​Silver Helmet with Engraved Patterns of the Miao People

Pattern engraving is an ancient technique, which originated from the Spring and Autumn Period several thousand years ago. For engraving patterns, craftsmen would use a set of chisels. They strike chisels with hammers and engrave boutique patterns on the metal surface. The top of this helmet is decorated with six symmetrical hollowed silver tubes. The lower part of each tube is designed with three layers of patterns, from top to bottom, human figures, a circle of helical nail patterns coiled up from silver wires, and fish patterns. In the past, fish was a precious food for the minority people and took up a quite important status in their daily life. Thus the fish pattern also stands for the nice yearning for "having enough things to spend every year".