An epic of technical supremacy: works and words of medieval Chinese textile technology

Abstract

"In this book, Dieter Kuhn presents a reassessment of the Chinese textile technology on the basis of many decades of research. Connecting works with words, the concrete with the abstract, this book aims to shed light on the subject, by bringing together philological knowledge derived from a wide range of textual sources and conncecting it with the specific terms used to refer to manual labour in textile production. Chinese textual and pictorial sources, supplemented by archaeological materials, provide the foundation for a new description and interpretation of the tools, devices and machines - as well as the wide range of textile techniques - that were used to produce a great variety of textile products from silk and plant fibres."--