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A silkworm deity was a Trade God worshipped by the court and the folk, and was also a spiritual symbol of sericulturists in medieval China. Images of the silkworm deity in ancient Chinese art are important relics of material heritage for studying culture and ritual activities in medieval China. This paper investigates images of silkworm worship from the Han Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty to distinguish between their use by the court and the folk. This paper explores the gradual personification of the silkworm deity in medieval China, as well as the differences in the identity of the silkworm deity connected to the varying status of worshipers and the functions of the silkworm deity. It is proposed that silkworm deity worship is evidence of a tendency toward polytheism, and has a variety of identities and unified functions under the trend of continuous integration of three major religions and folk religion. The worship of the silkworm deity has the characteristics of hybridity, integrated and patriarchal, as well as the social edification and practical functionality caused by the different mentality of official and folk silkworm deity worship in medieval China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museum cultural relics represent a special material cultural heritage, and modern interpretations of them are needed in current society. Based on the catalogue data of cultural relics published by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, this paper analyzes the continuity and intermittentness of cultural relics in time series by using the method of continuity judgment of cultural relics, analyzes the aggregation and migration of cultural relics in space by using the method of spatial analysis, and then uses cosine similarity to explain the similarity distribution in space and time. The results show that the overall distribution of cultural relics exhibits the characteristics of class aggregation, dynasty aggregation and regional aggregation. From the perspective of a time scale, cultural relics have different "life cycles", displaying continuity, intermittentness, and similarity. From the perspective of a spatial scale, the cultural relic distribution forms a small "cultural communication circle", showing aggregation, migration, and similarity. The temporal and spatial distribution of cultural relics exhibited more similar characteristics among dynasties that were closer together than those that were far away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]