What is ink-stone？
1 min readWhen the ink slab was invented is rather controversial.
Archaeologists have discovered from the ruins，dating back to the primitive society，simple stone ink-slabs on which pigments were ground by a pestle During the Han Dynasty，artificial ink-sticks gradually replaced pestles，and stone，pottery，lacquer or copper ink-holders came into being.Most popular were the round-shaped and three-or-four-legged ink-stones .During the Wei Dynasty，porcelain ink-holders came into being.However，most ink-holders were made of stones.
Chinese ink-stones are flat and hard and are shaped into beautiful objects.
Since the Tang Dynasty，ink-stones have been classified into three main categories：Duan Ink-stone from Guangdong ，Hongsi Ink-stone from Shandong and Tao Ink-stone from Gansu . The regular process is that calligraphist drops water on the ink-stone，and then grinds an ink-stick against it.Gradually the water becomes inky black for use in calligraphic practice.
What are the Six Categories of Chinese Characters？
In ancient times，Chinese characters fell into the Six Categories.The firstfour categories include“pictographs ，”“self-explanatory characters ，“complex ideograms ”and“semantic-phonetic characters .”The first four categories indicate the methods of forming the characters.The final two are “associative transformations ”and“phonetic loan characters .”These two categories refer to the usage of characters.
