Welcome
Guilds is a community-driven platform for discussion with minimal algorithmic manipulation — not one built to maximize engagement. It includes discussions, photos, questions, and long-form articles styled as “Manuscripts.”
Longer term, Guilds is built toward decentralized community governance and self-sustaining operation — a free speech ecosystem where individual guilds set their own standards rather than one central authority.
The first photo depicts a Bronze Dragon, from roughly Three hundred years ago. Pèro Veribest, a Jesuit priest at the court of Kang Hsi, cast a number of bronze astronomical instruments for his imperial patron. The apparatus, of which this is a part, stands in the open, but the workmanship is so perfect and the care it has received has been so faithful that one would hardly imagine that this dragon was cast more than three centuries ago. The second photo depicts Ten stately stone columns in the portico before the Confucian Temple at Chufu, Shantung. This temple stands near two of China's most sacred shrines, the sites of the birthplace and of the grave of China's greatest sage. The pillars are monoliths of white marble, nearly twenty feet in height. These are decorated with huge dragons in deep relief. This is said to be the most perfect and most beautiful stone colonnade in China. The third photo depicts a Dragon-Guarded Astrolabe. This exquisitely wrought bronze instrument for measuring the position of the stars may be seen in Peking. It stands at the foot of the ramp leading to the Imperial Observatory. Three hundred years ago the Jesuit astronomer Veribest had this, and a score of other magnificent instruments, cast for the emperor Kang Hsi. Most of these great pieces are surmounted or protected by dragons of the finest workmanship.