“Stag stone style” petroglyphs (or “stylized” deer) were initially recognized by D. G. Savinov in Mongolia, Trans-Baikal, Tuva, Altay and Kazakhstan in 1990. On the territory of the PRC, they were discovered in Altay Mountains in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous region, Yinshan Mountains and Wulanchabu Grassland in the southern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous region and further south in the Helan Mountains of the Ningxia-Hui Autonomous region. Among the peculiarities of Chinese “stag stone style” petroglyphs one can note a more loose structure of the compositions and a greater variability of figures of deer as compared to the stag stones (deer stones) themselves. Quite often does (female deer without antlers) are depicted. It is considered that the rock art compositions with “stylized” deer reproduce plots, common for both petroglyphs and steles. D. G. Savinov supposed that they are based on the idea of sacrificial deer, whose death enables the renewal and reproduction of nature and society. However, the motif of “stylized” deer being attacked or torn apart by a chthonic predator is never met in rock art or on stag-stones. The victims of chthonic predators’ attacks vary greatly (from a human to a fish) and are met in various contents: stag-stone No 15 in Ushkijn-Uver (Khövsgöl aimag, Mongolia); a bronze mirror found in the No 1612 burial of Guo state cemetery in Shangcunling (Henan province, PRC); a Neolithic painted pottery jar from the Dadiwan site (Gansu province, PRC). The author argues that all these scenes depict trials of a human soul in the underworld. Furthermore, the author believes that the stag stone represents the Universe and the divine ancestor of a tribe at the same time, whereby the images of deer on its surface reflect the social organization of the ancient society with a dual-exogamic clan structure.

This article presents the earliest period of petroglyph studies in China which the authors have labeled as «Prescientific». The first purposeful fixation of rock-art objects all over the world was created through folklore stories, which later transmitted into written pieces of work such as treaties and annals (among these chronicles was also the famous «Records of the Grand Historian» by Sima Qian). Due to the highly developed written tradition within Chinese civilization, this process was established earlier than in most other countries. The first attempts were made in order to explain the origin of petroglyphs - as a rule, by way of using rather popular mythologems (such as «footprints of a giant»). The most prominent role within this period (during the Medieval and New history epochs) was undertaken by geographical and local history descriptions. Among many, one of the most notable is «The Canon of waters, with commentary» («Shui jing zhu») created by Li Daoyuan in the beginning of the 6th century. This work mentions 19 sites which feature petroglyphs, with accurate descriptions and spatial references, legends connected with these sites (if any), as well as information about the cultic use of these monuments by locals which according to local records (zhi), lasted for a long time. All presented materials about rock-art in China obtained during the prescientific period represent a valuable source of knowledge about the significance of traditional art in the ever-changing Universe.

Despite Senusret I’s fame as a great pharaoh, there is evidence of disastrous crop failures during his reign: the second letter of Heqanakht, the tomb biographies of the nomarch Ameny and overseer of priests Mentuhotep; probably “The Story of Sinuhe”, B 154-155, and some “year of death” in pReisner I. According to S. Hodjash and O. Berlev, the seven year famine which started in Year 24 made the king shift his heb-sed festival by one year. These data show that even under the greatest kings, Egyptians were allowed to publicly mention acute food shortages. Hence the absence of such mentions in the Old Kingdom and during dynasty XII after Senusret I’s reign testifies to relative prosperity, in comparison with which the crop failures of the XXII-XX centuries B. C. seemed enormously frequent and disastrous. The sources do not mention any extraordinary measures aimed at supplying food to the hungry by Senusret I’s central government. At the same time, however, he launched a large scale building program in almost all important temples, which is considered to have given him a reason to tighten control over the country. But could an objective of this program also be to persuade the gods to save Egypt from crop failures? In two compositions about the seven year famine, in the “Famine Stela” and the introduction to the “Book of the Temple”, it is deficient Nile floods that are said to have forced kings to swiftly increase royal favors to temples. J. F. Quack considers dating the “Book of the Temple” to the Middle Kingdom. Could it be the reign of Senusret I, with its series of crop failures and large scale building program in temples? His inscription on Elephantine mentions a god’s revelation to the king in a dream, which is also the key episode in the “Book of the Temple” and “Famine Stela”.

