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The Spindle-Wheel: A Chou Chinese Invention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Dieter Kuhn*
Affiliation:
East Asian History of Science Library, 16 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge CB2 2BB, England

Abstract

The early Chinese spindle-wheel was originally invented in conjunction with silk-technology and was linked to silk production, as pictured in some Han stone reliefs. It is concluded that the spindle-wheel is a Chinese Invention which may be dated to the early years of the Warring States period. In the course of time people realized the advantages of the spindle-wheel and it was adopted for plant fiber production.

The spindle-wheel may have been brought to Europe at the same time as silk-technology was introduced, most probably in the second half of the first millenium A.D. Only when the continuously working spinning-wheel with flyer was invented in fifteenth century Europe did a better and more efficient spinning device become available.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1979

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References

FOOTNOTES

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2. This Statement is based on my own experience last summer in China.

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13. Kuhn, Dieter, Die Webstühle des Tzu-jen i-chih aus der Yüan-Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 8185Google Scholar.

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16. Patterson, R., “Spinning and Weaving,” in A History of Technology, ed, Singer, Charles (Oxford, 1956), p. 203Google Scholar.

17. On the spinning process, see also: Fannin, Allen, Handspinning: Art & Technique (New York, 1970)Google Scholar.

18. Patterson, op. cit., p. 202.

19. Das Mittelalterliche Hausbuch” (Frankfurt, 1887; Leipzig, 1912; Munich, 1957)Google Scholar.

20. For further discussion, see Usher, A.P., A History of Mechanical Inventions (New York, 1954) pp. 270274Google Scholar; Patterson, op.dt., p. 205; English, W., The Textile Industry (London, 1969), pp. 47Google Scholar; Leadbeater, Eliza, Spinning and Spinning Wheels, Shire Album 43 (Aylesbury, 1979), pp. 69Google Scholar.

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26. Fang-chih shih-hua, p. 63. In my own research on the geographical distribution of spindle whorls in Neolithic China, I arrived at the same conclusion.

27. I have been informed by my Chinese colleague Mr. Chao Ch'eng-tse that the Chinese archaeologists and textile historians will publish in 1980 a book which will demonstrate the existence of the draw-loom in the Chou period.

28. Lieh-tzu (Shih-te-t'ang, 1914), 5:22Google Scholar. It would far exceed the scope of this article to go into the question of whether Lieh-tzu was actually a philosopher or just an invention by Chuang-tzu. I follow Forke, Alfred, Geschichte der alten chinesischen Philosophie (Hamburg, 1927), vol. 1, pp. 284290Google Scholar, in believing that major parts of the work at least are Chou originals. The anecdote itself is attributed to the school of Lieh-tzu (before Han times).

29. I follow the commentary by Chang Ch'an of the Chin dynasty.

30. Fang-chih shih-hua, p. 62.

31. Fang-chih shih-hua, p. 62. This of course is only the case when weaving the 15 sheng fabric (warp threads:weft threads 28:24/cm2).

32. Fang-chih shih-hua, p. 64.

33. A Schwarz, op. cit., pp. 2138, 2165. Linder, Alfred, Spirmen und Weben einst und jetzt (Frankfurt, Luzern, 1967), pp. 5660Google Scholar.

34. Fannin, op. cit., pp. 21-22.

35. Fang-chih shih-hua, pp. 65-67.

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38. Patterson, op. cit., fig. 183 [Ypres Book of Trades, c.1310]; Needham, op. cit., p. 106.

39. Patterson, op. cit., p. 209.

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41. See footnotes 45, 46, 57, 77, 78.

42. Patterson, op, cit., pp. 208-209.

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44. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, 5 shang:3.

45. The stone relief depicted In fig. 1 was found 1930 in T'eng hsien in Shantung. It is pictured in Hsi-hua, Fu (comp.), Han-tai hua-hsiang ch'üan-chi , (Peking, 19501951), vol. 1, no. 91Google Scholar; Sung Po-yin, op. cit., p. 23, fig. 1; Satō Taketoshi, op. cit., pl. 1.

46. The stone relief depicted in fig. 2 was found 1952 in T'eng hsien, Lung-yang-tien, Shantung. It is now in the Li-shih po-wu-kuan, Peking. It is pictured in Lubo-Lesnichenko, E., Drevnie kitaiskie šelkoviye tkani i vyšivki (Leningrad, 1961), pl. III, no. 4Google Scholar; Sung Po-yin, op, cit., p. 23, fig. 2; Finsterbusch, Käte, Verzeichnis und Motivindex der Han-Darstellungen (Wiesbaden, 1971) vol. 2, Taf. 240, no. 5Google Scholar; Satō Taketoshi, op. cit., Pl.2.

47. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, 13 shang:1

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49. Chen, Wang, Nung-shu (1313; Wu-ying-tien chü-chen-pan ch'üan-shu edition of 1783) 21:16bGoogle Scholar.

50. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 33b.

51. Throwing is not used here in the European sense, i.e., twisting several single threads into one thread in a direction opposite to that in which they themselves are twisted. See Chieh, Wei, Ts'an-sang ts'ui-pien (1899), 5:2Google Scholar.

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53. Ts'an-sang ts'ui-pien, 5:2b.

54. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, 5 shang: 6.

55. Nung-shu, 21:16b.

56. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 33b.

57. The stone relief depicted in fig. 3 was found in Chi-ling, Shantung. It is now in the Tokyo School of Engineering and pictured in Sekino, Tadashi, “Sepulchral Remains of the Han Dynasty in the Province of Shantung, China,” Journal of the College of Engineering 8 (1916): 1Google Scholar; Sung Po-yin, op. cit., p. 23, fig, 4; Finsterbusch, op. cit., Taf. 107, no. 370; Satō, op. cit., pl.3.

58. This stone relief was found in 1956, T'ung-shan hsien, Mangsu province. It is pictured in Chiang-su Hsü-chou Han-mu hua-hsiang-shih (Han stone rel iefs from Hsü-chou in Kiangsu) (Peking, 1959), III. 51Google Scholar; E. Lubo-Lesnlchenko, op. cit., pl. III, no.3; Eizō, Ohta, “Tsukinowa kofun, Tsukinowa, the Ancient Burial Mound, a Report of Our Excavation (Yanahara, Ohayama, 1960), fig. 107Google Scholar; Sung Po-yin, op. cit., p. 24, fig.7; Finsterbusch, op. cit., Taf. 157, No. 594; Nai, HsiaWo-kuo ku-tai ts'an-sang ssu-ch'ou ti li-shih (The history of sericulture and silk fabrics in our antiquity), KK 1972.2:21, fig. 8Google Scholar; Ch'ang-sha Ma-wang-tui i-hab Han-mu ch'ü-t'u ti jung-ch'üan-chin (The pile-loop brocade unearthed from Han tomb No. 1 at Ma-wang-tui in in Ch'ang-sha), KKHP 1974.1:176, fig.2Google Scholar; Satō, op. cit., pl.7.

59. Most probably warp and weft were manufactured in the same way, that is to say, the same quilling wheels were used to produce the warp, and the weft threads. Burnham, Harold B., “La préparation des fils de soie en Chine ancienne,” Bulletin de Liaison 27 (1968):5458Google Scholar.

60. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, 13 shang:2.

61. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 31a.

62. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 31a.

63. Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, 13 shang:2.

64. Chen, Tai, Fang-yen su-cheng (1777), 5:10Google Scholar; (Annotated and amplified text of the Fang-yen [ca. 15, B.C.] by Yang Hsiung

65. Fang-yen su-cheng, 5:10Google Scholar.

66. Nung-shu, 21:13b15aGoogle Scholar.

67. Nung-shu, 21:13bGoogle Scholar.

68. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 31b.

69. Ibid.

70. For a discussion of driving belts in China, see Needham, op. cit., pp. 8, 55, 83, 95, 102-105, 107-108, 267. The spindle was driven as demonstrated in Rudolph P. Hommel, op. cit., p. 173, fig. 251. These stone reliefs are the oldest illustrated sources proving the existence of continuous driving belts in China.

71. H. B. Burnham, “La preparation des fils …,” op. cit., p. 56.

72. T'ien-kung k'ai-wu, shang ch., p. 34a; Shen, Yang, Pin-feng kuang-i (1742), 3:15Google Scholar.

73. One picture is to be seen on the left side of fig. 2; I have not redrawn the other picture. It is on a stone relief of poor quality from P'ei hsien, Kiangsu, pictured in Sung Po-yin, op. cit., p. 24, fig. 6; Finsterbusch, op. cit., Taf. 148, no. 550a.

74. Pin-feng kuang-i, 2:57bGoogle Scholar.

75. See footnote 58.

76. Fig. 4 is from Ssu-hung hsien in Kiangsu. Ssu-hung hsien Ts'ao-chuang fa-hsien i-p'i Han-hua hsiang-shih (A Han period stone relief discovered in Ts'ao-chuang commune in Ssu-hung hsien, Kiangsu), WW 1975. 3:76Google Scholar.

77. Chia-chi, Liu and Ping-sen, Liu, “Chin-chüeh-shan Hsi-Han pai-hua lin-mo hou-kan (Further thoughts on the copies of the silk paintings from Chin-chüeh-shan of the Western Han period), WW 1977. 11:2831Google Scholar.

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79. Pin-feng kuang-i, 1:13b, 3:23bGoogle Scholar.

80. See footnote 77.

81. Pin-feng kuang-i, 3:23bGoogle Scholar.