HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



municated to it. The whole construction is very similar to the Alex- 

 andrian inkwell. 



The brazier in question was attributed to the Ming period (1368- 

 1643) by my Chinese informants of Si-ngan, and this date seems 

 plausible. At present, this contrivance is no longer in use, at least 

 not in northern China. According to Chinese tradition it is due to 

 Ting Huan, a famed mechanician of the Han period (206 B.c- 

 a.d. 220), l who excelled in the making of ingenious mechanical 

 devices, and who lived in the capital Ch'ang-ngan (now Si-ngan). 

 He is credited with the invention of censers or braziers styled "reclin- 

 ing on the mattress" or "brazier in the bed-clothes", by the applica- 

 tion of four revolving rings, so that the body of the vessel was kept 

 at equilibrium, and could safely be placed on the bedding. This tra- 

 dition doubtless refers to an instrument like the one described and 

 figured. Its origin in the Han period is perfectly credible, as this was 

 the era when mechanics and engineering awoke in China, and a scien- 

 tific knowledge of nature gradually began to dawn. This also was the 

 epoch when China was opened to intercourse with the West, and 

 when along the trade-routes leading across Central Asia into the 

 Roman Orient Hellenistic ideas and inventions were conveyed to the 

 Chinese. Hellenism, the first universal civilization in the history of 

 the world, based on a syncretism of Greek, Egyptian, and Semitic 

 concepts, expanded into all directions of the globe, and Alexandria 

 was its spiritual center. A single case certainly lacks convincing force, 

 but the totality of coinciding phenomena with which we are now con- 

 fronted is so overwhelming that Hellenistic influence on ancient China 

 can no longer be denied. It is most obvious in the natural sciences, 

 particularly alchemy and mineralogy, and in technology. All that is 

 recorded of mechanical innovations in the Han period is traceable to 

 the writings and models of the Alexandrian mechanicians. The appli- 

 cation of Cardan's suspension is only one example, but perhaps not 

 the least interesting. 



Field Museum of Natural History 

 Chicago, Illinois 



1 The exact date of his lifetime is not known; more probably he lived at the time of the Later 

 or Eastern Han dynasty (a.d. 25-220), rather than under the Former or Western Han (206 B.C.- 

 A.D. 24). The activity of this artisan is discussed in the writer's Chinese Pottery of the Han 

 Dynasty (pp. 196-198), where also the relevant Chinese text is cited. 



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