altar spills (spills (ritual & belief: religious buildings & furnishings))

Altar spill that consisting of a long strip of wood with writing on one side and a coating of varnish. There are some notches near the top of the spill.

Usually used in a Buddhist or Daoist temple to make predictions relating to an answer posed by a visitor.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

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