC – 23 AD) was appointed regent as Marshall of State on 16 August under Emperor Ping ( AD).


title: Han dynasty

text: When Ping died on 3 February 6 AD, Ruzi Ying (d. 25 AD) was chosen as the heir and Wang Mang was appointed to serve as acting emperor for the child. Wang promised to relinquish his control to Liu Ying once he came of age. Despite this promise, and against protest and revolts from the nobility, Wang Mang claimed on 10 January that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the Han dynasty and the beginning of his own: the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD).


title: Han dynasty

text: Wang Mang initiated a series of major reforms that were ultimately unsuccessful. These reforms included outlawing slavery, nationalizing land to equally distribute between households, and introducing new currencies, a change which debased the value of coinage. Although these reforms provoked considerable opposition, Wang's regime met its ultimate downfall with the massive floods of AD and 11 AD. Gradual silt buildup in the Yellow River had raised its water level and overwhelmed the flood control works. The Yellow River split into two new branches: one emptying to the north and the other to the south of the Shandong Peninsula, though Han engineers managed to dam the southern branch by 70 AD.


title: Han dynasty

text: The flood dislodged thousands of peasant farmers, many of whom joined roving bandit and rebel groups such as the Red Eyebrows to survive. Wang Mang's armies were incapable of quelling these enlarged rebel groups. Eventually, an insurgent mob forced their way into the Weiyang Palace and killed Wang Mang.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Gengshi Emperor ( AD), a descendant of Emperor Jing ( BC), attempted to restore the Han dynasty and occupied Chang'an as his capital. However, he was overwhelmed by the Red Eyebrow rebels who deposed, assassinated, and replaced him with the puppet monarch Liu Penzi. Gengshi's distant cousin Liu Xiu, known posthumously as Emperor Guangwu ( AD), after distinguishing himself at the Battle of Kunyang in 23 AD, was urged to succeed Gengshi as emperor.


title: Han dynasty

text: Under Guangwu's rule the Han Empire was restored. Guangwu made Luoyang his capital in 25 AD, and by 27 AD his officers Deng Yu and Feng Yi had forced the Red Eyebrows to surrender and executed their leaders for treason. From 26 until 36 AD, Emperor Guangwu had to wage war against other regional warlords who claimed the title of emperor; when these warlords were defeated, China reunified under the Han.


title: Han dynasty

text: The period between the foundation of the Han dynasty and Wang Mang's reign is known as the Western Han () or Former Han () (206 BC – 9 AD). During this period the capital was at Chang'an (modern Xi'an). From the reign of Guangwu the capital was moved eastward to Luoyang. The era from his reign until the fall of Han is known as the Eastern Han or Later Han (25–220 AD).


title: Han dynasty

text: The Eastern Han (), also known as the Later Han (), formally began on 5 August AD 25, when Liu Xiu became Emperor Guangwu of Han. During the widespread rebellion against Wang Mang, the state of Goguryeo was free to raid Han's Korean commanderies; Han did not reaffirm its control over the region until AD 30.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Trưng Sisters of Vietnam rebelled against Han in AD 40. Their rebellion was crushed by Han general Ma Yuan (d. AD 49) in a campaign from AD 42–43. Wang Mang renewed hostilities against the Xiongnu, who were estranged from Han until their leader Bi (比), a rival claimant to the throne against his cousin Punu (蒲奴), submitted to Han as a tributary vassal in AD 50. This created two rival Xiongnu states: the Southern Xiongnu led by Bi, an ally of Han, and the Northern Xiongnu led by Punu, an enemy of Han.


title: Han dynasty

text: During the turbulent reign of Wang Mang, China lost control over the Tarim Basin, which was conquered by the Northern Xiongnu in AD 63 and used as a base to invade the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. Dou Gu (d. 88 AD) defeated the Northern Xiongnu at the Battle of Yiwulu in AD 73, evicting them from Turpan and chasing them as far as Lake Barkol before establishing a garrison at Hami. After the new Protector General of the Western Regions Chen Mu (d. AD 75) was killed by allies of the Xiongnu in Karasahr and Kucha, the garrison at Hami was withdrawn.


title: Han dynasty

text: At the Battle of Ikh Bayan in AD 89, Dou Xian (d. AD 92) defeated the Northern Xiongnu chanyu who then retreated into the Altai Mountains. After the Northern Xiongnu fled into the Ili River valley in AD 91, the nomadic Xianbei occupied the area from the borders of the Buyeo Kingdom in Manchuria to the Ili River of the Wusun people. The Xianbei reached their apogee under Tanshihuai (檀石槐) (d. AD 180), who consistently defeated Chinese armies. However, Tanshihuai's confederation disintegrated after his death.


title: Han dynasty

text: Ban Chao (d. AD 102) enlisted the aid of the Kushan Empire, occupying the area of modern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, to subdue Kashgar and its ally Sogdiana. When a request by Kushan ruler Vima Kadphises () for a marriage alliance with the Han was rejected in AD 90, he sent his forces to Wakhan (Afghanistan) to attack Ban Chao. The conflict ended with the Kushans withdrawing because of lack of supplies. In AD 91, the office of Protector General of the Western Regions was reinstated when it was bestowed on Ban Chao.


title: Han dynasty

text: Foreign travelers to Eastern-Han China included Buddhist monks who translated works into Chinese, such as An Shigao from Parthia, and Lokaksema from Kushan-era Gandhara, India. In addition to tributary relations with the Kushans, the Han Empire received gifts from the Parthian Empire, from a king in modern Burma, from a ruler in Japan, and initiated an unsuccessful mission to Daqin (Rome) in AD 97 with Gan Ying as emissary.


title: Han dynasty

text: A Roman embassy of Emperor Marcus Aurelius ( AD) is recorded in the "Weilüe" and "Hou Hanshu" to have reached the court of Emperor Huan of Han ( AD) in AD 166, yet Rafe de Crespigny asserts that this was most likely a group of Roman merchants. In addition to Roman glasswares and coins found in China, Roman medallions from the reign of Antoninus Pius and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius have been found at Óc Eo in Vietnam. This was near the commandery of Rinan (also Jiaozhi) where Chinese sources claim the Romans first landed, as well as embassies from Tianzhu (in northern India) in the years 159 and 161. Óc Eo is also thought to be the port city "Cattigara" described by Ptolemy in his "Geography" ( AD) as lying east of the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula) along the "Magnus Sinus" (i.e. Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea), where a Greek sailor had visited.


title: Han dynasty

text: Emperor Zhang's ( AD) reign came to be viewed by later Eastern Han scholars as the high point of the dynastic house. Subsequent reigns were increasingly marked by eunuch intervention in court politics and their involvement in the violent power struggles of the imperial consort clans. In 92 AD, with the aid of the eunuch Zheng Zhong (d. 107 AD), Emperor He ( AD) had Empress Dowager Dou (d. 97 AD) put under house arrest and her clan stripped of power. This was in revenge for Dou's purging of the clan of his natural mother—Consort Liang—and then concealing her identity from him. After Emperor He's death, his wife Empress Deng Sui (d. 121 AD) managed state affairs as the regent empress dowager during a turbulent financial crisis and widespread Qiang rebellion that lasted from 107 to 118 AD.


title: Han dynasty

text: When Empress Dowager Deng died, Emperor An ( AD) was convinced by the accusations of the eunuchs Li Run () and Jiang Jing () that Deng and her family had planned to depose him. An dismissed Deng's clan members from office, exiled them, and forced many to commit suicide. After An's death, his wife, Empress Dowager Yan (d. 126 AD) placed the child Marquess of Beixiang on the throne in an attempt to retain power within her family. However, palace eunuch Sun Cheng (d. 132 AD) masterminded a successful overthrow of her regime to enthrone Emperor Shun of Han ( AD). Yan was placed under house arrest, her relatives were either killed or exiled, and her eunuch allies were slaughtered. The regent Liang Ji (d. 159 AD), brother of Empress Liang Na (d. 150 AD), had the brother-in-law of Consort Deng Mengnü (later empress) (d. 165 AD) killed after Deng Mengnü resisted Liang Ji's attempts to control her. Afterward, Emperor Huan employed eunuchs to depose Liang Ji, who was then forced to commit suicide.


title: Han dynasty

text: Students from the Imperial University organized a widespread student protest against the eunuchs of Emperor Huan's court. Huan further alienated the bureaucracy when he initiated grandiose construction projects and hosted thousands of concubines in his harem at a time of economic crisis. Palace eunuchs imprisoned the official Li Ying () and his associates from the Imperial University on a dubious charge of treason. In 167 AD, the Grand Commandant Dou Wu (d. 168 AD) convinced his son-in-law, Emperor Huan, to release them. However the emperor permanently barred Li Ying and his associates from serving in office, marking the beginning of the Partisan Prohibitions.


title: Han dynasty

text: Following Huan's death, Dou Wu and the Grand Tutor Chen Fan (d. 168 AD) attempted a coup d'état against the eunuchs Hou Lan (d. 172 AD), Cao Jie (d. 181 AD), and Wang Fu (). When the plot was uncovered, the eunuchs arrested Empress Dowager Dou (d. 172 AD) and Chen Fan. General Zhang Huan () favored the eunuchs. He and his troops confronted Dou Wu and his retainers at the palace gate where each side shouted accusations of treason against the other. When the retainers gradually deserted Dou Wu, he was forced to commit suicide.


title: Han dynasty

text: Under Emperor Ling ( AD) the eunuchs had the partisan prohibitions renewed and expanded, while also auctioning off top government offices. Many affairs of state were entrusted to the eunuchs Zhao Zhong (d. 189 AD) and Zhang Rang (d. 189 AD) while Emperor Ling spent much of his time roleplaying with concubines and participating in military parades.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Partisan Prohibitions were repealed during the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion in 184 AD, largely because the court did not want to continue to alienate a significant portion of the gentry class who might otherwise join the rebellions. The Yellow Turbans and Five-Pecks-of-Rice adherents belonged to two different hierarchical Daoist religious societies led by faith healers Zhang Jue (d. 184 AD) and Zhang Lu (d. 216 AD), respectively.


