Dynasties
Explore life in Northern & Southern Dynasties
Daily Life
Food, homes & daily routines
Money & Society
Work, trade & social life
Cities & Technology
Markets, travel & inventions
AI illustration · interpretive reconstruction
Stories
Browse all stories →
The Donkey in the Well: Temple Illusions in Northern Wei Luoyang
At a Luoyang nunnery an entertainer skinned a donkey into a well and made dates and melons edible in a moment; the audience was spellbound — and after the wars, the record says, the show simply vanished.
Six Mu and Nine Islands: Raising Carp in Northern Wei
A Northern Wei farming manual copies an old fish-pond recipe: six mu of water with nine islands, twenty carp in February, turtles to keep the fish, and a promise of a million and a quarter cash.
A Thousand Buddhas on the Avenue: Luoyang's Image Procession
On the fourth month's seventh day the capital's images assembled at Jingming Monastery; an office counted over a thousand; on the eighth they entered the palace gate for the emperor's flowers.
A Table a Zhang Wide, and a Dish of Chives: Money and Power in Luoyang's Monasteries
Prince Yuan Yong kept six thousand servants and five hundred singers and capped a meal at tens of thousands of coins; Li Chong, rich beyond measure, ate chives, and the joke about his 'eighteen dishes' was a pun.
Preserving Meat Without a Fridge: Rice, Wine Lees and Mud
One pig killed in the twelfth month and three ways to keep it: pork packed in cooked rice until it sours, meat buried in salted wine lees, and cuts sealed in mud on the north wall.
Four Hostels and a Fish Market: Foreigners in Southern Luoyang
Northern Wei Luoyang sorted arrivals by origin into four hostels and four wards south of the Luo, granted a house after three years, and sold river fish dearer than beef.