you for your entire life.”
–William Kennett
A Chinese legend concerning the prehistoric Emperor Yu tells of the Lo Shu, which was intrinsically connected to the Yellow River Map. In China, people offered sacrifices to the god of one of the flooding rivers to try and calm his anger. Accordingly, a magic turtle would appear out of the water with the Lo Shu pattern on its shell. Later on, this became to be associated to a magic square that was believed to have magical properties, especially considering that it emulated the numbers on the turtle’s shell. The magic square was an important model for time and space and served as a basis for city planning, tomb and temple design and was even used to designate important political and religious places.