title: Han dynasty

text: Zhang Lu's rebellion, in modern northern Sichuan and southern Shaanxi, was not quelled until 215 AD. Zhang Jue's massive rebellion across eight provinces was annihilated by Han forces within a year, however the following decades saw much smaller recurrent uprisings. Although the Yellow Turbans were defeated, many generals appointed during the crisis never disbanded their assembled militia forces and used these troops to amass power outside of the collapsing imperial authority.


title: Han dynasty

text: General-in-Chief He Jin (d. 189 AD), half-brother to Empress He (d. 189 AD), plotted with Yuan Shao (d. 202 AD) to overthrow the eunuchs by having several generals march to the outskirts of the capital. There, in a written petition to Empress He, they demanded the eunuchs' execution. After a period of hesitation, Empress He consented. When the eunuchs discovered this, however, they had her brother He Miao () rescind the order. The eunuchs assassinated He Jin on September 22, 189 AD.


title: Han dynasty

text: Yuan Shao then besieged Luoyang's Northern Palace while his brother Yuan Shu (d. 199 AD) besieged the Southern Palace. On September 25 both palaces were breached and approximately two thousand eunuchs were killed. Zhang Rang had previously fled with Emperor Shao ( AD) and his brother Liu Xie—the future Emperor Xian of Han ( AD). While being pursued by the Yuan brothers, Zhang committed suicide by jumping into the Yellow River.


title: Han dynasty

text: General Dong Zhuo (d. 192 AD) found the young emperor and his brother wandering in the countryside. He escorted them safely back to the capital and was made Minister of Works, taking control of Luoyang and forcing Yuan Shao to flee. After Dong Zhuo demoted Emperor Shao and promoted his brother Liu Xie as Emperor Xian, Yuan Shao led a coalition of former officials and officers against Dong, who burned Luoyang to the ground and resettled the court at Chang'an in May 191 AD. Dong Zhuo later poisoned Emperor Shao.


title: Han dynasty

text: Dong was killed by his adopted son Lü Bu (d. 198 AD) in a plot hatched by Wang Yun (d. 192 AD). Emperor Xian fled from Chang'an in 195 AD to the ruins of Luoyang. Xian was persuaded by Cao Cao (155–220 AD), then Governor of Yan Province in modern western Shandong and eastern Henan, to move the capital to Xuchang in 196 AD.


title: Han dynasty

text: Yuan Shao challenged Cao Cao for control over the emperor. Yuan's power was greatly diminished after Cao defeated him at the Battle of Guandu in 200 AD. After Yuan died, Cao killed Yuan Shao's son Yuan Tan (173–205 AD), who had fought with his brothers over the family inheritance. His brothers Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi were killed in 207 AD by Gongsun Kang (d. 221 AD), who sent their heads to Cao Cao.


title: Han dynasty

text: After Cao's defeat at the naval Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD, China was divided into three spheres of influence, with Cao Cao dominating the north, Sun Quan (182–252 AD) dominating the south, and Liu Bei (161–223 AD) dominating the west. Cao Cao died in March 220 AD. By December his son Cao Pi (187–226 AD) had Emperor Xian relinquish the throne to him and is known posthumously as Emperor Wen of Wei. This formally ended the Han dynasty and initiated an age of conflict between three states: Cao Wei, Eastern Wu, and Shu Han.


title: Han dynasty

text: In the hierarchical social order, the emperor was at the apex of Han society and government. However, the emperor was often a minor, ruled over by a regent such as the empress dowager or one of her male relatives. Ranked immediately below the emperor were the kings who were of the same Liu family clan. The rest of society, including nobles lower than kings and all commoners excluding slaves, belonged to one of twenty ranks ("ershi gongcheng" ).


title: Han dynasty

text: Each successive rank gave its holder greater pensions and legal privileges. The highest rank, of full marquess, came with a state pension and a territorial fiefdom. Holders of the rank immediately below, that of ordinary marquess, received a pension, but had no territorial rule. Officials who served in government belonged to the wider commoner social class and were ranked just below nobles in social prestige. The highest government officials could be enfeoffed as marquesses.


title: Han dynasty

text: By the Eastern Han period, local elites of unattached scholars, teachers, students, and government officials began to identify themselves as members of a larger, nationwide gentry class with shared values and a commitment to mainstream scholarship. When the government became noticeably corrupt in mid-to-late Eastern Han, many gentrymen even considered the cultivation of morally-grounded personal relationships more important than serving in public office.


title: Han dynasty

text: The farmer, or specifically the small landowner-cultivator, was ranked just below scholars and officials in the social hierarchy. Other agricultural cultivators were of a lower status, such as tenants, wage laborers, and slaves. The Han dynasty made adjustments to slavery in China and saw an increase in agricultural slaves. Artisans, technicians, tradespeople, and craftsmen had a legal and socioeconomic status between that of owner-cultivator farmers and common merchants.


title: Han dynasty

text: State-registered merchants, who were forced by law to wear white-colored clothes and pay high commercial taxes, were considered by the gentry as social parasites with a contemptible status. These were often petty shopkeepers of urban marketplaces; merchants such as industrialists and itinerant traders working between a network of cities could avoid registering as merchants and were often wealthier and more powerful than the vast majority of government officials.


title: Han dynasty

text: Wealthy landowners, such as nobles and officials, often provided lodging for retainers who provided valuable work or duties, sometimes including fighting bandits or riding into battle. Unlike slaves, retainers could come and go from their master's home as they pleased. Medical physicians, pig breeders, and butchers had a fairly high social status, while occultist diviners, runners, and messengers had low status.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han-era family was patrilineal and typically had four to five nuclear family members living in one household. Multiple generations of extended family members did not occupy the same house, unlike families of later dynasties. According to Confucian family norms, various family members were treated with different levels of respect and intimacy. For example, there were different accepted time frames for mourning the death of a father versus a paternal uncle.


title: Han dynasty

text: Marriages were highly ritualized, particularly for the wealthy, and included many important steps. The giving of betrothal gifts, known as bridewealth and dowry, were especially important. A lack of either was considered dishonorable and the woman would have been seen not as a wife, but as a concubine. Arranged marriages were normal, with the father's input on his offspring's spouse being considered more important than the mother's.


title: Han dynasty

text: Monogamous marriages were also normal, although nobles and high officials were wealthy enough to afford and support concubines as additional lovers. Under certain conditions dictated by custom, not law, both men and women were able to divorce their spouses and remarry. However, a woman who had been widowed continued to belong to her husband's family after his death. In order to remarry, the widow would have to be returned to her family in exchange for a ransom fee. Her children would not be allowed to go with her.


title: Han dynasty

text: Apart from the passing of noble titles or ranks, inheritance practices did not involve primogeniture; each son received an equal share of the family property. Unlike the practice in later dynasties, the father usually sent his adult married sons away with their portions of the family fortune. Daughters received a portion of the family fortune through their marriage dowries, though this was usually much less than the shares of sons. A different distribution of the remainder could be specified in a will, but it is unclear how common this was.


title: Han dynasty

text: Women were expected to obey the will of their father, then their husband, and then their adult son in old age. However, it is known from contemporary sources that there were many deviations to this rule, especially in regard to mothers over their sons, and empresses who ordered around and openly humiliated their fathers and brothers. Women were exempt from the annual corvée labor duties, but often engaged in a range of income-earning occupations aside from their domestic chores of cooking and cleaning.


title: Han dynasty

text: The most common occupation for women was weaving clothes for the family, for sale at market, or for large textile enterprises that employed hundreds of women. Other women helped on their brothers' farms or became singers, dancers, sorceresses, respected medical physicians, and successful merchants who could afford their own silk clothes. Some women formed spinning collectives, aggregating the resources of several different families.


title: Han dynasty

text: The early Western Han court simultaneously accepted the philosophical teachings of Legalism, Huang-Lao Daoism, and Confucianism in making state decisions and shaping government policy. However, the Han court under Emperor Wu gave Confucianism exclusive patronage. He abolished all academic chairs or erudites ("bóshì" 博士) not dealing with the Confucian Five Classics in 136 BCE and encouraged nominees for office to receive a Confucian-based education at the Imperial University that he established in 124 BCE.


title: Han dynasty

text: Unlike the original ideology espoused by Confucius, or Kongzi (551–479 BCE), Han Confucianism in Emperor Wu's reign was the creation of Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BCE). Dong was a scholar and minor official who aggregated the ethical Confucian ideas of ritual, filial piety, and harmonious relationships with five phases and yin-yang cosmologies. Much to the interest of the ruler, Dong's synthesis justified the imperial system of government within the natural order of the universe.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Imperial University grew in importance as the student body grew to over 30,000 by the 2nd century CE. A Confucian-based education was also made available at commandery-level schools and private schools opened in small towns, where teachers earned respectable incomes from tuition payments. Schools were established in far southern regions where standard Chinese texts were used to assimilate the local populace.


title: Han dynasty

text: Some important texts were created and studied by scholars. Philosophical works written by Yang Xiong (53 BCE – 18 CE), Huan Tan (43 BCE – 28 CE), Wang Chong (27–100 CE), and Wang Fu (78–163 CE) questioned whether human nature was innately good or evil and posed challenges to Dong's universal order. The "Records of the Grand Historian" by Sima Tan (d. 110 BCE) and his son Sima Qian (145–86 BCE) established the standard model for all of imperial China's Standard Histories, such as the "Book of Han" written by Ban Biao (3–54 CE), his son Ban Gu (32–92 CE), and his daughter Ban Zhao (45–116 CE). There were dictionaries such as the "Shuowen Jiezi" by Xu Shen ( – CE) and the "Fangyan" by Yang Xiong.


