A Japanese Inkstone Box, \u2018Suzuri Bako (\u786f\u7bb1)\u2019 in Japanese, was made to contain tools for brush writing, including ink-stones, water droplets, brushes, ink sticks. Japanese ink is made from a \u2018Sumi (\u58a8),\u2019 an ink stick, and \u2018Suzuri (\u786f),\u2019 an ink-stone. Sumi is solid ink made from soot or charcoal mixed with glue and water, then molded into a stick form and dried. Suzuri is a stone used for grinding ink. It typically consists of a flat, rectangular stone with a shallow depression in the centre, where water is added to mix with Sumi, a solid ink sticks, to create liquid ink.<\/p>\n
The history of Japanese ink & brush writing dates back to the 6th century, with early influences coming from China and Korea. The first written reference to an Inkstone box is in the early 10th century, as far as it is known today. Over time, it has been developed as furniture for the upper classes such as aristocrats and \u2018Samurai\u2019 families. Many pieces are luxuriously decorated with designs that match those of literary desks and paper boxes.<\/p>\n
This particular box also contains something special – a ‘Soroban (\u7b97\u76e4).’ The Japanese soroban is a traditional abacus with vertical rods, each holding five beads: one heaven bead<\/em> above a divider (value 5) and four earth beads<\/em> below (value 1 each). Beads are moved toward the divider to represent numbers, with each rod corresponding to a digit. The compact design supports arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, making it valuable for teaching mental math and efficient calculations.<\/p>\n This box was likely designed for merchants to record notes while calculating their trades and sales.<\/p>\n Dimensions: Hight 24 cm, Width 32 cm, Depth 21 cm<\/p>\n Material: Zelkova \/ Paulownia \/ Ash<\/p>\n Period: Taisho (1912-1926) \/ early Showa (1926-1989)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dimensions: Hight 24 cm, Width 32 cm, Depth 21 cm<\/p>\n Material: Zelkova \/ Paulownia \/ Ash<\/p>\n Period: Taisho (1912-1926) \/ early Showa (1926-1989)<\/p>\n Product no.: D23063<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4095,"template":"","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[20,21,27],"product_tag":[105],"class_list":["post-4068","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-furniture","product_cat-new-arrivals","product_cat-small-boxes","product_tag-craftsmanship","first","instock","sold-individually","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n