A cliff face, and beneath its overhang a block that has broken loose: stone. The scribes drew geology in two strokes and a box. Stone was the material of forever — what had to last longer than wood, longer than bone, was cut in 石.
A piece of culture
The forest of stone books In Xi'an stands a "forest" you can now read the name of: 碑林, the Forest of Steles — thousands of stone slabs, some over a thousand years old, carved with the Confucian classics, calligraphy masterpieces, and even a Christian monument from the Tang dynasty. When emperors wanted a text preserved forever, they had it cut in stone; students took rubbings from the slabs, ink on paper — printing before printing. Stone was China's hard drive.
Use it in a real word
石林
Shílín · sek6 lam4
the Stone Forest — a real place in Yunnan where limestone towers grow like trees