Chinese seal carving first appeared in ancient times and was used throughout the Qin Dynasty. It was initially employed as an imperial seal named Xi. These imperial seal carvings were used only by the royalty. Following this dynasty, more different kinds of seals appeared and were used by private folks as personalized stamps. These non-official stamps were called Yin. During the Tang Dynasty, the seals was renamed Bao as a result of superstition since the pronunciation of Xi is similar to that of another Chinese character which means death.
中国的印章篆刻（seal carving）始于古代，贯穿于整个秦朝。篆刻的印章最初是作为皇帝的玉玺（imperial seal）来使用的。皇家的印章被称为玺（Xi）并且只能由皇室成员使用。秦朝之后，更多不同种类的印章出现了。它们作为个性化的印戳用于私人用途。这些非官方定制的印戳被称为印（Yin）。在唐朝，由于迷信（superstition），印章的名称被改称为宝，理由是玺的发音与另一个表示“死亡”意思的汉字类似。