A critical analysis was conducted regarding of the record in "Shi ji" (juan 110), containing the first mention of Xiongnu leader Touman shanyu, father of Maodun, and creator of the Xiongnu empire: “当是之时，东胡强而月氏盛。匈奴单于曰头曼，头曼不胜秦，北徙”. In scholarly works various interpretations of this passage are given, in particular, the question of the dating of the departure of Touman "to the north" after the conflict with Qin, which remains debatable. Based on this study of the context of the “Shi Ji” record, and numerous examples of persistent combinations of individual characters in Han written sources, the author concludes that the transfer of Touman headquarters should be attributed to the time of the Qin Dynasty. Unfortunately the juan 110 text does not contain information which would allow for more accurate dating of this event. Therefore, it is unlikely that the passage in question would belong to a period earlier than the unification of China under Qin rule, as described directly in the text with the use of the character 后. The author also argues that the phrase十余年而 "more than ten years has passed ..." used later in the text as a characteristic of the moment of the invasion of Xiongnu in the Qin controlled part of Ordos, is of a formulaic nature and does not carry arithmetic meanings. In the Han time works "Shi Ji", "Han shu" and "Yan te lun," the formulation 十 (有) 余年 ("more than ten years") was used as a symbolic meaning of the Qin dynasty period. The sentence 头曼不胜秦，北徙 also does not give grounds for assessing the nature of the clash between Xiongnu and Qin, which caused the migration of Xiongnu. This does not preclude the possibility of considering the entry of juan 6 of "Shi ji" referring to the 33rd year of the reign of Qin Shih Huang (214 BC): "西北 斥逐 匈奴" ("In the north-west ousted and drove away Xiongnu").

The article discusses the genealogy of the Jurchen emperors currently available in the official history of Jurchen “Jin Shi”. Outstanding Soviet orientalist M. V. Vorobiev after considering the genealogical tree of the Jurchen emperors’ ancestors suggested the list of the first leaders of the Wanyan clan had been falsified. The purpose of this falsification would have been to make the list longer and therefore ensure the clan was considered to be more ancient than it was. M. V. Vorobiev's biggest reasons for these claims were caused by doubts of the existence of Khanpu’s son (Ulu) and grandson (Bahai) recorded in the list. The main argument for this assumption was the lack of information about any acts of these leaders, as well as the absence of their names in the list of Jurchen leaders in the Korean chronicle of “Goryeosa”. The information contained in “Jin Shi” and other medieval sources report that Khanpu was over 60 years old when he became part of the Wanyan family, subsequently living in and heading the family for a long time afterwards. With an average life expectancy of Khanpu descendants of 50-55 years, and the leaders themselves having been married at about 16-17 years of age, Khanpu’s son and grandson waited impatiently for their turn to rule. This is most likely evidenced by the posthumous titles of Ulu and Bahai. Due to this, the annals contain no information about their affairs regarding strengthening the role of Wanyan among Jurchens. The time of the rule of other descendants of Khanpu however clearly fit into the average life expectancy rule. On the basis of this analysis it is concluded that the genealogy of the Jurchen emperors is not falsified and reflects the real state of affairs in the early Jurchen society between the late X - first half of XI centuries AD.

