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Sword making is a refined and highly scientific art that is revered in Japan. A sword guard (tsuba) is a metal guard on a samurai sword between the handgrip and the blade. It protects the hand from sliding onto the sharp edge of the blade. Sword guards vary in shape and design and were carved or molded. Use the templates or create your own shape and design a sword guard.

A kit’alar is a calligraphic work written on a rectangular piece of paper pasted onto a cardboard backing. Equal margins are left around the calligraphy in which the artist decorates with marbled paper (ebru) or illumination.

The Buddha triumphing over Mara, 900–1000. India; probably Kurkihar, Bihar state. Stone. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60S598.

Central Asian wine peddler, approx. 618–906. China, Henan province. Molded and sculpted earthenware figure with three-color glaze. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P521.

Buddhism was founded in northern India in the sixth century BCE. Most historians believe it was introduced to China in approximately the second century by means of monks and traders along the Silk Road.

The region bordering the Yellow River, which runs more than 3,400 miles from the Himalayan Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, has long been considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. These vast, fertile plains encouraged the rise of agriculture and the development of neolithic cultures (New Stone Age, roughly 6000-2000 BCE). Archeological discoveries made over the past few decades have revealed that early societies also flourished to the south, along the Yangzi River, as well as sites in the far northeast. These finds indicate that Chinese civilization arose through the gradual blending of several regional cultures.

The Himalayas are the highest mountain ranges in the world, and from them flow the major rivers of Asia. Learn more.

Only in the past sixty years has “Southeast Asia” been used to refer to the region comprising modern-day Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines. Learn more.