title: Han dynasty

text: Biographies on important figures were written by various gentrymen. Han dynasty poetry was dominated by the "fu" genre, which achieved its greatest prominence during the reign of Emperor Wu.


title: Han dynasty

text: Han scholars such as Jia Yi (201–169 BCE) portrayed the previous Qin dynasty as a brutal regime. However, archeological evidence from Zhangjiashan and Shuihudi reveal that many of the statutes in the Han law code compiled by Chancellor Xiao He (d. 193 BCE) were derived from Qin law.


title: Han dynasty

text: Various cases for rape, physical abuse, and murder were prosecuted in court. Women, although usually having fewer rights by custom, were allowed to level civil and criminal charges against men. While suspects were jailed, convicted criminals were never imprisoned. Instead, punishments were commonly monetary fines, periods of forced hard labor for convicts, and the penalty of death by beheading. Early Han punishments of torturous mutilation were borrowed from Qin law. A series of reforms abolished mutilation punishments with progressively less-severe beatings by the bastinado.


title: Han dynasty

text: Acting as a judge in lawsuits was one of the many duties of the county magistrate and Administrators of commanderies. Complex, high-profile, or unresolved cases were often deferred to the Minister of Justice in the capital or even the emperor. In each Han county was several districts, each overseen by a chief of police. Order in the cities was maintained by government officers in the marketplaces and constables in the neighborhoods.


title: Han dynasty

text: The most common staple crops consumed during Han were wheat, barley, foxtail millet, proso millet, rice, and beans. Commonly eaten fruits and vegetables included chestnuts, pears, plums, peaches, melons, apricots, strawberries, red bayberries, jujubes, calabash, bamboo shoots, mustard plant, and taro. Domesticated animals that were also eaten included chickens, Mandarin ducks, geese, cows, sheep, pigs, camels, and dogs (various types were bred specifically for food, while most were used as pets). Turtles and fish were taken from streams and lakes. Commonly hunted game, such as owl, pheasant, magpie, sika deer, and Chinese bamboo partridge were consumed. Seasonings included sugar, honey, salt, and soy sauce. Beer and wine were regularly consumed.


title: Han dynasty

text: The types of clothing worn and the materials used during the Han period depended upon social class. Wealthy folk could afford silk robes, skirts, socks, and mittens, coats made of badger or fox fur, duck plumes, and slippers with inlaid leather, pearls, and silk lining. Peasants commonly wore clothes made of hemp, wool, and ferret skins.


title: Han dynasty

text: Families throughout Han China made ritual sacrifices of animals and food to deities, spirits, and ancestors at temples and shrines. They believed that these items could be used by those in the spiritual realm. It was thought that each person had a two-part soul: the spirit-soul ("hun" 魂) which journeyed to the afterlife paradise of immortals ("xian"), and the body-soul ("po" 魄) which remained in its grave or tomb on earth and was only reunited with the spirit-soul through a ritual ceremony.


title: Han dynasty

text: In addition to his many other roles, the emperor acted as the highest priest in the land who made sacrifices to Heaven, the main deities known as the Five Powers, and the spirits ("shen" 神) of mountains and rivers. It was believed that the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Mankind were linked by natural cycles of yin and yang and the five phases. If the emperor did not behave according to proper ritual, ethics, and morals, he could disrupt the fine balance of these cosmological cycles and cause calamities such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, epidemics, and swarms of locusts.


title: Han dynasty

text: It was believed that immortality could be achieved if one reached the lands of the Queen Mother of the West or Mount Penglai. Han-era Daoists assembled into small groups of hermits who attempted to achieve immortality through breathing exercises, sexual techniques, and the use of medical elixirs.


title: Han dynasty

text: By the 2nd century CE, Daoists formed large hierarchical religious societies such as the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice. Its followers believed that the sage-philosopher Laozi () was a holy prophet who would offer salvation and good health if his devout followers would confess their sins, ban the worship of unclean gods who accepted meat sacrifices, and chant sections of the "Daodejing".


title: Han dynasty

text: Buddhism first entered Imperial China through the Silk Road during the Eastern Han, and was first mentioned in 65 CE. Liu Ying (d. 71 CE), a half-brother to Emperor Ming of Han ( CE), was one of its earliest Chinese adherents, although Chinese Buddhism at this point was heavily associated with Huang-Lao Daoism. China's first known Buddhist temple, the White Horse Temple, was constructed outside the wall of the capital, Luoyang, during Emperor Ming's reign. Important Buddhist canons were translated into Chinese during the 2nd century CE, including the "Sutra of Forty-two Chapters", "Perfection of Wisdom", "Shurangama Sutra", and "Pratyutpanna Sutra".


title: Han dynasty

text: In Han government, the emperor was the supreme judge and lawgiver, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and sole designator of official nominees appointed to the top posts in central and local administrations; those who earned a 600-bushel salary-rank or higher. Theoretically, there were no limits to his power.


title: Han dynasty

text: However, state organs with competing interests and institutions such as the court conference ("tíngyì" )—where ministers were convened to reach majority consensus on an issue—pressured the emperor to accept the advice of his ministers on policy decisions. If the emperor rejected a court conference decision, he risked alienating his high ministers. Nevertheless, emperors sometimes did reject the majority opinion reached at court conferences.


title: Han dynasty

text: Below the emperor were his cabinet members known as the Three Councilors of State ("Sān gōng" ). These were the Chancellor or Minister over the Masses ("Chéngxiāng" or "Dà sìtú" ), the Imperial Counselor or Excellency of Works ("Yùshǐ dàfū" or "Dà sìkōng" ), and Grand Commandant or Grand Marshal ("Tàiwèi" or "Dà sīmǎ" ).


title: Han dynasty

text: The Chancellor, whose title was changed to 'Minister over the Masses' in 8 BC, was chiefly responsible for drafting the government budget. The Chancellor's other duties included managing provincial registers for land and population, leading court conferences, acting as judge in lawsuits, and recommending nominees for high office. He could appoint officials below the salary-rank of 600 bushels.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Imperial Counselor's chief duty was to conduct disciplinary procedures for officials. He shared similar duties with the Chancellor, such as receiving annual provincial reports. However, when his title was changed to Minister of Works in 8 BC, his chief duty became the oversight of public works projects.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Grand Commandant, whose title was changed to Grand Marshal in 119 BC before reverting to Grand Commandant in 51 AD, was the irregularly posted commander of the military and then regent during the Western Han period. In the Eastern Han era he was chiefly a civil official who shared many of the same censorial powers as the other two Councilors of State.


title: Han dynasty

text: Ranked below the Three Councilors of State were the Nine Ministers ("Jiǔ qīng" ), who each headed a specialized ministry. The Minister of Ceremonies ("Tàicháng" ) was the chief official in charge of religious rites, rituals, prayers, and the maintenance of ancestral temples and altars. The Minister of the Household ("Guāng lù xūn" ) was in charge of the emperor's security within the palace grounds, external imperial parks, and wherever the emperor made an outing by chariot.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Minister of the Guards ("Wèiwèi" ) was responsible for securing and patrolling the walls, towers, and gates of the imperial palaces. The Minister Coachman ("Tàipú" ) was responsible for the maintenance of imperial stables, horses, carriages, and coach-houses for the emperor and his palace attendants, as well as the supply of horses for the armed forces. The Minister of Justice ("Tíngwèi" ) was the chief official in charge of upholding, administering, and interpreting the law. The Minister Herald ("Dà hónglú" ) was the chief official in charge of receiving honored guests at the imperial court, such as nobles and foreign ambassadors.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Minister of the Imperial Clan ("Zōngzhèng" ) oversaw the imperial court's interactions with the empire's nobility and extended imperial family, such as granting fiefs and titles. The Minister of Finance ("Dà sìnóng" ) was the treasurer for the official bureaucracy and the armed forces who handled tax revenues and set standards for units of measurement. The Minister Steward ("Shǎofǔ" ) served the emperor exclusively, providing him with entertainment and amusements, proper food and clothing, medicine and physical care, valuables and equipment.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han empire, excluding kingdoms and marquessates, was divided, in descending order of size, into political units of provinces, commanderies, and counties. A county was divided into several districts ("xiang" 鄉), the latter composed of a group of hamlets ("li" 里), each containing about a hundred families.


title: Han dynasty

text: The heads of provinces, whose official title was changed from Inspector to Governor and vice versa several times during Han, were responsible for inspecting several commandery-level and kingdom-level administrations. On the basis of their reports, the officials in these local administrations would be promoted, demoted, dismissed, or prosecuted by the imperial court.


title: Han dynasty

text: A governor could take various actions without permission from the imperial court. The lower-ranked inspector had executive powers only during times of crisis, such as raising militias across the commanderies under his jurisdiction to suppress a rebellion.


title: Han dynasty

text: A commandery consisted of a group of counties, and was headed by an Administrator. He was the top civil and military leader of the commandery and handled defense, lawsuits, seasonal instructions to farmers, and recommendations of nominees for office sent annually to the capital in a quota system first established by Emperor Wu. The head of a large county of about 10,000 households was called a Prefect, while the heads of smaller counties were called Chiefs, and both could be referred to as Magistrates. A Magistrate maintained law and order in his county, registered the populace for taxation, mobilized commoners for annual corvée duties, repaired schools, and supervised public works.


title: Han dynasty

text: Kingdoms—roughly the size of commanderies—were ruled exclusively by the emperor's male relatives as semi-autonomous fiefdoms. Before 157 BC some kingdoms were ruled by non-relatives, granted to them in return for their services to Emperor Gaozu. The administration of each kingdom was very similar to that of the central government. Although the emperor appointed the Chancellor of each kingdom, kings appointed all the remaining civil officials in their fiefs.


