finely carved Buddha/qin yan figure 29CM in H,Song dynast(960¬1279) of China were among the most advanced civilizations in the world at the time. Discoveries in the realms of science, art, philosophy, and technology combined with a curiosity about the world around them¬provided the men and women of this period with a worldview and level of sophistication that in many ways were unrivaled until much later times, even in China itself.