Chinese craftsman
2 min readRecords of Exmanination of Craftsmen-The Earliest Technical Monograph of China and the World
Records of Examination of Craftsmen was written in the end of the Spring and Autumn period, as a collection of the Qi state’s official technical specifications for handicraft processes as well as the earliest extant technical monograph of China and the world. While proofreading and sorting out ancient literature, Liu Xin,a scholar in the Western Han dynasty, found that the Confucian classical works Rites of Zhou Dynasty had lost the volume of Offices of Winter. So he made it up with Records of Examination of Craftsmen.
The 7,000-character records gave a concise account of the designing and manufacturing process specification for more than 30 occupations in six major categories including carpentry, metalwork, leatherwork, dye-work, jade-processing and pottery, specifically involving numerous fields such as vehicle, smelting, weapon, musical instrument, liquor vessel, jade ware, measuring instrument, pottery, leather, dyeing, building, water conservancy, and farming. The records indicate the handicraft of the time was already diversified; for instance, in vehicle making, the Records of Examination of Craftsmen in Offices of Winter，the eleventh volume of Rites of Zhou Dynasty were already vehicle designers，inspectors，wheel makers，carriage makers，and shaft makers.It also shows that the handicraftsmanship of the time already had reached a considerably high level.
There is a comparative description of the seven kinds of materials necessary for making the main part of a bow and use of six varieties of animal gelatine，in a degrading order of their respective properties and priorities:Cudrania triloba，ilex，mulberry，orange tree，papaya，bramble，and bamboo；and gelatines made of the hides of cattle，horse，rhinoceros，mouse，deer，and fish.In addition，the records in the book were not general technical experience but rather，the production process criteria fordesigning for over 30 handcrafts in six major categories.
The specifications include vehicle width for running on roads and the length for parking on courtyards，length of a small table indoors and the length of matting in the hall，etc.
Most of these measurements comply with certain modulus, that is,a minimum common multiple with the most commonly used being 3.
To the readers’ surprise, however, Records of Examination of Craftsmen not only gives detailed explanations of technical specifications for so many occupations of the time, but also records knowledge on maths, physics, and mechanics. For example, there were only 254 Chinese characters in the entry entitled “Fu Family”, but they give a coherent and logical account of specifications of a chime, sound effect, music adjusting technique and acoustic properties, as the earliest account of chime making in China and the world,1,700 years earlier than its kind in Europe.
With its richness of scientific and technological content, Records of Examination of Craftsmen was number one in Chinese early ancient time, among the most important literatures in Chinese history of science andtechnology. Today it remains unmatchable in the world in terms of rich content and earliest recording of handicraft.