title: Han dynasty

text: However, in 145 BC, after several insurrections by the kings, Emperor Jing removed the kings' rights to appoint officials whose salaries were higher than 400 bushels. The Imperial Counselors and Nine Ministers (excluding the Minister Coachman) of every kingdom were abolished, although the Chancellor was still appointed by the central government.


title: Han dynasty

text: With these reforms, kings were reduced to being nominal heads of their fiefs, gaining a personal income from only a portion of the taxes collected in their kingdom. Similarly, the officials in the administrative staff of a full marquess's fief were appointed by the central government. A marquess's Chancellor was ranked as the equivalent of a county Prefect. Like a king, the marquess collected a portion of the tax revenues in his fief as personal income.


title: Han dynasty

text: Up until the reign of Emperor Jing of Han, the Emperors of the Han had great difficulty bringing the vassal kings under control, as kings often switched their allegiance to the Xiongnu Chanyu whenever threatened by Imperial attempts to centralize power. Within the seven years of Han Gaozu's reign, three vassal kings and one marquess either defected to or allied with the Xiongnu. Even imperial princes in control of fiefdoms would sometimes invite the Xiongnu to invade in response to threats by the Emperor to remove their power. The Han emperors moved to secure a treaty with the Chanyu to demarcate authority between them, recognizing each other as the "two masters" (兩主), the sole representatives of their respective peoples, and cemented it with a marriage alliance ("heqin"), before eliminating the rebellious vassal kings in 154 BC. This prompted some vassal kings of the Xiongnu to switch their allegiance to the Han emperor from 147 BC. Han court officials were initially hostile to the idea of disrupting the status quo and expanding into the Xiongnu steppe territory. The surrendered Xiongnu were integrated into a parallel military and political structure under the Han Emperor, and opened the avenue for the Han dynasty to challenge the Xiongnu cavalry on the steppe. This also introduced the Han to the interstate networks in the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang), allowing for the expansion of the Han dynasty from a limited regional state to a universalist and cosmopolitan empire through further marriage alliances with another steppe power, the Wusun.


title: Han dynasty

text: At the beginning of the Han dynasty, every male commoner aged twenty-three was liable for conscription into the military. The minimum age for the military draft was reduced to twenty after Emperor Zhao's ( BC) reign. Conscripted soldiers underwent one year of training and one year of service as non-professional soldiers. The year of training was served in one of three branches of the armed forces: infantry, cavalry, or navy. Soldiers who completed their term of service still needed to train to maintain their skill because they were subject to annual military readiness inspections and could be called up for future service - until this practice was discontinued after 30 AD with the abolishment of much of the conscription system. The year of active service was served either on the frontier, in a king's court, or under the Minister of the Guards in the capital. A small professional (full time career) standing army was stationed near the capital.


title: Han dynasty

text: During the Eastern Han, conscription could be avoided if one paid a commutable tax. The Eastern Han court favored the recruitment of a volunteer army. The volunteer army comprised the Southern Army ("Nanjun" 南軍), while the standing army stationed in and near the capital was the Northern Army ("Beijun" 北軍). Led by Colonels ("Xiaowei" 校尉), the Northern Army consisted of five regiments, each composed of several thousand soldiers. When central authority collapsed after 189 AD, wealthy landowners, members of the aristocracy/nobility, and regional military-governors relied upon their retainers to act as their own personal troops. The latter were known as 部曲, a special social class in Chinese history.


title: Han dynasty

text: During times of war, the volunteer army was increased, and a much larger militia was raised across the country to supplement the Northern Army. In these circumstances, a General ("Jiangjun" 將軍) led a division, which was divided into regiments led by Colonels and sometimes Majors ("Sima" 司馬). Regiments were divided into companies and led by Captains. Platoons were the smallest units of soldiers.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han dynasty inherited the "ban liang" coin type from the Qin. In the beginning of the Han, Emperor Gaozu closed the government mint in favor of private minting of coins. This decision was reversed in 186 BC by his widow Grand Empress Dowager Lü Zhi (d. 180 BC), who abolished private minting. In 182 BC, Lü Zhi issued a bronze coin that was much lighter in weight than previous coins. This caused widespread inflation that was not reduced until 175 BC when Emperor Wen allowed private minters to manufacture coins that were precisely 2.6 g (0.09 oz) in weight.


title: Han dynasty

text: In 144 BC Emperor Jing abolished private minting in favor of central-government and commandery-level minting; he also introduced a new coin. Emperor Wu introduced another in 120 BC, but a year later he abandoned the "ban liangs" entirely in favor of the "wuzhu" (五銖) coin, weighing 3.2 g (0.11 oz). The "wuzhu" became China's standard coin until the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Its use was interrupted briefly by several new currencies introduced during Wang Mang's regime until it was reinstated in 40 AD by Emperor Guangwu.


title: Han dynasty

text: Since commandery-issued coins were often of inferior quality and lighter weight, the central government closed commandery mints and monopolized the issue of coinage in 113 BC. This central government issuance of coinage was overseen by the Superintendent of Waterways and Parks, this duty being transferred to the Minister of Finance during the Eastern Han.


title: Han dynasty

text: Aside from the landowner's land tax paid in a portion of their crop yield, the poll tax and property taxes were paid in coin cash. The annual poll tax rate for adult men and women was 120 coins and 20 coins for minors. Merchants were required to pay a higher rate of 240 coins. The poll tax stimulated a money economy that necessitated the minting of over 28,000,000,000 coins from 118 BC to 5 AD, an average of 220,000,000 coins a year.


title: Han dynasty

text: The widespread circulation of coin cash allowed successful merchants to invest money in land, empowering the very social class the government attempted to suppress through heavy commercial and property taxes. Emperor Wu even enacted laws which banned registered merchants from owning land, yet powerful merchants were able to avoid registration and own large tracts of land.


title: Han dynasty

text: The small landowner-cultivators formed the majority of the Han tax base; this revenue was threatened during the latter half of Eastern Han when many peasants fell into debt and were forced to work as farming tenants for wealthy landlords. The Han government enacted reforms in order to keep small landowner-cultivators out of debt and on their own farms. These reforms included reducing taxes, temporary remissions of taxes, granting loans, and providing landless peasants temporary lodging and work in agricultural colonies until they could recover from their debts.


title: Han dynasty

text: In 168 BC, the land tax rate was reduced from one-fifteenth of a farming household's crop yield to one-thirtieth, and later to a one-hundredth of a crop yield for the last decades of the dynasty. The consequent loss of government revenue was compensated for by increasing property taxes.


title: Han dynasty

text: The labor tax took the form of conscripted labor for one month per year, which was imposed upon male commoners aged fifteen to fifty-six. This could be avoided in Eastern Han with a commutable tax, since hired labor became more popular.


title: Han dynasty

text: In the early Western Han, a wealthy salt or iron industrialist, whether a semi-autonomous king or wealthy merchant, could boast funds that rivaled the imperial treasury and amass a peasant workforce of over a thousand. This kept many peasants away from their farms and denied the government a significant portion of its land tax revenue. To eliminate the influence of such private entrepreneurs, Emperor Wu nationalized the salt and iron industries in 117 BC and allowed many of the former industrialists to become officials administering the state monopolies. By Eastern Han times, the central government monopolies were repealed in favor of production by commandery and county administrations, as well as private businessmen.


title: Han dynasty

text: Liquor was another profitable private industry nationalized by the central government in 98 BC. However, this was repealed in 81 BC and a property tax rate of two coins for every 0.2 L (0.05 gallons) was levied for those who traded it privately. By 110 BC Emperor Wu also interfered with the profitable trade in grain when he eliminated speculation by selling government-stored grain at a lower price than that demanded by merchants. Apart from Emperor Ming's creation of a short-lived Office for Price Adjustment and Stabilization, which was abolished in 68 AD, central-government price control regulations were largely absent during the Eastern Han.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han dynasty was a unique period in the development of premodern Chinese science and technology, comparable to the level of scientific and technological growth during the Song dynasty (960–1279).


title: Han dynasty

text: In the 1st millennium BC, typical ancient Chinese writing materials were bronzewares, animal bones, and bamboo slips or wooden boards. By the beginning of the Han dynasty, the chief writing materials were clay tablets, silk cloth, hemp paper, and rolled scrolls made from bamboo strips sewn together with hempen string; these were passed through drilled holes and secured with clay stamps.


title: Han dynasty

text: The oldest known Chinese piece of hempen paper dates to the 2nd century BC. The standard papermaking process was invented by Cai Lun (AD 50–121) in 105. The oldest known surviving piece of paper with writing on it was found in the ruins of a Han watchtower that had been abandoned in AD 110, in Inner Mongolia.


title: Han dynasty

text: Evidence suggests that blast furnaces, that convert raw iron ore into pig iron, which can be remelted in a cupola furnace to produce cast iron by means of a cold blast and hot blast, were operational in China by the late Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC). The bloomery was nonexistent in ancient China; however, the Han-era Chinese produced wrought iron by injecting excess oxygen into a furnace and causing decarburization. Cast iron and pig iron could be converted into wrought iron and steel using a fining process.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han dynasty Chinese used bronze and iron to make a range of weapons, culinary tools, carpenters' tools, and domestic wares. A significant product of these improved iron-smelting techniques was the manufacture of new agricultural tools. The three-legged iron seed drill, invented by the 2nd century BC, enabled farmers to carefully plant crops in rows instead of casting seeds out by hand. The heavy moldboard iron plow, also invented during the Han dynasty, required only one man to control it with two oxen to pull it. It had three plowshares, a seed box for the drills, a tool which turned down the soil and could sow roughly 45,730 m (11.3 acres) of land in a single day.


