(Special thanks to John Ruger from Brookhaven, PA, for his insightful comments in the earliest days of this page, especially regarding the "Clip & Grow" technique and also Chinese painting influences.) 

PORTRAYALS

Are there any other tomb paintings depicting magical miniature landscapes?

Yan Liben's Tribute Offered by a Vassal (mid-7th century) depicts foreign-appearing persons bringing strange-shaped rocks, some in trays.  Was this because the person receiving the tribute was fond of such things already or could these be original gifts which may have started something?  Evidence of native Chinese gardens with rockery predates this work, but what is the earliest a container landscape can be identified elsewheres?  Which vassal state is represented here?  To which Chinese ruler is the tribute offered and was this a one-time occurrence or a repeated event?  Who specified that these rocks be given at this time -- or on other occasions?  Were the articles of tribute recorded and what became of the records?  What became of the rocks?  If, less likely, this is all just a fanciful depiction, what is the symbolism and origin of the concept?

What pots or portrayals or landscapes will be uncovered in yet-to-be discovered or excavated sites, especially along the Silk Road?  What has been discovered that hasn’t been recognized or announced?

Did anyone from the seventy nations which traded with Tang China ever set down a description of the garden arts of that period and place?  Specifically, of course, were the magical miniature landscapes ever mentioned?  Did any of the foreign invaders throughout Chinese history who saw art, along with its appreciation and patronage, as a form of that ruling power's legitimacy pick up on dwarf potted trees or viewing stones and continue them as a form of art after leaving China?

Why does the tree in the corner of the early 12th century work Peeping at the Bath look so modern, especially in light of later portrayals of seemingly less developed penjing?

Are there any scrolls which show mulitple life stages of the same tree, possibly with a branch later pruned and made into a rooted cutting and smaller tree?   New 11/27/05

CONTAINERS

What is the most unusual known pot (a human skull? since one of the Japanese meanings of “ bon ” is that)?

What was the largest container ever made specifically for dwarf landscape use?  What was the largest marble or concrete slab similarly crafted?  What was the earliest use of marble and then concrete for this?  What was the most unusual material used for such a slab?  When and where was the first marble container used for a magical miniature landscape?  What was its predecessor's original created purpose?

When and where was the earliest "creative pot design" competition held?  Who won and what did the container look like?  What container styles were once popular but are now out of favor or even forgotten?  

What could the results reveal of a large-scale inventory of the containers held by various temples, museums, private collectors in China, Japan and elsewheres?  What are the most represented sizes, shapes, colors, and kilns?  The rarest?  How might these counts compare with actual production numbers if such a thing could ever have been recorded?  What is the rarest piece and when/where was it crafted?  What percentage of Chinese wares now reside in Japan or elsewhere outside of China?  Are there any specimens of non-drained landscape trays in these collections?  When and where were the first of those crafted?

What documented histories exist for the various antique containers in private collections or those, say, of assorted temples and museums?

"Kyuzo Murata, at his bonsai nursery in Omiya, had a red, unglazed [old Chinese] tray priced at 500,000 yen."  ("Japanese Containers Old and New" by E. Wayne Irvin, Journal, ABS, Vol. 4, No. 4, Winter 1971, pp. 8-9)   How and when did Murata acquire it and what became of it?  What other nurseries/masters have such antiques and how were they acquired?  Are there documented histories of any of the trees which once resided in any of these?  Old graphics of these pots?

What can a chemical analysis of soil residue from various antique pots tell us about the species and cultivars of plants raised, types of fertilizers or soil mixes used?

Was a bronze pen ever used as a container for a miniature landscape, possibly a dry garden?

How were pen used as serving dishes for these -- all the time or just for special occasions?  Were they acting as platforms for spirits to come and populate the minature magical landscapes?  Were they foundations for the newly dead (e.g. Prince Zhang Huai) to reside in this depiction of the ideal land?    New 05/14/05

When was a drainage hole first used in a pot for a dwarf tree?  What specifically caused its use?  Was this already a horticultural/container plant feature?  Could a plant in a cracked-pot have done better than its intact brethren?  Could the addition of drainage have been solely dependent on which species was being cultivated (especially so in climates were water may have been more scarce)?

What caused bonsai pots to be made in the first stock sizes -- ease of carrying about?

Are there any large/landscape trees whose origin was as abandoned potted trees that survived and rooted through the drainage hole or broken container?

