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| Amazing Tangka Stories |
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An Interactive website presenting two sets of Tibetan tangkas: Jataka Tales (past life stories of the Buddha) and Dipankara Atisha (famous Indian Buddhist monk). The tangkas are shown with their original Tibetan inscriptions and English translation(viewers can click on sections of each painting and see the story)The paintings that depict stories (avadanas) of exemplary people as told by the Buddha who fulfill the Buddhist ideal of the Bodhisattva, a person who always gives whatever he or she can to help others. Through such generosity, over many lifetimes, they will become enlightened. The Buddha tells each story and at its end he identifies the main characters in their present life, that is, as his own contemporaries. In some cases these are past life stories (jatakas) of the Buddha.
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/tangka_stories | |
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| American Museum of Natural History: Asian Ethnographic Collection |
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Featuring more than 44,000 objects from the AMNH's Asian Ethnographic Collection. Find objects by culture or country, and filter results to see only objects currently on view at the AMNH. Label information only; no descriptions.
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/asia | |
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| An Asian Bestiary |
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A bestiary is a compendium of animals with a description of how the compilers understand them. Our Asian bestiary describes some of the ways a range of animals have been engaged and imagined in different Asian cultures. Notes were written by Columbia University M.A. students in Dr. Laurel Kendall's Exhibiting Cultures G6353y, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, and Spring 2015 courses who were asked to select an animal and explore its broad cultural possibilities. Explored in this way the bestiary becomes a virtual exhibit.
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/asian_bestiary | |
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| The Buddha Project |
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The Buddha Project contains a total of 1,038 images of objects drawn from the museum's Asia archives - an electronic database of images of objects from the American Museum of Natural History's Asia collection. The images represent a diverse spectrum of Buddhist iconography, differing by time period, country acquired, mode of representation of the Buddha, and object type. Four major events depicted in Buddha iconography - his conception, enlightenment, first sermon and death - are examples of images which may show the Buddha symbolically rather than anthropomorphically. The Buddha's enlightenment, for example, can be represented by the Bo Tree, his first sermon by a wheel, and his death by a burning funeral pyre without a visible body. Such images are often found at pilgrimage sites, where stone carvings were created which depicted either four or eight scenes of primary events from the Buddha's life including those described above. Such pilgrimage sites include monasteries, temples, and stupas - solid architectural structures believed to contain bodily relics of the Buddha and other holy persons. Since stupas, themselves, are often believed to be physical representations of the Buddha they, too, have been included into the Buddha Project. Catalog No. 70.0/4600 is one example of a stupa in the database.
While a good deal of attention has been paid to the importance and variety of symbolic representations of the Buddha, it is also significant, and potentially advantageous to researchers, to highlight the diverse and surprising variety of objects which were found to contain images of the Buddha in his human form which are also included into the Buddha Project. The variety of human forms of the Buddha found in the database, and also the variety of objects on which he is depicted, is demonstrative of the span of Asian countries and time periods from which these objects were collected.
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/buddha | |
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| Laufer China Expedition (1901-1904) |
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Featuring more than 6,500 objects from China and Tibet, acquired between 1901 and 1904 during the Jacob H. Schiff expedition to China led by sinologist Berthold Laufer… exploring the history and culture of a sophisticated people that had not yet experienced the industrial transformation… The collection includes "objects used in daily life, agriculture, folk religion, medicine, and in the practice of such crafts as printing, bookbinding, carpentry, enamelware, ceramics, and laquerware. [Laufer] also collected antique bronzes and Han Dynasty ceramics[, and his] interest in the theater led him to make the most extensive collection of Chinese puppets in North America including shadow puppets, rod puppets, and glove puppets in several regional styles, and to record performances on wax cylinders. The collection also includes costumes, musical instruments, and stilts for the Yang Ko folk drama."
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/laufer_collection | |
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| Textile Collection |
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Textiles tell a great deal about the history, daily life, aesthetics, environment, and technology of people all over the world. Used to make clothing, accessories, and domestic goods, textiles vary in complexity: from plain and utilitarian, to decorative and ceremonial. The symbols and designs in textiles are important cultural signifiers of identity, status, and wealth for makers, users, and observers alike. Includes Chinese robes.
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/textile | |
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| Tibetan Medical Paintings |
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"This rare, complete set of 79 Tibetan medical tangkas was painted by the Nepalese tangka artist Romio Shrestha and his Tibetan, Nepalese, and Bhutanese students in Kathmandu during seven years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ... The medical tangkas form a unique document in the history of medicine. Firmly rooted in Buddhism, Tibetan medical practice drew on diverse earlier traditions, from India, ancient Greece, Persia, pre-Buddhist Tibet, and China, to form a synthesis visually documented in these paintings."
Go to Museum Resource: https://anthro.amnh.org/tangkas | |
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| Traveling the Silk Road: Educator's Guide |
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Online educator's guide to the 2010 exhibition at the AMNH that takes visitors "along the world's oldest international highway, on a voyage that spans six centuries (AD 600 to 1200). (The exhibition) showcases four representative cities: Xi'an, China's Tang Dynasty capital; Turfan, a bustling oasis; Samarkand, home of prosperous merchants; and Baghdad, a meeting place for scholars, scientists, and philosophers." Featuring activities for grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, standards correlations, map, glossary, and more.
Go to Museum Resource: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/traveling-the-silk-road/educator-resources | |
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| Traveling the Silk Road: Take a Journey |
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An online "travel journal" to introduce visitors to the 2010 AMNH exhibition on the Silk Road. With an interactive series of articles covering "stops" in Baghdad, Samarkand, Turfan, and Xi'an. The section on Xi'an covers silk-making and music of the Tang-dynasty era.
Go to Museum Resource: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/traveling-the-silk-road/take-a-journey | |
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| Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind & Spirit |
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Online presentation of a 2004 exhibition, with documentary photographs, art objects and accompanying text that guide the viewer through the following seven "journeys": 1) Time and Space; 2) Gods, Family, and Ancestors; 3) People and Goods; 4) Life and Death; 5) Heroes and Deities; 6) Other Worlds; 7) Through the Year. Includes link to an educator's guide to the exhibit.
Go to Museum Resource: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/vietnam/for-educators | |
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