title: Han dynasty

text: To protect crops from wind and drought, the grain intendant Zhao Guo (趙過) created the alternating fields system ("daitianfa" 代田法) during Emperor Wu's reign. This system switched the positions of furrows and ridges between growing seasons. Once experiments with this system yielded successful results, the government officially sponsored it and encouraged peasants to use it. Han farmers also used the pit field system ( 凹田) for growing crops, which involved heavily fertilized pits that did not require plows or oxen and could be placed on sloping terrain. In the southern and small parts of central Han-era China, paddy fields were chiefly used to grow rice, while farmers along the Huai River used transplantation methods of rice production.


title: Han dynasty

text: Timber was the chief building material during the Han dynasty; it was used to build palace halls, multi-story residential towers and halls, and single-story houses. Because wood decays rapidly, the only remaining evidence of Han wooden architecture is a collection of scattered ceramic roof tiles. The oldest surviving wooden halls in China date to the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907). Architectural historian Robert L. Thorp points out the scarcity of Han-era archeological remains, and claims that often unreliable Han-era literary and artistic sources are used by historians for clues about lost Han architecture.


title: Han dynasty

text: Though Han wooden structures decayed, some Han-dynasty ruins made of brick, stone, and rammed earth remain intact. This includes stone pillar-gates, brick tomb chambers, rammed-earth city walls, rammed-earth and brick beacon towers, rammed-earth sections of the Great Wall, rammed-earth platforms where elevated halls once stood, and two rammed-earth castles in Gansu. The ruins of rammed-earth walls that once surrounded the capitals Chang'an and Luoyang still stand, along with their drainage systems of brick arches, ditches, and ceramic water pipes. Monumental stone pillar-gates, twenty-nine of which survive from the Han period, formed entrances of walled enclosures at shrine and tomb sites. These pillars feature artistic imitations of wooden and ceramic building components such as roof tiles, eaves, and balustrades.


title: Han dynasty

text: The courtyard house is the most common type of home portrayed in Han artwork. Ceramic architectural models of buildings, like houses and towers, were found in Han tombs, perhaps to provide lodging for the dead in the afterlife. These provide valuable clues about lost wooden architecture. The artistic designs found on ceramic roof tiles of tower models are in some cases exact matches to Han roof tiles found at archeological sites.


title: Han dynasty

text: Over ten Han-era underground tombs have been found, many of them featuring archways, vaulted chambers, and domed roofs. Underground vaults and domes did not require buttress supports since they were held in place by earthen pits. The use of brick vaults and domes in aboveground Han structures is unknown.


title: Han dynasty

text: From Han literary sources, it is known that wooden-trestle beam bridges, arch bridges, simple suspension bridges, and floating pontoon bridges existed in Han China. However, there are only two known references to arch bridges in Han literature, and only a single Han relief sculpture in Sichuan depicts an arch bridge.


title: Han dynasty

text: Underground mine shafts, some reaching depths over , were created for the extraction of metal ores. Borehole drilling and derricks were used to lift brine to iron pans where it was distilled into salt. The distillation furnaces were heated by natural gas funneled to the surface through bamboo pipelines. These boreholes perhaps reached a depth of 600 m (2000 ft).


title: Han dynasty

text: Han-era mechanical engineering comes largely from the choice observational writings of sometimes-disinterested Confucian scholars who generally considered scientific and engineering endeavors to be far beneath them. Professional artisan-engineers ("jiang" 匠) did not leave behind detailed records of their work. Han scholars, who often had little or no expertise in mechanical engineering, sometimes provided insufficient information on the various technologies they described. Nevertheless, some Han literary sources provide crucial information.


title: Han dynasty

text: For example, in 15 BC the philosopher and poet Yang Xiong described the invention of the belt drive for a quilling machine, which was of great importance to early textile manufacturing. The inventions of mechanical engineer and craftsman Ding Huan are mentioned in the "Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Capital". Around AD 180, Ding created a manually operated rotary fan used for air conditioning within palace buildings. Ding also used gimbals as pivotal supports for one of his incense burners and invented the world's first known zoetrope lamp.


title: Han dynasty

text: Modern archeology has led to the discovery of Han artwork portraying inventions which were otherwise absent in Han literary sources. As observed in Han miniature tomb models, but not in literary sources, the crank handle was used to operate the fans of winnowing machines that separated grain from chaff. The odometer cart, invented during the Han period, measured journey lengths, using mechanical figures banging drums and gongs to indicate each distance traveled. This invention is depicted in Han artwork by the 2nd century, yet detailed written descriptions were not offered until the 3rd century.


title: Han dynasty

text: Modern archeologists have also unearthed specimens of devices used during the Han dynasty, for example a pair of sliding metal calipers used by craftsmen for making minute measurements. These calipers contain inscriptions of the exact day and year they were manufactured. These tools are not mentioned in any Han literary sources.


title: Han dynasty

text: The waterwheel appeared in Chinese records during the Han. As mentioned by Huan Tan about AD 20, they were used to turn gears that lifted iron trip hammers, and were used in pounding, threshing, and polishing grain. However, there is no sufficient evidence for the watermill in China until about the 5th century. The Nanyang Commandery Administrator, mechanical engineer, and Du Shi (d. 38 AD) created a waterwheel-powered reciprocator that worked the bellows for the smelting of iron. Waterwheels were also used to power chain pumps that lifted water to raised irrigation ditches. The chain pump was first mentioned in China by the philosopher Wang Chong in his 1st-century "Balanced Discourse".


title: Han dynasty

text: The armillary sphere, a three-dimensional representation of the movements in the celestial sphere, was invented in Han China by the 1st century BC. Using a water clock, waterwheel, and a series of gears, the Court Astronomer Zhang Heng (AD 78–139) was able to mechanically rotate his metal-ringed armillary sphere. To address the problem of slowed timekeeping in the pressure head of the inflow water clock, Zhang was the first in China to install an additional tank between the reservoir and inflow vessel.


title: Han dynasty

text: Zhang also invented a device he termed an "earthquake weathervane" ( 候風地動儀), which the British biochemist, sinologist, and historian Joseph Needham described as "the ancestor of all seismographs". This device was able to detect the exact cardinal or ordinal direction of earthquakes from hundreds of kilometers away. It employed an inverted pendulum that, when disturbed by ground tremors, would trigger a set of gears that dropped a metal ball from one of eight dragon mouths (representing all eight directions) into a metal toad's mouth.


title: Han dynasty

text: The account of this device in the "Book of the Later Han" describes how, on one occasion, one of the metal balls was triggered without any of the observers feeling a disturbance. Several days later, a messenger arrived bearing news that an earthquake had struck in Longxi Commandery (in modern Gansu Province), the direction the device had indicated, which forced the officials at court to admit the efficacy of Zhang's device.


title: Han dynasty

text: Three Han mathematical treatises still exist. These are the "Book on Numbers and Computation", the "Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven," and the "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art". Han-era mathematical achievements include solving problems with right-angle triangles, square roots, cube roots, and matrix methods, finding more accurate approximations for pi, providing mathematical proof of the Pythagorean theorem, use of the decimal fraction, Gaussian elimination to solve linear equations, and continued fractions to find the roots of equations.


title: Han dynasty

text: One of the Han's greatest mathematical advancements was the world's first use of negative numbers. Negative numbers first appeared in the "Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art" as black counting rods, where positive numbers were represented by red counting rods. Negative numbers were also used by the Greek mathematician Diophantus around AD 275, and in the 7th-century Bakhshali manuscript of Gandhara, South Asia, but were not widely accepted in Europe until the 16th century.


title: Han dynasty

text: The Han applied mathematics to various diverse disciplines. In musical tuning, Jing Fang (78–37 BC) realized that 53 perfect fifths was approximate to 31 octaves while creating a musical scale of 60 tones, calculating the difference at ⁄ (the same value of 53 equal temperament discovered by the German mathematician Nicholas Mercator [1620–1687], i.e. 3/2).


title: Han dynasty

text: Mathematics were essential in drafting the astronomical calendar, a lunisolar calendar that used the Sun and Moon as time-markers throughout the year. During the spring and autumn periods of the 5th century BC, the Chinese established the Sifen calendar (古四分历), which measured the tropical year at 365.25 days. This was replaced in 104 BC with the Taichu calendar (太初曆) that measured the tropical year at (~ 365.25016) days and the lunar month at days. However, Emperor Zhang later reinstated the Sifen calendar.


title: Han dynasty

text: Han Chinese astronomers made star catalogues and detailed records of comets that appeared in the night sky, including recording the 12 BC appearance of the comet now known as Halley's Comet.


title: Han dynasty

text: Han dynasty astronomers adopted a geocentric model of the universe, theorizing that it was shaped like a sphere surrounding the earth in the center. They assumed that the Sun, Moon, and planets were spherical and not disc-shaped. They also thought that the illumination of the Moon and planets was caused by sunlight, that lunar eclipses occurred when the Earth obstructed sunlight falling onto the Moon, and that a solar eclipse occurred when the Moon obstructed sunlight from reaching the Earth. Although others disagreed with his model, Wang Chong accurately described the water cycle of the evaporation of water into clouds.


title: Han dynasty

text: Evidence found in Chinese literature, and archeological evidence, show that cartography existed in China before the Han. Some of the earliest Han maps discovered were ink-penned silk maps found amongst the Mawangdui Silk Texts in a 2nd-century-BC tomb. The general Ma Yuan created the world's first known raised-relief map from rice in the 1st century. This date could be revised if the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is excavated and the account in the "Records of the Grand Historian" concerning a model map of the empire is proven to be true.


title: Han dynasty

text: Although the use of the graduated scale and grid reference for maps was not thoroughly described until the published work of Pei Xiu (AD 224–271), there is evidence that in the early 2nd century, cartographer Zhang Heng was the first to use scales and grids for maps.


title: Han dynasty

text: Han dynasty Chinese sailed in a variety of ships different from those of previous eras, such as the tower ship. The "junk" design was developed and realized during the Han era. Junk ships featured a square-ended bow and stern, a flat-bottomed hull or carvel-shaped hull with no keel or sternpost, and solid transverse bulkheads in the place of structural ribs found in Western vessels. Moreover, Han ships were the first in the world to be steered using a rudder at the stern, in contrast to the simpler steering oar used for riverine transport, allowing them to sail on the high seas.