Are there any large/landscape trees whose origin was as dwarf potted trees, damaged during war or storm, which were then "put out to pasture" or otherwise given a protected but open-ground existence due to their previous special or celebrated form?

Did any potted trees become so rootbound that they shattered their containers?

Has a natural dwarf tree growing in a large rock ever been so collected that some of the rocky matrix in which it was growing was fashioned to become the very pot in which the tree then lived?

Was a wooden container ever made from the parent tree whose seed was sprouted (or cut branch was rooted) and subsequently trained to be a dwarf potted tree?

When was the earliest that a coral rock-planted dwarf potted tree was made in the Philippines?  What background did the designer have?  How long did that style last and were any exported to China or Japan?

Abalone shells were used as pots by the poor.  What other shells or natural containers (gourds, hollowed burls, etc.) were used even briefly?  Who first used an abalone?  What were the various sizes -- largest and smallest shells used?  What other shells were used?  Just with azaleas or other plants as well?  What soil mix was used?  What was the longest a plant survived on a shell?  How many shells were in use at the "peak" of the interest?  Are there any woodblock prints or folktales about that?  Are there any remnants in a current family's archives?

What potter threw or otherwise made the most containers in his/her life?

Have any antique pots been hidden inside the shell of a simple-appearing newer pot for safeguard or smuggling purposes?

What was the most unusual lacquered tree root stand used for bonsai display?  Perhaps with multi-plant shelves or with lines that blended exceptionally well with the tree on display?  What was the earliest a lacquered tree root stand was used for display of a penjing or scholar stone?  What is the earliest that one of these stands was brought over to Korea or Japan?

When was the earliest held private exhibition in each country? large private collection? public exhibition?

What type of packing was used to securely transport trees to the early shows -- or were most shows held at the same location where the trees were raised?

Just as there are stories about officials searching the countryside for interesting large garden rocks for the imperial gardens, are there any similar tales of "recruitment" of already potted trees for service in the palace and courtyards?

Were the largest penjing used in palace courtyards exclusively "strong masculine" symbolic trees?  Were other chosen plants symbolic of particular eras of power or virtues cultivated?

Are masterpiece trees more filled/composed with symbolism than younger, less experienced culturally-aware creations?  And just how much symbolism, history, cultural criticism, expression of beliefs or feelings, etc. can be found in a masterpiece composition?  "Commentary" on folk tales recreated accurately or with pre-literate aids.

The study of driftwood patterns in natural jin / shari and annual rings in light of the plant's original orientation while growing in the wild can provide some meteorological and geobiochemical information, but what else?  "To see the universe in a grain of sand": tradition and method of collecting, placement of front/back, schools of styling, soil mixtures, nutrition, etc.

When were mudmen and other figurines first used?  For magic? to indicate scale? simple decoration? as a miniature monument to a teacher who designed or found the tree? 

TOOLS

What early tools were used for digging or designing, for what purpose, when & why discarded, are there any extant and possibly unrecognized?  What is the oldest tool still in existence which was specifically created, or modified at least, for this art?

What ever happened to the very first concave cutter Masakuni and Murata designed?

Were there ever any Masakuni tools made but then withdrawn from production?

What was/is the Chinese equivalent of Masakuni -- the top of the line developer and at least one time leading manufacturer of implements for penjing composition creation?

SHAPING/STYLES

What and where were the worktables of the ancient Chinese and Japanese dwarf potted tree caretakers?  Does either the portrait of the Yang brothers or Kasuga Gongen Genki depict the norm, what has essentially continued to the present day?

Besides termites ("white ants") and possibly grazing livestock, what other types of biological dwarfing and/or aging techniques have been employed?

What variety of soil mixes and components have been used, were in favor or not?  What were the most exotic ingredients?  (human bone meal to “continue” a late master’s association with a plant, for instance?)  What about the same for fertilizers?

Are there any scrolls or other illustrations depicting the bamboo scaffolding said to have been used prior to 1800 to shape Chinese trees? 

What are the details of the use of copper wiring in Japanese dwarf potted trees' design (before 1910 ) and the seeming coincidental rise of Japan as the second largest copper-producing country in the world by 1876?  Was the shaping material just one of several domestic uses discovered for the metal?   ( Japan, The Official Guide ; Tokyo: Board of Tourist Industry; 1941; pg. 103) 

We can tell what an artist's handedness is by studying the direction of his/her wiring or the direction of growth in that person's cascades.  What other characteristics of the designer can a long-term composition reveal to us? 

