512 Sino-Iranica 



swi H hi M st£ Wl B^ Hfi, written in the sixth century, the needles used 

 by women on the festival of the seventh day of the seventh month 1 

 were made of gold, silver, or Vou-U. 2 Under the T'ang, Vou-H was an 

 officially adopted alloy, being employed, for instance, for the girdles of 

 the officials of the eighth and ninth grades. 3 It was sent as tribute 

 from Iranian regions; for instance, in a.d. 718, from Maimargh (north- 

 west of Samarkand). 4 



The Ko ku yao lun states, " T % ou-U is the essence of natural copper. 

 At present zinc-bloom is smelted to make counterfeit Vou. According to 

 Ts'ui Fan -Hi fr§, one catty of copper and one catty of zinc-bloom will 

 yield Vou-U. The genuine Vou is produced in Persia. It looks like gold, 

 and, when fired, assumes a red color which will never turn black." 

 This is clearly a description of brass which is mainly composed of copper 

 and zinc. Li Si-Sen 5 identifies Vou-U with the modern term hwah Vuh 

 ("yellow copper"); that is, brass. According to T'an Ts'ui, 6 Vou-H is 

 found in the C'6-li $ M t'u-se of Yun-nan. 



The Chinese accounts of Vou or Vou-H agree with what the Persians 

 and Arabs report about tutiya. It was in Persia that zinc was first mined, 

 and utilized for a new copper alloy, brass. Ibn al-Faqih, who wrote 

 about a.d. 902, has left a description of the zinc-mines situated in a 

 mountain Dunbawand in the province of Kirman. The ore was (and 

 still is) a government monopoly. 7 Jawbari, who wrote about 1225, has 

 described the process of smelting. 8 The earliest mention of the term 

 occurs in the Arabic stone-book of Pseudo-Aristotle (ninth century), 9 

 where the stone tutiya is explained as belonging to the stones found in 

 mines, with numerous varieties which are white, yellow, and green; 



Si is only said to resemble gold, and the notion that brass resembles gold turns up in 

 all Oriental writers. See also Beal, Records of the Western World, Vol. I, p. 51; 

 and Chavannes (T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 34), who likewise accepts the only admissible 

 interpretation, ' ' brass. ' ' 



1 Cf. W. Grube, Zur Pekinger Volkskunde, p. 76; J. Przyluski, T'oung Pao, 

 1914, p. 215. 



2 P'ei wen yiln fu, Ch. 100 A, p. 25. 



' Jade, p. 286; cf. also Ta T'an leu Hen, Ch. 8, p. 22. 



4 Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 34. 



6 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8, pp. 3 and 4. Cf. also Geerts, Produits, p. 575. 



6 Tien hai yu hen li, Ch. 2, p. 3 b. 



7 P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter, p. 252. 



8 G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs a l'ExtrSme-Orient, p. 610 (cf. also pp. 225, 228; 

 and Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, p. 322). 



9 J. Ruska, Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 175. J. Beckmann (Beytrage zur 

 Geschichte der Erfindungen, Vol. Ill, p. 388) states that the word first occurs in 

 Avicenna of the eleventh century. 



