January 31, 2026
Description
A style of Chinese archery thumb ring commonly referred to as 元寶扳指 (yuánbǎo bānzhǐ). Yuanbao means precious metal ingots, so named because it resembles the shape of the standardized gold/silver ingots smelted in Imperial China.
Numerous rings of this shape have been unearthed as burial objects, almost all of them made of precious materials like jade. We are not sure if these rings were actually used for archery or if they were purely meant to be jewelry, but this has become a popular ring shape in modern recreations.
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution
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