Message #36009

[YT]

"This bottle has an interesting and unusual subject. The combination of a black tortoise together with a snake symbolizes the North cardinal point, or 'lands to the North', and may be an oblique reference to the Manchu emperors, who descended from the North to overthrow the Ming dynasty and establish the Qing dynasty. The relevance of the second snake is not clear."

Dear Tom,

The Qing emperors will never want to emphasize the fact that they overthrow the Ming.
They promote ManChu and Hans as one family and learnt from each others culture. Being the minority race, the ManChu had to embrace the Han culture to preserve their imperial power.

XuanWu was first heard in the Xia Dynasty夏朝 c. 2070 – c. 1600 BC. It was mainly used to ward off evil.

Cheers,
YT