What was the first recognizable distinctly regional style?

What styles were predominant in the various provinces in the various time periods, which were indigenously developed, which were the result of communication/trade, which rose and/or fell out of favor through political changes (local, regional or national), lack of additional material, dying out of master-student lines, or natural disasters which may have added to any of the previous?

Has there ever been a style which could be accurately described differently just depending on the angle the tree was viewed?  

Was a tree ever restylized to camouflage it or make it pass for a specimen from a different region?  Have "body doubles" ever been made for a valuable tree -- or pot or stone?  Has any type of "body make up," carving or other techniques been employed to fake a tree's appearance/age, health, etc.?  

HORTICULTURE

What horticultural knowledge was specifically gained from working with dwarf potted trees, as opposed to learnings from nursery or landscape plants?

How has/is bonsai affecting gardening in general?  Training of landscape plants for a "Japanese" look, increasing the number of plants tried, increasing some gardeners' abilities/confidence with some plants/techniques; better understanding of the growth patterns, disease and healing processes, effects of human intervention in shaping/caring for?   New 11/27/05

COLLECTORS

On a larger scale, did/are certain trees and other plants (and stones) wanting to have a lifetime that includes confinement in a relatively shallow container, dependent upon one or more humans for supply of nutrients in exchange for the energies of admiration which aesthetic fine-shaping ("fine tuning") and display would attract, and the possibility of a more sheltered/longer unijured life?   Did/are certain humans wanting to have experience that includes confining trees and other plants and stones in relatively shallow containers and learning how to supply these with nutrients and appreciation in exchange for energies of sharing the "lifetimes" of these containerized beings, learnings about your creative and nurturing abilities, any energies of admiration directed towards them whether for efforts or ommissions by you, previous caretakers, or natural occurrence?  (Similarly, while some yamadori decided that they did not want to be transplanted and containerized, a minority chose to partake of this unique life and thus survived collection and transplantation.)

Did a collector ever commit suicide (or perhaps was forced to do so) because a particularly valued tree which he collected did not survive transplantation?

TEACHERS/STUDENTS

Did any student of the art ever deform/mutilate himself to try to better understand a dwarf potted tree's essence?     

How many artists or other affectionados have had bonsai or penjing or suiseki tatoos or calligraphy emblazoned on their skins?   

What kind of trees did those early teachers demonstrate with -- if at all?  Did any of them make drawings of what their trees would someday look like after whatever training they would do, as our teachers sketch nowadays?  Can we suppose that at those closed gatherings, even the earliest ones, educators and teachers and collectors shared orally their successes and failures, discoveries and questions?  Did they puzzle over which plants flowered in the wild but not in the container, what fertilizer (completely organic at the time) and water combinations produced abundant growth or compact foliage?  When were such bodies of knowledge first written down and circulated -- how much knowledge was initially kept secret, passed only between father and son, teacher and student, not for public or competitor's discovery?

Did adherance to a school's styles prevent participation in a larger realm?  Was a student coming in from another province -- if he was accepted at all by a new teacher -- prohibited from designing trees in his native styles?

How did one become a student or receive recognition as a master?

Has there ever been mention of any form of internal exercises or chants/prayers/meditations which were done by the ancient masters of penjing while digging up, potting or shaping trees?  What internal techniques, if any, might the masters have employed which never were passed on with the external ones when the art was taught outside of one's inner circle of students?

Were the shapes of some ancient trees in the wild ever "reverse constructed" by artisans who tried different pruning techniques on nursery-stock to see what "injuries" caused what growth patterns?  Was this a standard training technique for students of this gardening art?  Perhaps a "final" study project was the recreation in 3-D miniature of a tree seen in some famous scroll or perhaps one which the teacher knew existed hidden in the wilds.

What was the earliest association of enthusiasts?  What is the most specialized club/association?  (A native Japanese visitor to the Phoenix Bonsai Society in the early 1990s mentioned a club whose members only had trees with good rootage showing.)

PROPAGATION

When and where did the first nurseries start including some dwarf potted trees?  When and where were the first ones exclusively devoted to dwarf potted trees established?  Was the owner wealthy enough to support the nursery's operations, as opposed to the sale of the trees making even a small profit?  And how long did these operations last?