Emblems (kamon) of the Date clan are a typical example of accumulated heraldic symbols within one blood-related association. However, the number of kamon can be considered incredible even for the Japanese military society. Historical sources confirm that the heads of the Date clan used at least eight emblems for individual and family identification and two heraldic symbols that were applied as a decorative element of personal belongings and architectural ensembles of different years. Since the end of the 12th century, when the founder of the Date clan received the first kamon from Minamoto no Yoritomo as a reward for faithful service in the war against the Ōshū Fujiwara clan, and until the end of the Edo period when the feudal system ceased to exist, the design and status of the emblems have been changed many times. This paper studies the visual transformation of the Date clan emblems between the end of the 16th - mid 19th centuries, as the majority of preserved historical sources are dated as part of this period. The analysis of artifacts and documents showed that the highest increase in the number of kamon of the Date family occurred between the last third of the 16th century - first third of the 17th century. The new emblems included those that heads of the clan received as a reward for faithful service and those that they created as a declaration of aesthetic principles. Furthermore, the range of tangible objects, which were marked with emblems, significantly expanded. Kamon became an integral part of everyday life and in many cases, the emblems were not only a mark of property but also a decorative element. Probably, for this reason, the composition of kamon is both stabilized and complicated.

The article explores the history of the development of different types of censers used as part of China's traditional culture. The earliest evidence of the first censers being used as a type of ritual vessel can be found in records of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-8 AD) burials. Through the meticulous analysis of the types, styles and functions of censers spanning over a course of more than two thousand years as China's incense culture developed, key trends of their evolution are explored. Furthermore, the article also studies China's active contacts with countries and regions located along the Great Silk Road which played a direct role in the formation and development of different varieties of these ritual vessels. Despite the long periods of prosperity and decline in the production of censers, reflecting the complex processes of historical and cultural development and the socio-political situation as a whole, the functions of censers in China remain quite widespread. Censers are used in religious rituals in Buddhist and Taoist temples, for domestic, sanitary and hygienic needs, and for medical and prophylactic purposes. Censers are an indispensable element of temple and park architecture, part of the richest Asian aroma-culture and a part of many kinds of arts and crafts, which use stories and images based on traditional values of Chinese culture. This shows the great stability of the multi-thousand-year-old Chinese civilization and the high adaptability of acculturation models within the conditions of long-term interethnic interactions.

The study of printing history in Korea, like in any other country, cannot be considered complete without a detailed consideration of the readership, since the presence of the consumer of printed books gives meaning to the whole cycle of the book business. Review of the socio-economic and cultural context of the first half of the Joseon period makes it possible to identify certain features of the Far Eastern region. The dominant role of Confucianism created conditions for the “bilingualismˮ of published book products. After the invention of national writing, the readership of “highˮ literature written in Chinese, and “lowˮ, written in Korean, differed not only among social positions but also between genders. Hanmun literature remained the prerogative of men of the noble class (yangban), while most women of the same class read stories, novels and other books published in Korean. The main part of the readership was represented by an educated noble stratum - the yangban. In the time of the Joseon kingdom, this class was the main producer and consumer of knowledge and culture as aristocratic scientists made up only about 10% of the Korean population. Another literate social group, roughly equal in numbers, was the jungin class (literally “middle manˮ). They were usually “technical expertsˮ - translators, scribes, astronomers, accountants, doctors, lawyers, and musicians. This class also included provincial officials of the lower ranks. The lack of a formed book market with sufficiently high demand also exerted a unique influence on the social composition of the readers, since the acquisition of books was equated to the acquisition of rare material values, which created an aura of elitism and high significance around book production and all its related phenomena and processes.

Traditional Japanese tattooing widely known as 入れ墨 irezumi is one of the brightest arts with strong roots dating back to the Edo period (XVII-XIX centuries). As it developed in open cultural spaces of the Edo period, irezumi adopted many graphic features of 浮世絵 ukiyo-e - Japanese woodblock prints, and quickly became a special body decoration. Despite being linked to yakuza culture, irezumi still contain numerous elements which correspond to the visual code of Asian culture represented in most pieces of eastern art. Unfortunately however, this aesthetic phenomenon remains poorly studied by scholars. The most significant example of connection between the Japanese traditional tattoo and the art of Japanese woodblock printing is the frequent adoption of subjects and composition of Kuniyoshi’s woodblock series “108 heroes of Water Margin”. Comparative analysis of “Zhang Shun. White Stripe in the Waves” and irezumi based on this woodblock print confirmed that traditional Japanese tattoos imitate a composition of the particular ukiyo-e from the aforementioned series but the main distinguishing features of irezumi are the presence of additional elements such as cherry blossoms, peony, and a storm cloud-like background. Moreover, these additional elements which obviously represent a visual code of Asian culture, along with the bends of the human body, play a significant role in creating a special rhythm of the picture. Comparing principles of Japanese tattoo aesthetic with statements given in “Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden” proved that irezumi can be considered a specific kind of art.

