My First Chinese!

(Since I can't figure out how the alleged 'Quote' function on this website actually works (at this point --notably after the last four years-- most of my left hemisphere is a smoking crater), this is made with resort to old-fashioned cutting and pasting: )
"Apparently those "Middle Eastern" alleles are just part of the Sicilian background, which is after all an enormous grab-bag of every civilization that has sailed a boat in the Mediterranean over the last few millennia."
I think you nailed it, my friend.
"And the last 1%, in utter defiance of probability, says "Senegalese". That is almost certainly wrong, and I have no idea what glitch gives that readout. North African would be fairly plausible, as part of the Sicilian mix, but there just weren't any significant number of Senegalese folk wandering around Sicily and having children with the locals in 1800."
Well, only if you give 23&them more credit than they're due for having better genetic databases in the first place, or better methodology, than they're due, as an irreducibly commercial organization. On the basis of your Sicilian descent, it's easy as Stuff to posit 1% of your descent being from people for whom 23&me has Senegalese as their nearest available equivalent. According to their, Thank you, available genetic database.
...And what about that Irish, Scottish and English stuff on your grandmother's side? Sounds like some Colonial-era stuff going on up in there. You never know....

 

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I never got around to getting it anywhere, I guess I didn't think it was useful/interesting enough.

It's basically an overview of Northern Wei architecture and a hypothetical reconstruction of a (possible) monastery site located near to the tomb mound of Empress Feng.

Here it is:

 

There's 51% Irish/Scottish, and the balance is some generically "vaguely Asian and/or Native American"
I guess that family legend of Indian ancestry (which I feel like 90% of all caucasian American families has...) at least has the potential to be true. I doubt it though.

 

From a first, stupid glance at the paper, I got two things. First, the sources from which you were able to work were just Stupid limited. Second, that you seem to have internalized this, and the acdemic milieu that it came from, in ways that are only too familiar in a different aggregate context. ...Right, betting I'm already 'preaching to the choir.' ...Just, Da(phonetically: ...mm...)ng., Sorry.

 

Well, hey, thanks for taking a glance!
Reading it over myself, it's kinda cringey - I could probably spend an hour right now and make it read and flow about 20% better. I feel like I probably wrote this in like 2 days or something, knowing what I was like in college.

As for sources... I scoured the UC library system for relevant printed books and came up with a whole handful of - not much in English. Naturally Chinese architecture books are overflowing in Chinese but - me being illiterate and all...

ON the bright side, no matter how poor the paper is, at the moment, it's the defining work in English on this subject. Where's my throne, I need to rest my massive ego real quick

 

...Well, Wait a minute, don't stay in this weird, toxic, totally uncalled-for place between honest ackowledgment of what you've done, and the perils of egotism, real or imagined. As I like to say (ego going on already: ), in a world stinking of false dichotomies, this Ain't one of 'em.
Honest, just, Please, do what you already know you can with this. And last I knew, academia.edu was still accepting papers from people without a premium account. Betting you knew that; just saying, Why Not? I have one, too embarrassing to talk about further. But you can still influence the course of future research in (at acute risk of redundancy) as yet unforeseen ways.
Looked a little further into your paper, and learned more --and was generally more impressed-- the more I saw. I owe you more of an apology for my compromised attention than you owe anyone for the quality of your research.

 

We do have one from Wang Mang but I believe it is slightly different than yours. As for the other, I will need to look through his book to see what they are.

 

I am still resisting the urge to start collecting these too. I have too many interests and sub collections as it is. But it is a very fascinating part of the world and history.

John

 

Doooooooooooo it

 

Asaarrrgggg! No not another sub collection.

 

With a lot of ancient Chinese coins you really don't have to be overly concerned with authenticity - they were made in huge numbers and turn up sometimes in the hundreds of thousands.

I have travelled to China as recently as 18 months ago, I regret not yet having seen the terracotta army. Next time I go though, will be early fall or early spring. Mid summer is just too hot and I nearly melted.

 

Neat purchases, as authentic as their patinas are gorgeous. The azurite on the Chong Ning is especially nice; you don't encounter azurite crystals large enough for that 'glittering' effect to take place everyday. You get drawn in by the low cost and end up staying because of the incredibly intresting history... Eventually, even calligraphic varieties might start to interest you!

 

@dougsmit was right. After watching inauguration festivities, FFIVN and I cracked out his book and flipped through his cash coins. Here are his:

Xin Dynasty
Emperor Wang Mang
3rd Monetary Reform
14-23 AD
5 Zhu
Obverse: Huo Quan
Reverse: Blank as made
Hartill 9.33



Northern Song Dynasty
Emperor Hui Zhong
1101-1125 AD
10 Cash
Obverse: Chong Ning Tong Bao
Reverse: Blank as made
Hartill: 16.407

 

Is FFIVN aware of/appreciates the rosette hole on the Huo Quan? I was never all that interested in that as a variation but I understand some are.

 

Is that one? I purchased it from Ken Dorney and he didn't make any mention of it on the insert or on vcoins when I bought it. He has a few that are more defined and clearly rosettes. Those are interesting but I don't think he is to the point in his collecting that he makes too much of a big deal about varieties besides the different scripts.

 

..Chinese coins, artifacts and history are fun!...

 

Your coin has a lot of character, @hotwheelsearl and the colors of the oxidation are remarkable.

Here is my one and only coin from the Song Dynasty.

 

I am glad there is an active interest in Chinese and Asian cash here.

If anyone wants to do some serious (and free) reading on Chinese coinage I encourage you to download Peng Xinwei's "A Monetary History of China, Volumes One and Two (Zhongguo Huobi Shi)".

Not an identification guide, this 983 page (!!!!) e-book is a study of Chinese numismatics and economy from the earliest days to the beginning of the Republic.

Peng (also known as Hsin-wei P'eng) was a Chinese banker and collector during the Republic who was removed when the Communists took power, but found work as a professor - until he was executed during the Cultural Revolution.

As far as I know it is the only study of its type in English - Francois Thierry's "Les monnaies de la Chine ancienne" is more recent, but in French (and half the length).

The English version of Peng was published in 1993 - a translation of the original Chinese version which dated to the 1950s.

Anyway, it has been made available as a free download (as a whole or individual chapters) by Western Washington University.

https://cedar.wwu.edu/easpress/17/

Shawn

 

Nice!

 

Shawn, you're just That Good!!! Hats Off!!!