What is the most common multi-species graft, black & white pines?  Most unusual ("fruit cocktail tree?")?  What about a multi-species raft?  What is the largest number of species of woody plants in a single penjing or saikei or forest planting which survived more than just a few years?   

Could the top growth of a tree be re-grafted (given a new rootstock) for improved vigor?  Is there an upper limit on the number of times this could be done or the oldest the scion could be?

What is the largest number of dwarf potted trees layered from a single landscape specimen?  Or propagated by cuttings therefrom?  

How much truth is there in Richard Gordon Smith 's statement that the great pine of Karasaki was the "'father' of all Japan's dwarf mushroom-shaped trees"?  Are there any dwarf specimens still extant which claim origin from the massive tree?  Could DNA comparison with seedlings from the now dead great pine prove this? 

LITERATURE

How much more did some of the authors know about bonsai/penjing than what they wrote?  Who had ghostwriters who knew more about bonsai or were more eloquent than the designated author?  What did the various editors cut out, change or remove -- and why (changes in political or philosophical thought, passings of masters, family secrets, personal differences with the author, etc)? 

When will we see translations in a European-based language of the records from the various "Garden of Dragon Flowers" shops southwest of Shanghai which have been engaged in cultivating miniature trees in containers since the sixteenth century and perhaps even earlier?  (Hrdlickovi, V.aZ. "The Garden of the Dragon Flowers," Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, May/June 1989, pp. 20-21.  Translated by Vladamir Mandl.  Reprinted from Vol. VII, No. 1, 1987 of the publication of the Bonsai Club of Praha (Prague, Czechoslovakia))  The garden masters' names are said to have been preserved in the same way as their work in that location  -- who were they, what was their training, what was their legacy?

How many first published illustrations does Kyosuke Gun have?  Which ones are the most reprinted? 

Are there any documented losses of collections or individual compositions or teachers to flooding, earthquake, typhoon, or wars? 

 What are the different forms of records and documentation which exist for various old and revered trees?  What happens to the records for trees which die of old age or injury?  Are sketches included in any of the records, besides maybe a listing of when assorted designers cared for the plant, when it perhaps was restyled or significantly repotted, propagations from the parent plant, viewings by notable personages, etc?

What are the social, cultural and political ramifications of personal involvement with dwarf potted trees?  How did one's hands-on experience (seeing, studying, caring for, designing, collecting, teaching, crafting, etc.) impact one's family, self, work, and civic life?  Were any lessons/concepts/terminology transferred to "outside"?  And what lessons, etc. from "outside" were transferred to dwarf potted tree culture? 

JAPAN

Did Tokugawa Iemitsu ever receive bonsai as a present during any of the daimyō 's visits to Edo?     New 05/15/05

What was the pay scale and types of "percs" for Iemitsu's gardener compared with the average gardener or average person?  What about Kyuzo Murata?

Per Shinobu Nozaki, Dwarf Trees, 1940, pg. 24: "The Emperor Meiji, who was a fine poet besides being a great ruler, loved bonsai culture and encouraged it as a national art."  What part did the Meiji Emperor actually play in the popularization of bonsai?     New 11/27/04

Did any of the early 20th century bonsai teachers participate in or comment upon the Hachi-niwa displays at the turn of the century?  Did these exhibits or competitions have any influence upon subsequent bonsai events or display? 

Display rules were formalized and adopted by the 1930s.  When were the earliest version of these put into use?  What was the last modification to these rules prior to their widespread acceptance?

Was the creation of dwarf potted trees ever considered to be an art form by any of the Chinese authorities to the same extent and with the same restrictions as painting or sculpture?  What and where was the earliest that it was officially recognized or acknowledged as an artform?

Was knowledge of penjing creation or writing about their appreciation ever remotely a requisite for successful completion of a civil service examination?

The “Clip and Grow” technique was developed by monks at a Guandong temple in the late 1800s.  What was that location’s previous experience with penjing, what styles were concurrent with ”C&G,” where did they get the idea for, were there other styles attempted but discarded in favor of “C&G,” what did the first “C&G” trees look like and what material were they?

Were there ever any versions of "Clip and Grow" used prior to the temple's technique?  Trees in some Southern School paintings seem as if shaped by "C&G."  Couldn't there have been an earlier version which perhaps fell out of favor?  Were the shapes of any dwarf potted trees immortalized in scrolls (by gardener artists or artist neighbors) by being depicted as wild or mountain-grown trees?