title: Han dynasty

text: Although ox-carts and chariots were previously used in China, the wheelbarrow was first used in Han China in the 1st century BC. Han artwork of horse-drawn chariots shows that the Warring-States-Era heavy wooden yoke placed around a horse's chest was replaced by the softer "breast strap". Later, during the Northern Wei (386–534), the fully developed horse collar was invented.


title: Han dynasty

text: Han-era medical physicians believed that the human body was subject to the same forces of nature that governed the greater universe, namely the cosmological cycles of yin and yang and the five phases. Each organ of the body was associated with a particular phase. Illness was viewed as a sign that "qi" or "vital energy" channels leading to a certain organ had been disrupted. Thus, Han-era physicians prescribed medicine that was believed to counteract this imbalance.


title: Han dynasty

text: For example, since the wood phase was believed to promote the fire phase, medicinal ingredients associated with the wood phase could be used to heal an organ associated with the fire phase. Besides dieting, Han physicians also prescribed moxibustion, acupuncture, and calisthenics as methods of maintaining one's health. When surgery was performed by the Chinese physician Hua Tuo (d. AD 208), he used anesthesia to numb his patients' pain and prescribed a rubbing ointment that allegedly sped the process of healing surgical wounds. Whereas the physician Zhang Zhongjing ( – ) is known to have written the "Shanghan lun" ("Dissertation on Typhoid Fever"), it is thought that both he and Hua Tuo collaborated in compiling the "Shennong Ben Cao Jing" medical text.


title: James Cromwell

text: James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American actor and activist. Some of his best-known films include "Babe" (1995), "" (1996), "L.A. Confidential" (1997), "The Green Mile" (1999), "The Queen" (2006), "Secretariat" (2010), "The Artist" (2011), and "" (2018).


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell is also well known for his performances in television including HBO’s acclaimed "Angels in America" (2003), "Six Feet Under" (2003–2005), "" (2012–2013), "Succession" (2018–present), and "Counterpart" (2018–2019).


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell has been nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Babe" (1995). He won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role in "" (2012) and a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor for his role in "Still Mine" (2013).


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of actress Kay Johnson (19041975) and actor and director John Cromwell (18861979), who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. His parents divorced in 1946. He has English, German, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He graduated from The Hill School in 1958, and went on to Middlebury College, and Carnegie Mellon University, where he majored in theater before leaving the school. He received his acting training at HB Studio in New York City. Like his parents, he was drawn to the theatre, performing in everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays.


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell's first television performance was in a 1974 episode of "The Rockford Files" playing Terry, a tennis instructor. A few weeks later, he began a recurring role as Stretch Cunningham on "All in the Family". In 1975, he took his first lead role on television as Bill Lewis in the short-lived "Hot l Baltimore", and appeared on "M*A*S*H" as Captain Leo Bardonaro in the episode "Last Laugh". A year later, he made his film debut in Neil Simon's classic detective spoof "Murder by Death". Cromwell portrayed four different characters in four episodes of "Barney Miller" (1977-1981).


title: James Cromwell

text: In 1980, Cromwell guest-starred in the two-part episode "Laura Ingalls Wilder" of the long-running television series "Little House on the Prairie". He played Harve Miller, one of Almanzo Wilder's old friends.


title: James Cromwell

text: While Cromwell continued with regular television work throughout the 1980s, he made appearances in films with supporting roles in "Tank" and "Revenge of the Nerds" (both 1984). He guest starred on the sitcom "Night Court", playing a mental patient, along with Kevin Peter Hall. He had starring roles in the critically acclaimed films "Babe" (1995), "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996), "The Education of Little Tree" (1997), "L.A. Confidential" (1997), "The Green Mile" (1999), "The General's Daughter", (1999) and "Snow Falling on Cedars" (1999). Cromwell's first "Star Trek" role was on "" in 1990, in the season 3 episode "", followed by the 1993 episode "" as Jaglom Shrek. He also played Dr. Zefram Cochrane in "" (1996), the "" pilot episode "", and the 2022 "" season 3 premiere episode, "Grounded". The "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" reused some of the "First Contact" footage. Cromwell appeared in another "Star Trek" role on the television series "Deep Space Nine", in the episode "Starship Down" as Hanok. He also voiced the Colonel in DreamWorks' "".


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell's role as newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst in the television film "RKO 281" earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Television Movie. The following year, he received his second Emmy Award nomination for playing Bishop Lionel Stewart on the NBC medical drama series "ER". In 2004, he guest-starred as former President D. Wire Newman in "The West Wing" episode "The Stormy Present". From 2003 to 2005, Cromwell played George Sibley in the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under", which earned him his third Emmy Award nomination in 2003. Along with the rest of his castmates, he was also nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2005 and 2006. The following year, Cromwell played Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in "The Queen" (2006), that earned Helen Mirren an Academy Award for Best Actress. He also guest starred as Phillip Bauer, father of lead character Jack, in the sixth season of the Fox thriller drama series "24".


title: James Cromwell

text: In October 2007, Cromwell played the lead role of James Tyrone Sr. in the Druid Theatre Company's production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night", at the Gaiety in Dublin as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival's 50th Anniversary. That same year he received the King Vidor Memorial Award from the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival for his artistic achievements in film. Cromwell played George H. W. Bush in Oliver Stone's "W." (2008), that chronicles the rise to power of Bush's son up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cromwell also provided the voice of the main villain Professor Robert Callaghan/Yokai in the Disney movie "Big Hero 6".


title: James Cromwell

text: In 2016 Cromwell starred in HBO's series "The Young Pope" alongside Jude Law and Diane Keaton. In 2018, he appeared in HBO's "Succession", and Starz's "Counterpart".


title: James Cromwell

text: In 2020, Cromwell starred in the Australian comedy-drama film "Never Too Late". Cromwell starred in "Operation Buffalo", an Australian television comedy-drama series about the atomic bomb tests in outback Australia, which screened on ABC from 31 May 2020.


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell married Ann Ulvestad in 1977. They divorced in 1986. Together the couple had three children: Kate, John and Colin. Cromwell married actress Julie Cobb on May 29, 1986; they divorced in 2005. On January 1, 2014, Cromwell married actress Anna Stuart at the home of Stuart's former "Another World" co-star Charles Keating. Cromwell lives in Warwick, New York.


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell is known for his height; at , he is the tallest actor nominated for an Academy Award. His son John is even taller, standing . In the 2012 film "Memorial Day", John played the young Bud Vogel, while James played him as a grandfather, and both Cromwells appear as the same character at different ages in "" (2012) and the first season of "Betrayal" (2013).


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell's experiences of the Civil Rights Movement while on a theatre tour through several Deep South states in 1964 had a profound effect on him. The courage of local campaigners and visiting activists – Cromwell had played high school football with civil rights worker Mickey Schwerner, who was murdered with two of his colleagues in Mississippi in 1964 – convinced him to become an activist. He subsequently became involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and by the late 1960s, Cromwell was a member of the Committee to Defend the Panthers, a group organized to defend 13 members of the Black Panther Party who had been imprisoned in New York on charges of conspiracy. All 13 were eventually released. In a 2004 interview with CNN, Cromwell praised the Panthers. He supported the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell has long been an advocate of progressive causes, particularly regarding animal rights. He became a vegetarian in 1974 after seeing a stockyard in Texas and experiencing the "smell, terror and anxiety". He became vegan while playing the character of Farmer Hoggett in the 1995 film "Babe". He frequently speaks out on issues regarding animal cruelty for PETA, largely on the treatment of pigs. In 2017, he was arrested during a PETA protest against SeaWorld's treatment of orca whales, at which he spoke about marine mammals' suffering and premature deaths.


title: James Cromwell

text: In the book "Money Men", author Jeffrey Birnbaum describes how John McCain went out of his way to meet Cromwell as he advocated on Capitol Hill for funding of Native American arts education.


title: James Cromwell

text: Cromwell served as the narrator of the short film "Farm to Fridge", a documentary produced by Mercy for Animals.


title: James Cromwell

text: In an October 2008 interview, Cromwell criticized the Republican Party and the George W. Bush administration, saying that their foreign policy would "either destroy us or the entire planet".


title: James Cromwell

text: In February 2013, Cromwell was arrested along with animal rights activist Jeremy Beckham for interrupting a University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting while showing a graphic photo of a cat to protest about alleged mistreatment of animals on campus. The incident, which garnered widespread press coverage, was resolved on March 25, 2013, when an attorney representing Cromwell entered no-contest pleas to the non-criminal offense and agreed to pay $100 forfeitures and court costs of $263.50. In December 2015, he was removed from an event in New York for heckling an energy company receiving an award. On December 18, 2015, Cromwell and five other people were arrested while protesting against the construction of a natural gas power station in Wawayanda, New York, near his home in Warwick, New York. He and his fellow protesters, called the "Wawayanda Six", were convicted of disorderly conduct and obstruction of traffic. They were fined $375, due June 29, 2017 and sentenced to 16 hours of community service. After refusing to pay the fine, he was sentenced to a week in jail, scheduled to go on July 14. However, they were released 3 days later on July 17. Cromwell and fellow "Star Trek" actor J. G. Hertzler were among the 19 people arrested in Watkins Glen, New York on June 6, 2016, for a protest against underground gas storage in salt caverns near Seneca Lake. On June 6, 2017, he was escorted out of a Democratic Party fundraiser (which New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi attended) after disrupting the event by protesting about the power station. Cromwell was again arrested, this time for trespassing after taking part in a protest along with PETA at Seaworld on July 24.


title: James Cromwell

text: On October 31, 2019, Cromwell was again arrested with 34-year-old animal rights activist Jeremy Beckham. They were charged with disorderly conduct after police said they disrupted a meeting of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. The two were part of a demonstration by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to protest A&M's use of dogs for medical research. Both were released after posting bonds of $5,000 each.


title: James Cromwell

text: In May 2022, Cromwell superglued his hand on the counter of a Manhattan Starbucks to protest the surcharge of plant-based milks.


title: James Cromwell

text: In 2015, Cromwell executive produced the documentary "Imminent Threat" which tackles the War on Terror's impact on civil liberties.


title: James Cromwell

text: In 2021, Cromwell executive produced the psychedelic comedy "Mondo Hollywoodland", directed by Janek Ambros, who also directed "Imminent Threat".


title: Thora Birch

text: Thora Birch (born March 11, 1982) is an American actress and producer. She made her feature film debut in 1988 with a starring role in "Purple People Eater", for which she received a Young Artist Award for "Best Young Actress Under Nine Years of Age". Birch rose to prominence as a child star during the 1990s with a string of notable appearances in films such as "Paradise", "All I Want for Christmas" (both 1991), "Patriot Games" (1992), "Hocus Pocus" (1993), "Monkey Trouble" (1994), "Now and Then" (1995), and "Alaska" (1996). Her breakthrough into adult-oriented roles came at the end of that decade, when she earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Jane Burnham in "American Beauty" (1999).