Based on the anthropocentric approach, this article analyzes the meaning of idioms which contain the components 気ki ‘spirit’ and 心 kokoro ‘heart’ and somatic components, 頭 atama ‘head’, 胸 mune ‘breast’, and 腹 hara ‘belly’. The analyzed idioms were taken by way of sampling from Japanese dictionaries. The aim of this study was to compare the meanings of idioms with component 気 ki ‘spirit’ and 心 kokoro ‘heart’ and idioms with somatic components and to describe their common and individual meanings. The opposition of the spirit and the body is absent in Japanese tradition, as the spirit and body are considered as a unity. The spirit (lexemes 気 ki and 心 kokoro ) is not bound to a particular place in the human body so the given meaning may be expressed with the help of somatic words which are considered as vessels for the spirit. Most of the analyzed lexemes formed polysemantic idioms. In one of the expressed meanings, idioms may be synonyms: 1) Idiom semantics remain unchanged but the component composition varies. 2) Idioms with different components being stable semantically and structurally may be synonyms, component composition remains unchanged. The meanings of idioms with component 気 ki ‘spirit’ are related to the feelings that characterize a person’s attitude to a phenomenon or an object, or even their subjective perception of a situation. Idioms with component 心 kokoro ‘heart’ have meanings directly related to the 気 ki component as a spirit and as a vessel for the spirit. Idioms with components 頭 atama ‘head’, 胸 mune ‘breast’ and 腹 hara ‘belly’ describe the various characteristics of 心 kokoro ‘heart’. Idioms with the somatic component 頭 atama ‘head’ are generally linked to the mental process; as for the feelings, with anger. The description of emotional state is profoundly connected with intellectual and rational activities. Idioms with component 胸 mune ‘breast’ generally express the meaning of ‘feelings related to compassion’. Idioms with component hara ‘belly’ express the meaning ‘genuine thoughts and intentions’ on one side, and ‘feelings related to the instinct of self-preservation and egoism’ on the other.

The issues of toponymy, in particular, the transfer of geographical names to foreign languages, are of great importance for international relations. For over one hundred years from the end of the XIX century until the late XX century, the Japanese government consistently solved the problem of standardization of foreign geographical names. This article focuses on tracing the stages of standardization beginning with the Meiji period (1868-1912), and considering how the names of foreign states in the Japanese language have changed up until the present time. The first serious step was the nation-wide “Spelling of Foreign Geographical Names, Names and Surnames” policy, adopted by the Ministry of Education of Japan in 1902. The main principle of the transfer of foreign names in this new policy was the phonetic transcription of the katakana alphabet, mainly from the English-speaking version of names, while retaining some of the names in the traditional hieroglyphic record. The main guidance for the media during pre-war years was published in 1937 by the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation NHK titled “List of Foreign Geographical Names and Names”, in which the same principles as that of the 1902 policy were observed. After the Second World War, the Ministry of Education of Japan issued a number of normative documents including “Spelling of Foreign Geographical Names and Names (Draft)” (1946), ”Writing Foreign Words“ (1955) and “Spelling of Geographical Names“ (1959). Finally, on the basis of the existing standards, the Committee for the Creation of Geographical Names issued the “Guide to the Spelling of Geographical Names” (1978).