With respect to the time period in which "C&G" seemed to originate, it would almost seem to have been a final "tribute" to what was essentially the end of dynastic rule in China, the formation of a "republic" and the overwhelming effects of foreign influences and intervention. Could "C&G" be interpreted, in part, as an attempt to leave for posterity a continuing appreciation for a specific artistic style (as demonstrated in landscape paintings) and belief system, and therefore a hopeful continuation of the ancient principles of Daoism?  Or maybe it was simply easier to train dwarf potted trees in this style with the material they had available...

Per Deborah Koreshoff, Bonsai; Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy, pg. 6, the Japanese gifted bonsai to the Shanghai Botanical Garden in 1928.  Who initiated the gift, how many trees were involved and from whom, how many persons saw the trees on display in China, how many trees have survived, what became of the other trees and/or containers, what newspaper or other documentation exists of the gift?      New 01/16/05

ELSEWHERES

What was the longest that any of the earliest souvenir dwarf potted trees sent back to Europe (in the 17th or 18th centuries) survived?  Was a container, left over after its tree died, ever reused while briefly trying to duplicate the art with native stock?  Or did it become a fancy flower or herb pot, perhaps ending up catalogued in some museum or private collection as an obscure piece of Oriental porcelain?

"Several specimens of dwarf trees" were sent to England for Queen Victoria from China as early as 1847.  Trees from Japan were known to be in the South Kensington Museum by at least 1864.  How long did any of these live and what became of their containers?  Any documentation about these trees?     New 01/16/05

Did any early enthusiast mention having read Livingstone or Fortune?  What ever happened to Hugo Mulertt's collection?    New 09/05/05

What percentage of dwarf potted trees shipped to U.S. or Europe in the late 19th/early 20th centuries survived just the journey?  Which kind of trees faired best?  worst?  What happened to the containers of the nonsurvivors? 

Were there any bonsai on exhibit, however briefly, at any of the great New York beach amusement parks in the early 1900s?  Some of the exotic exposition displays found their way to these -- were there ever any little trees, however briefly, at Coney Island, Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, etc?

A photo is said to exist of General Douglas MacArthur's visit to young Saburo Kato's garden after the war. The occasion was probably recorded by both USA and Japanese bureaucrats.  Kato recalled the occasion: "My heart pounded with fear when I heard that MacArthur was to visit my garden.  I knew only of traditional Japanese culture and it gave no worth to a defeated enemy."  ( Per e-mails to RJB from Lindsay Farr, March 18-19, 2003, who says he was told the story by David Fukumoto a decade or so earlier. )  Any independent documentation of this story, which seems to have historical legitimacy due to MacArthur's known interest in having his officers (and their families) learn the traditional arts and culture of Japan?  

OTHERWISE NOT YET CLASSIFIED

What is the oldest known pot and/or tree and/or landscape from each province?  What is the earliest known graphic portrayal of an extant old pot, tree or landscape?  What are the names of the actual historical styles of the trees shown in the various paintings?

What is the longest a single human has cared for a particular dwarf potted tree?  A single family through the generations?

What is the oldest plant continuously grown in a container or an extant cutting therefrom which continues the lineage? Ever?

What is the shortest-lived bonsai?  Can an annual plant be trained sufficiently to be considered as "bonsai"?    New 11/27/05

What masterpiece dwarf potted trees are in private collections, never publicly exhibited?

What was/is the most photographed tree?  Suiseki? What was the most depicted pre-photography dwarf potted tree?  Miniature landscape? 

What is the largest composition made up of only variegated plants, or otherwise genetic mutants?   New 11/27/05

What composition has the greatest number of component species -- plant, fungal, microbiotic?   New 11/27/05

What is the tiniest old dwarf potted tree ever designed?  How long did it live?  (RJB recalls seeing a newspaper photograph from the early 1970s of a dentist who grew seedlings in extracted human molars.)  What other "micropots" have been used?    

Was there ever a matched set of viewing stones or dwarf potted trees assembled – different sizes but with very similar shape?

If a group of knowledgeable persons were to describe independently a given composition in detail, how varied could their subjective experiences of this miniature landscape be?     