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch received further acclaim with her starring role as Enid in the cult hit "Ghost World" (2001), for which she earned several accolades including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. In 2003, Birch received an Emmy Award nomination for playing the title role in the television film "". Her other film credits include "Dungeons & Dragons" (2000), "The Hole" (2001), "Silver City" (2004), "Dark Corners" (2006), "Winter of Frozen Dreams" (2009), and "Petunia" (2012). She has collaborated on three occasions with director Phillip Noyce: "Patriot Games", "Clear and Present Danger" (1994), and "Above Suspicion" (2019).


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch took a break from acting between 2012 and 2016, but has since had parts in several independent features, such as "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" (2019). From 2019–2020, she played the role of Gamma / Mary on the tenth season of AMC's "The Walking Dead".


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch was born in Los Angeles to Jack Birch and Carol Connors, former pornographic film actors who both appeared in the film "Deep Throat". She is of German-Jewish, Scandinavian, French-Canadian and Italian ancestry. Her forename is derived from that of Norse god of thunder and lightning, "Thor", which would have been her name if she had been born a boy. She has a younger brother, Bolt Birch.


title: Thora Birch

text: Because of their own experience with the entertainment industry, Birch's parents were reluctant to encourage her to act, but were persuaded to show Birch's photograph to agents by a babysitter who noticed her imitating commercials. Birch got her first big break at the age of four, when the babysitter accompanied her to a successful audition for a Quaker Oats commercial.


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch appeared in commercials in the late 1980s for Burger King, California Raisins, Quaker Oats (alongside Wilford Brimley), and Vlasic Pickles. She made her film debut in the 1988 science-fiction comedy "Purple People Eater", for which she won a Youth In Film Award and a Young Artist Award in the category of "Best Young Actress Under Nine Years of Age". Also in 1988, she guest-starred in an episode of "Doogie Howser, M.D.", and was cast as Molly in the NBC television series "Day By Day", being credited as "Thora". The show aired for two seasons on NBC and earned her two Young Artist Award nominations.


title: Thora Birch

text: In 1990, Birch had one of the lead roles in the sitcom "Parenthood", based on the 1989 film of the same name. It aired on NBC and was cancelled after one season. In the next year, she starred in the drama "Paradise", with Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith and Elijah Wood. She won her role over more than 4,000 other young hopefuls who auditioned for it. Roger Ebert felt she played her part with "strong, simple charm" and later earned another Young Artist Award nomination. For the rest of the 1990s, Birch continued to find steady recognition as a child and teen actress through leading parts in numerous comedy and family feature films.


title: Thora Birch

text: In 1991, she starred with Ethan Embry in the comedy "All I Want for Christmas", as a girl who plans to get her divorced parents back together for Christmas. The film developed a following on television and on home video in subsequent years. In 1992, she played the daughter of Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) in the spy thriller "Patriot Games", which was a commercial success, grossing US$178 million at the worldwide box office.


title: Thora Birch

text: At 11 years old, Birch appeared in the fantasy comedy "Hocus Pocus" (1993), opposite Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker. The film saw her play the younger sister of a teenage boy who inadvertently resurrects a villainous trio of witches. "Hocus Pocus" made US$39 million in the US, but became a cult film due to strong DVD sales and large television following.


title: Thora Birch

text: In the 1994 comedy "Monkey Trouble", Birch portrayed a girl who adopts a Capuchin monkey trained to pick pockets and burglarize houses. Marjorie Baumgarten, for the "Austin Chronicle", observed that her "nuanced performance (a rarity amongst child performers) no doubt lends "Monkey Trouble" its realistic touch". Also in 1994, she reprised her "Patriot Games" role in the sequel, "Clear and Present Danger", which grossed over US$215 million globally.


title: Thora Birch

text: In 1995, Birch was cast as the younger version of Melanie Griffith's character in the coming-of-age film "Now and Then", also starring Gaby Hoffmann, Christina Ricci, Demi Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. She landed a leading role in the adventure drama "Alaska" (1996) opposite Vincent Kartheiser, portraying two siblings who search through the Alaskan wilderness for their lost father (Dirk Benedict). For the next two years, she did not appear in a film but guest-starred in "Promised Land" and "Touched by an Angel". She subsequently filmed the made-for-television film "Night Ride Home" and an uncredited role for "Anywhere but Here", both released in 1999.


title: Thora Birch

text: Also in 1999, she appeared in the Sam Mendes-directed drama "American Beauty", as Jane Burnham, the insecure daughter of Kevin Spacey's character. "Rolling Stone" felt Birch "[glimmered] with grown-up radiance" in her role, for which she later received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film was the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture and grossed over US$356 million worldwide, emerging as the biggest commercial success of Birch's career to date.


title: Thora Birch

text: Following her success with "American Beauty", she appeared in two films released in 2000. The small-scale drama "The Smokers" received a straight-to-DVD release in the US, going largely unnoticed, but Birch was called "a scene-stealer" in her supporting role by "The Hollywood Reporter". Her other film of the year was the poorly received "Dungeons & Dragons", a fantasy film based on the role-playing game of the same name. In 2001, she starred with Keira Knightley in the horror film "The Hole", in which her headlining credit and highly publicized seven figure salary was attributed to her appearance in "American Beauty". The film was released in theaters in the UK, and on DVD in the US. Writing for "Variety" magazine, Derek Elley stated that Birch gave "an effectively creepy lead [performance]" in the film, which he called "a clunky British attempt to merge the psychothriller and teen movie genres".


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch headlined the 2001 black comedy "Ghost World", directed by Terry Zwigoff and co-starring Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi and Brad Renfro. The film, focused on the lives of two teenage outsiders (Birch and Johansson) in an unnamed American city, was released in a specialty theatrical run, to a highly favorable critical reception. James Berardinelli found Birch's part to be her "first effectively developed role" since "American Beauty" and positively singled out the actress for the "quirkiness [and the] underlying sense of melancholy and ennui" in her portrayal. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch appeared as the title character in the biographical television film "" (2003), playing a young woman who, after becoming homeless at 15 amid personal tragedies, begins her work to finish her studies. She garnered acclaim for her part, receiving an Emmy nomination. After her professional achievements in the 1990s and early 2000s, Birch's profile decreased significantly in the next decade, as she had more infrequent acting appearances in much smaller-scale productions. Reflecting on her career trajectory the subsequent years during a January 2014 interview, she attributed it to not "taking" the demands the film industry had for her, opting to "maintain a strong identity and pursue things that were a little more thoughtful, and I guess nobody really wanted women to do that at that time".


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch appeared in several music videos including Moby's "We Are All Made of Stars", and Limp Bizkit's "Eat You Alive", which also featured Bill Paxton.


title: Thora Birch

text: She played a supporting role in "Silver City", a political satire written and directed by John Sayles, which premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. In 2006, Birch had the lead role in the horror-thriller "Dark Corners", portraying a troubled young woman who wakes up one day as a different person—someone who is stalked by creatures. The film did not receive a theatrical release and instead went straight to DVD. She followed with the female lead role in the 2008 slasher "Train".


title: Thora Birch

text: She appeared in the 2009 psychological thriller "Deadline", co-starring Brittany Murphy. Also in 2009, she starred in the independent mystery film "Winter of Frozen Dreams", as Barbara Hoffman, a Wisconsin biochemistry student and prostitute convicted of murder in the first ever televised murder trial.


title: Thora Birch

text: In 2010, Birch took on the role of Sidney Bloom in the made-for-television movie "The Pregnancy Pact", which was based on the 2008 media circus surrounding teenagers in Gloucester, Massachusetts, who allegedly agreed to concurrently give birth and raise their children communally. The Lifetime film was watched by 5.9 million viewers. Later in 2010, Birch was cast and scheduled to make her American stage debut in the off Broadway revival of "Dracula", but was fired for the behavior of her father, her manager at the time, who physically threatened one of the show's cast members.