Despite the many active exchanges that have taken place in various fields between Korea and Russia over the last 20 years, there is an obvious lack of analysis of data in the field of linguistics. In addition to the differences in the perspective of language in Russian linguistics of Russia and Russian linguistics of Korea, the opinions of scholars of the two countries differ as well. Firstly, research about the Korean language in Russia has been mainly conducted based on classical history and classical literature of the country while Korean grammar was studied based on “native language”. This caused a large amount of inconsistencies and mistakes to arise in turn as the system of sentence elements greatly differs between Korean and Russian. Korean has long been regarded as belonging to the Altaic family of languages, the syntax of which is characterized by the absence of a mandatory grammar category, the absence of a subordinate-equalitarian mechanism of sentence complexity, and a lack of analytical syntax [Brechalova, 2009. p. 197]. In addition, there are numerous other complicated syntactic structures, the notation of the relation between noun phrases and verb phrases, the possibility of single and auxiliary use of verbs, and nested structures [Brechalova, 2008. p. 28]. In addition, Korean sentences most commonly consist of a combination of “main ideas” and “inner ideas”, which causes a lot of syntactic ambiguities in the parsing process due to one or more expressions appearing in any given sentence. Most of these are due to the problem of sphere attachment that arises from the range of nested structure formulas [Lee, Yong-suk, 2008. p. 50]. Moreover, Korean is an unstructured language with frequent omissions and free words [Lee, Yong-Yong, 2008. p. 52]. In order to analyze Korean texts, the application of terms and analytical methods developed in Korean linguistics by famous Korean scholars Nam Gisim and Go Yeonggun is being proposed. This article serves as the first step in this process by comparing systems of Russian and Korean sentence elements in order to present the key differences between the two languages.

In Russia, Korean is taught in different types of educational institutions. It requires appropriate methodological support which is borrowed from native Korean speakers. However generally there is a problem in the adequacy of its use in the Russian educational system. This is due to differences in understanding of teaching methodology. Therefore the aim of the article is to analyze the development of the methodology of teaching Korean as a foreign language in Russia and the Republic of Korea and to find ways for effective international dialogue between educators. The article identifies the key stages of the development of methodology of teaching Korean as a foreign language in Russia and the Republic of Korea The beginning of development of the subject area occurred at about the same time in both countries. The educational institutions in which the Korean language is taught are discussed as these can be considered as the place of the methodological ideas’ development. The richness of the methodological basis for the development of Korean training in the Republic of Korea has its origins in a different understanding of the Korean language as a concept. Nevertheless, there are similar tendencies in the development of the methodology of Korean teaching in both countries now. Each stage of development of the Korean language teaching methodology has its own characteristics, corresponding to a particular ideology. One point which modern developers of training aids consider important is concentration on a certain type of student and simultaneous study of Korean language and culture. That is why today the opportunity for broadening communication in this scientific field seems especially tempting.

The article gives a brief analysis of the activities of the United States and its allies against the backdrop of growing tensions in the world. The political and military situation in the region of the Near and Middle East, as well as in several states of North Africa, is rapidly deteriorating in recent months. The Islamists continue their offensive against secular political structures, trying to establish by force of arms rules that conform to the norms of radical Islamism. The problem of countering Islamist terrorism continues to be the most discussed issue in the countries of Europe and Asia. During his pre-election campaign Donald Trump said that if he wins the election, the US will actively cooperate with Russia in the military and political sphere to defeat the "Islamic State" and stop funding terrorists. However, in April 2017, the United States struck a missile strike at the airbase of the Syrian air force, calling it a “proportional response” to the chemical attack in Idlib, for which the Syrian regime should be responsible. A similar evolution in the position of the United States is observed with regard to Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Neither the US nor its allies have learned the lesson from the failures of their foreign policy that followed the military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Nevertheless, Washington is forced to seek a way out of the impasse into which he has driven himself. But time has changed. Earlier Washington demanded that they officially recognize the Constitution of the IRA, renounce violence and break off relations with foreign terrorist groups. Now at the end of September 2018 the new American adviser for Afghanistan announced the US readiness to negotiate with the Taliban without any preconditions. Such information seems to inspire hope. However, in any case, there is hardly any hope for positive changes in the nearest future. The US is not going to leave Afghanistan so quickly after 17 years of a bloody war.