HyunHyunKyung
From the quality of paper, the estimated publication period of HyunHyunKyung is 19th century. The size of the book is 183 x 255 mm (width x length) with 8mm of thickness. The book is made of hanji (Korean traditional paper) and has 78 pages in total including the cover.
The feature of this book is that not only were letters imprinted but the baduk boards were also printed. The book was printed by carving each and every page separately. The baduk stones were stamped with brush covers.
What a curious picture! I couldn’t find it with tineye.com , who is the artist?
Also, I love the idea of the brooding lava in the goban, just waiting for that small disturbance in the shape of the stones, but then erupting in a violent fight.
It’s a wonderful picture, but can it really be of olden times? How long ago did people know that there were layers in the crust, with lava pushing up like that? And the idea of the crust floating on lava - isn’t that very new geology (comparatively speaking)?
I reposted the vanished pictures in this particular thread. I don’t know if I posted the exact pictures that vanished, or that I posted them in the correct order, but the (replacement) pictures are up there now.
Description : Fragment of a pottery Go board, and a set of black and white ceramic Go stones in black and white ceramic bowls, These are in a private collection, and their source is unknown, although it can be reasonably surmised that they could only have come from a robbed tomb. A number of similar ceramic Go stones were discovered between 1983 and 1986 at the site of the Lingwu kiln 靈武窯 in Ningxia province.
Date : Supposedly Western Xia (1038–1227), but with no archaeological context this cannot be verified.
Grid : Uncertain, probably 19×19 from the number of stones.
Stones : Reportedly 200 black stones and 200 white stones, but not certain whether this is an approximate or an exact count.
I’ve read that until a few centuries ago, 17 x 17 was the standard board size, so if the set is really that old, that might be a more likely candidate.
The question of board size is very complicated. It is superbly detailed in a John Fairbairn article (http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/essay/goancientchina.html) brought to my attention by @trohde. In sum, the oldest surviving go manual, from the 12th century (but actually compiling older texts), gives 19x19 as standard. Archeological evidence indicates 19x19 dates to the early centuries A.D. Although it was long believed that 19x19 developed out of the 17x17 board, another theory suggests that they existed side by side, perhaps with slightly different rules. Tibetan go (played on 17x17, with slightly different rules) is a suggestive piece of evidence for this.
thank you for sharing!