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch starred in the 2012 independent dramedy "Petunia", playing the role of Vivian Petunia. She is credited as a co-producer in the film, which depicts simultaneously the lives and romantic relationships of the Petunia family. Birch considered the film an "intimate" and "a very modern tale", describing it as "a little bit different from your standard summer fare". Distributed for a very limited release in the US, the film premiered at Cinema Village in New York City, garnering mixed reviews.


title: Thora Birch

text: After devoting herself to academic pursuits, Birch returned to her acting career in 2015 with a recurring role as software engineer Morgan in the Carlton Cuse series "Colony".


title: Thora Birch

text: Following the series, Birch first starred in the independent film "The Etruscan Smile" with Brian Cox, which was shot in San Francisco and Scotland. She then went to Kentucky to shoot the thriller "Above Suspicion", based on the book of the same name by "New York Times" columnist Joe Sharkey, and co-starring Jack Huston, Emilia Clarke and Johnny Knoxville. In 2018, Birch starred in the political thriller "Affairs of State", with David Corenswet, Mimi Rogers, and Adrian Grenier. The film was shot in Norfolk, Virginia. Also that year, she starred in the romantic comedy, "The Competition", directed by Harvey Lowry, which was shot in Portland. Birch also co-produced the film, which was picked up for distribution by VMI Worldwide. Most recently, Birch appeared in the Plan B and A24 film "The Last Black Man in San Francisco", opposite Jimmie Fails, Jonathan Majors, and Danny Glover.


title: Thora Birch

text: In 2022, Birch made her directorial debut with "The Gabby Petito Story" for Lifetime; she also co-starred in the film. Birch had previously worked with Lifetime on two films in which she starred.


title: Thora Birch

text: Birch married talent manager and philanthropist Michael Benton Adler on December 21, 2018. Birch is a long-time Democrat who was a delegate at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. In addition, she has supported Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and local political efforts, such as North Carolina State Senator Wiley Nickel's campaign.


title: Iron Age

text: The duration of the Iron Age varies depending on the region under consideration. It is defined by archaeological convention. The "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has advanced to the point where iron tools and weapons replace their bronze equivalents in common use. In the Ancient Near East, this transition took place in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse, in the 12th century BC. The technology soon spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin region and to South Asia (Iron Age in India) between the 12th and 11th century BC. Its further spread to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe is somewhat delayed, and Northern Europe was not reached until around the start of the 5th century BC.


title: Iron Age

text: The Iron Age is taken to end, also by convention, with the beginning of the historiographical record.


title: Iron Age

text: This usually does not represent a clear break in the archaeological record; for the Ancient Near East, the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire c. 550 BC is traditionally and still usually taken as a cut-off date, later dates being considered historical by virtue of the record by Herodotus, despite considerable written records from far earlier (well back into the Bronze Age) now being known. In Central and Western Europe, the Roman conquests of the 1st century BC serve as marking for the end of the Iron Age. The Germanic Iron Age of Scandinavia is taken to end c. 800 AD, with the beginning of the Viking Age.


title: Iron Age

text: In the Indian sub-continent, the Iron Age is taken to begin with the ironworking Painted Gray Ware culture. Recent estimates suggest that it ranges from the 15th century BC, through to the reign of Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. The use of the term "Iron Age" in the archaeology of South, East, and Southeast Asia is more recent and less common than for Western Eurasia. In China, written history started before iron-working arrived, so the term is infrequently used. The Sahel (Sudan region) and Sub-Saharan Africa are outside of the three-age system, there being no Bronze Age, but the term "Iron Age" is sometimes used in reference to early cultures practicing ironworking, such as the Nok culture of Nigeria.


title: Iron Age

text: The time and context of this Iron Age era varied by geography or country. Please note that classically, it is said that this era occurred in the 12th century BC.


title: Iron Age

text: The three-age system was introduced in the first half of the 19th century for the archaeology of Europe in particular, and by the later 19th century expanded to the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Its name harks back to the mythological "Ages of Man" of Hesiod. As an archaeological era, it was first introduced for Scandinavia by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s. By the 1860s, it was embraced as a useful division of the "earliest history of mankind" in general and began to be applied in Assyriology. The development of the now-conventional periodization in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East was developed in the 1920s to 1930s.


title: Iron Age

text: As its name suggests, Iron Age technology is characterized by the production of tools and weaponry by ferrous metallurgy (ironworking), more specifically from carbon steel.


title: Iron Age

text: Increasingly the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India (with the post-Rigvedic Vedic civilization), ancient Iran, and ancient Greece (with the Greek Dark Ages). In other regions of Europe the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe and the 6th century BC in Northern Europe. The Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I (1200–1000 BC) illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age. There is no definitive cultural break between the 13th and 12th centuries BC throughout the entire region, although certain new features in the hill country, Transjordan and coastal region may suggest the appearance of the Aramaean and Sea People groups. There is evidence, however, of strong continuity with Bronze Age culture, although as one moves later into Iron Age the culture begins to diverge more significantly from that of the late 2nd millennium.


title: Iron Age

text: The Iron Age as an archaeological period is roughly defined as that part of the prehistory of a culture or region during which ferrous metallurgy was the dominant technology of metalworking.


title: Iron Age

text: The characteristic of an Iron Age culture is the mass production of tools and weapons made from steel, typically alloys with a carbon content between approximately 0.30% and 1.2% by weight.


title: Iron Age

text: Only with the capability of the production of carbon steel does ferrous metallurgy result in tools or weapons that are equal or superior to bronze. The use of steel has been based as much on economics as on metallurgical advancements. Early steel was made by smelting iron.


title: Iron Age

text: By convention, the Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is taken to last from c. 1200 BC (the Bronze Age collapse) to c. 550 BC (or 539 BC), roughly the beginning of historiography with Herodotus; the end of the proto-historical period. In Central and Western Europe, the Iron Age is taken to last from c. 800 BC to c. 1 BC, in Northern Europe from c. 500 BC to 800 CE.


title: Iron Age

text: In China, there is no recognizable prehistoric period characterized by ironworking, as Bronze Age China transitions almost directly into the Qin dynasty of imperial China; "Iron Age" in the context of China is sometimes used for the transitional period of c. 900 BC to 100 BC during which ferrous metallurgy was present even if not dominant.


title: Iron Age

text: The earliest-known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering. Meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its native metallic state, required no smelting of ores.


title: Iron Age

text: Smelted iron appears sporadically in the archeological record from the middle Bronze Age. Whilst terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, temperatures above are required to smelt it, placing it out of reach of commonly available technology until the end of the second millennium BC. In contrast, the components of bronze -- tin with a melting point of and copper with a relatively moderate melting point of -- were within the capabilities of Neolithic kilns, which date back to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than . In addition to specially designed furnaces, ancient iron production required the development of complex procedures for the removal of impurities, the regulation of the admixture of carbon, and the invention of hot-working to achieve a useful balance of hardness and strength in steel.


title: Iron Age

text: The earliest tentative evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük in modern-day Turkey, dated to 2200–2000 BC. Akanuma (2008) concludes that "The combination of carbon dating, archaeological context, and archaeometallurgical examination indicates that it is likely that the use of ironware made of steel had already begun in the third millennium BC in Central Anatolia". Souckova-Siegolová (2001) shows that iron implements were made in Central Anatolia in very limited quantities around 1800 BC and were in general use by elites, though not by commoners, during the New Hittite Empire (∼1400–1200 BC).


title: Iron Age

text: Similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron-working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. Tewari (2003) concludes that "knowledge of iron smelting and manufacturing of iron artifacts was well known in the Eastern Vindhyas and iron had been in use in the Central Ganga Plain, at least from the early second millennium BC". By the Middle Bronze Age increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South Asia. African sites are turning up dates as early as 2000-1200 BC.


title: Iron Age

text: Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of large-scale iron production in around 1200 BC, marking the end of the Bronze Age. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and the use of iron objects was fast and far-flung. Anthony Snodgrass suggests that a shortage of tin, as a part of the Bronze Age Collapse and trade disruptions in the Mediterranean around 1300 BC, forced metalworkers to seek an alternative to bronze. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during that time. More widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at a lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently.


title: Iron Age

text: The Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is believed to have begun with the discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus and Balkans in the late 2nd millennium BC ( 1300 BC). The earliest bloomery smelting of iron is found at Tell Hammeh, Jordan around 930 BC (determined from C dating).


title: Iron Age

text: The Early Iron Age in the Caucasus area is conventionally divided into two periods, Early Iron I, dated to around 1100 BC, and the Early Iron II phase from the tenth to ninth centuries BC. Many of the material culture traditions of the Late Bronze Age continued into the Early Iron Age. Thus, there is a sociocultural continuity during this transitional period.


title: Iron Age

text: In Iran, the earliest actual iron artifacts were unknown until the 9th century BC. For Iran, the best studied archaeological site during this time period is Teppe Hasanlu.


title: Iron Age

text: In the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, the initial use of iron reaches far back, to perhaps 3000 BC. One of the earliest smelted iron artifacts known was a dagger with an iron blade found in a Hattic tomb in Anatolia, dating from 2500 BC. The widespread use of iron weapons which replaced bronze weapons rapidly disseminated throughout the Near East by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.


title: Iron Age

text: The development of iron smelting was once attributed to the Hittites of Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age.


title: Iron Age

text: As part of the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, the Bronze Age collapse saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region.


title: Iron Age

text: It was long held that the success of the Hittite Empire during the Late Bronze Age had been based on the advantages entailed by the "monopoly" on ironworking at the time. Accordingly, the invading Sea Peoples would have been responsible for spreading the knowledge through that region.


title: Iron Age

text: The view of such a "Hittite monopoly" has come under scrutiny and no longer represents a scholarly consensus.


title: Iron Age

text: While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to iron objects found in Egypt and other places of the same time period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons.


title: Iron Age

text: The Iron Age in Egyptian archaeology essentially corresponds to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt.


title: Iron Age

text: Iron metal is singularly scarce in collections of Egyptian antiquities. Bronze remained the primary material there until the conquest by Neo-Assyrian Empire in 671 BC. The explanation of this would seem to be that the relics are in most cases the paraphernalia of tombs, the funeral vessels and vases, and iron being considered an impure metal by the ancient Egyptians it was never used in their manufacture of these or for any religious purposes. It was attributed to Seth, the spirit of evil who according to Egyptian tradition governed the central deserts of Africa.