What do our trees or stones or pots look like under different EM wavelengths ( infrared, ultraviolet, X-Ray, T-ray, etc.; ultrasound)?  

What percentage of each of the social/economic classes cared for dwarf potted trees in the various regions and times?

What is the longest a village has been able to survive economically due to dwarf potted tree related activities (pots, trees, tools, designers, teachers, etc.)?  Was there ever a temple furnished because of funds from the trees or stones which the members sold?

Was any dwarf potted tree at least marginally pivotal in any historical/political event?

Do the histories of any extant trees -- or pots -- include a note that they were taken as war booty?  Or when war threatened, were trees and other art treasures taken to safe havens such as temples or out into the country?

Were valuables or messages ever smuggled in the rootball or deadwood or hollowed trunk of a dwarf potted tree?

What methods have been employed to safeguard pots, stones or trees?

What was the highest price ever paid – financially, in trade, in human life, in political alliance  -- for a single pot or tree or landscape?

What was the most unusual thing traded for a miniature landscape -- goods, land, livestock, persons, title, etc.?  

What is the largest single tree or multiple plant composition – height or width or depth – to have ever been constructed?  When, where, by whom, why, what happened to this composition?

Were any herbal plants trained as miniatures and kept so that when they were regularly pruned for shape the cuttings therefrom would be specifically used for medicinal purposes?

Were early penjing/stones talismans which were kept to repel demons/evil spirits?  Could the presence of certain medical plants dwarfed or concentrated have been thought sufficient to return health?  What about even "just" a placebo effect from them being near?

Are there any individual quality trees which started as components of a saikei or penjing?

Have there been any significant geographically-restricted collections (types of native trees found only in a small area) or taxonomically closely-related collections of trees (only in a single family or genus, perhaps)?

What other members of families unofficially took care of prize trees?  Did some unrecorded but talented wife do the trees which her husband was credited with?

If we cannot go back to the Isles of the Blessed Immortals -- the supposed original reference of magical miniature landscapes -- with our trees and stones today, where can we go?  Where are we going?  What will the meanings and purposes of these dwarf potted trees be a hundred or two years from now, or a thousand or two?

Were there the equivalent of magical miniature landscapes in ancient legendary civilizations as Atlantis?  Will these landscapes continue to be created and cared for into the next Ice Age?   New 09/05/05

Will magical miniature landscapes be used in the future off-earth as reminders of our first Nature?   New 09/05/05

What are the unexplored potentials of magical miniature landscapes?  What do we not yet realize about the undeveloped nature of dwarf potted trees and other portable landscapes?  Height, width, depth, weight, style, species, composition, school/tradition, season, health, container, chronological age, apparent age, aesthetic movement, negative space, intrinsic value, commercial value, other aesthetics, social/cultural symbolism, private symbolism, history, soil mix, accessory plants, watering, fertilizer, symbiotic properties, etc.?  What we don't know includes frames of reference not usually applied.  What other ways of directing branches and bud growth have not been tried or imagined?  All of this points to the true nature of bonsai -- a cooperative art/dance between people and plants with rocks being additional elements of our joint compositions.    Added to 11/27/05

What types of investigation and analysis will be done in this art in the next 10, 50, 100 years?    New 11/27/05

What answers will today's novices give to tomorrow's when the former have more experience, thought and demonstrated creativity?  How will these answers differ from the answers given today?    New 11/27/05

What are the plants and rocks own "names"/self-designations?  How do they perceive themselves in the wild or in compositions?  What are their time frames?  Do collected trees in their own ways bring down "news" from the mountains to other trees in our collections?  "News" of things that happened long before those seeds were formed in the parent cones, or flavors of weathers that happened after older potted trees were collected.  Do certain trees grow with less stable roots so they are more likely to be collected and become messengers for the mountains?  Or if time is not so one-way, are the trees in the future sent "back" with news from the flatlands and shelves, and can these be identified by their looser roots in the rocks?  Have any of us scoured an area for trees and later come back to find a specimen which was overlooked?  Was that tree really overlooked or did it came from the future to provide lessons for us?   New 11/27/05

Which of these questions are based on false or partially erroneous assumptions?

We do realize that some of these questions probably incorrectly make comparisons of present day activities with those of this previous time.  What further questions might be more accurately asked of those earlier enthusiasts?  And how will our experiences of magical miniature landscapes change in light of the answers to these inquiries?

What fundamental questions still need to be asked?