Taijitu seen in Tripilja culture in Ukraine, displayed in the Ukraine pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China. Also, the interlocking design is found in artifacts of the European Iron Age. While this design appears to become a standard ornamental motif in Iron-Age Celtic culture by the 3rd century BC, found on a wide variety of artifacts, it is not clear what symbolic value was attached to it. Unlike the Chinese symbol, the Celtic yin-yang lack the element of mutual penetration, and the two halves are not always portrayed in different colors. Comparable designs are also found in Etruscan art.
Yin and yang creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also "attrib." or as "adj." Cf. yin. b. "Comb.": yang-yin = "yin-yang" s.v. yin b. For the earliest recorded "yin and yang" usages, the "OED" cites 1671 for "yin" and "yang", 1850 for "yin-yang", and 1959 for "yang-yin". In English, "yang-yin" (like "ying-yang") occasionally occurs as a mistake or typographical error for the Chinese loanword "yin-yang"— yet they are not equivalents. Chinese does have some "yangyin" collocations, such as 洋銀 (lit. "foreign silver") "silver coin/dollar", but not even the most comprehensive dictionaries (e.g., the "Hanyu