Section 11 – Da Qin (Roman territory/Rome)

11.1. The kingdom of Da Qin 大秦 [Ta Ch’in] = Roman territory. The use of the exalted name “Da Qin” (literally, ‘Great Ch’in’ = ‘Great China’) for a foreign state is unexpected.

The Hou Hanshu states:

“The people of this country are all tall and honest. They resemble the people of the Middle Kingdom and that is why this kingdom is called Da Qin.”

While the Weilue claims:

“The common people are tall and virtuous like the Chinese, but wear hu 胡 (‘Western’) clothes. They say they originally came from China, but left it.”

This folk etymology, charming as it is, does little to really explain the origin of the rather surprising name, Da Qin. It is reminiscent of the rather similar names for Ferghana – Dayuan = ‘Great Yuan,’ and for Bactria – Daxia = ‘Great Xia’? Graf (1996), pp. 199-200 says:

“For Hirth and the initial interpreters of the HHS and WL accounts, the country designated as Ta-ch’in (“Greater Ch’in”) was to be identified with the Roman East. Although the term Ch’in referred to the Chinese as early as the second century A.D., the name Ta-ch’in perhaps is best understood as simply a reflection of Ch’in as the western region of China, i.e. Ta-ch’in represents the country beyond and comparable to Ch’in. It has also been observed, first by Shiratori and later by others, that the accounts of Ta-ch’in bear a deep resemblance to the Taoist Utopia and are therefore not to be completely understood literally, i.e. they present a fictitious religious world, not a real one. As will become obvious later, this fact did not prevent Shiratori from respecting the essential historical framework of the Chinese accounts of Ta-ch’in. For the most part, such mythological elements are so strikingly evident that they represent only a minimal problem.”

“In the Roman world stories, some based on fact though often much distorted in transmission, others completely fanciful, began to circulate about the Seres, that is, the Silk People. A little later the name Sinae based, like Sanskrit Cīna and our present China, on Qín 秦, the name of the short-lived dynasty that preceded Han and united China in 221 B.C.E., also appears in western sources. At the same time the Chinese began to hear about a country in the far west which they called Dà Qín, Great Qín, apparently thinking of it as a kind of counter-China at the other end of the world.” Pulleyblank (1999), p. 71.

“Moreover, as their geographical knowledge of the world grew with time, the Han Chinese even came to the realization that China was not necessarily the only civilized country in the world. This is clearly shown in the fact that the Later Han Chinese gave the Roman Empire (or, rather, the Roman Orient) the name of Great Ch’in (Ta Ch’in). According to the Hou-Han shu, the Roman Empire was so named precisely because its people and civilization were comparable to those of China.” Yü (1986), p. 379.

These place-names which begin with Da 大 may originally have been formed as attempts to transcribe foreign names into Chinese. Yu (1998) believes Daxia [dat-hea] stands for the Tochari (pp. 22, 35). and thinks it possible (ibid. p. 68) that Dayuan [dat-iuan] may have likewise represented the Tochari. It is just possible that Da Qin represents some similar process though, if this is the case, it is difficult to imagine what name it was originally intended to represent.
          Hirth, and many other scholars who followed him, have taken Da Qin to refer to the ‘Roman Orient.’ I think that the term is often clearly used in a broader sense than this to mean the Roman Empire, or any territory subservient to Rome. It is true that all the dependencies mentioned in the Weilue are probably found in the ‘Roman Orient,’ but it specifically mentions that it only lists a few of the dependencies of Da Qin, presumably the ones visited by the Chinese, or those reported on to the Chinese, because of their importance for east-west trade. These are, quite naturally, territories in the ‘Roman Orient.’
          Sometimes, the name is used more specifically: the Weilue gives directions across a ‘Great Sea’ (the Mediterranean) to “that country” (i.e. Da Qin) from Wuzhisan in Haixi, which is undoubtedly Alexandria in Egypt – see notes 11.5, 11.7 and Appendix C.
          This is rather similar to the situation today when it is commonly said that one is “entering China,” when one enters territory inhabited by other people, but controlled by the Chinese, such as Tibet, or Chinese Turkestan (Sinjiang). Similarly, ‘Mexico’ may be used to refer to either the city or the country.
          Therefore I have translated Da Qin as either ‘Rome’ the city, ‘Roman territory,’ or the ‘Roman Empire,’ as the context demands. The reader should remember, meanwhile, that in each case the Chinese text will have only ‘Da Qin’.

11.2. 黎靬 Lijian [Li-chien] – another name for Da Qin. Lijian [Li-chien – sometimes written Li-kan] is given here as another name for Da Qin or the Roman Empire.

“The pronunciation jian (鉅連反 or 鉅言反) [for the second syllable of Lijian] is indicated by Yan Shigu (Qian Hanshu, chap. XCVI, a, p. 6a).” Translated from Chavannes (1905), p. 556, n. 4.

“It becomes clear that, as first proposed by Brosset (1828) and accepted by a number of other scholars, including Markwart, De Groot, and Herrmann (1941), Líjiān is actually a transcription of Hyrcania, Old Persian Wrkāna, a country that existed in the second century B.C.E. on the southwest [sic – should read southeast] corner of the Caspian Sea; and that, surprisingly, it is Tiaozhi that is a good transcription of Seleukia. The difficulty with identifying Líjiān with Hyrcania is that, although it fits perfectly with the earliest account in the Shĭjì, the name was displaced when the passage was copied into the Hànshū and in later texts it reemerges as another name for Dà Qín. The latter identification led Pelliot to propose that it transcribed the name of Alexandria in Egypt, of which more will be said below.” Pulleyblank (1999), p. 73.

          “As for Líjiān, Hulsewé and Loewe, using Karlgren’s Old Chinese reconstruction, remarked that “although Liɘr-g’iän [for which they cite Yán Shīgǔ’s gloss to 靬 in the Hànshū which I believe is of doubtful authority in this case] could be said to resemble ‘Hyrcania’, it is a far cry to the original ‘Vehrkāna [i.e., Old Persian Wrkāna]” (1979: 118). In fact the sequence –rkan is common to both the Greek and the Old Persian and fits well with EMC lεj/li xɨan/kɨan, with Chinese l- <*r-. What is apparently missing is anything to correspond to Old Persian initial w-, represented in Greek by the syllable Hy- (the letter upsilon with spiritus asper). Note, however, that lí 利 EMC li^h ‘sharp, profitable’, the phonetic in lí 犁 and lí 黎, is composed of dāo 刀 ‘knife’ + hé 禾 EMC γwaa̭ < *wál ‘grain’, presumably as a phonetic indicator. A full discussion cannot be given here but, assuming that this analysis of the graph is correct, one may tentatively reconstruct lí 犁 as Old Chinese *wrǝ́l > EMC *wríj > EMC lεj. We find a similar alternation in initials in the xiéshēng derivatives of lì 立 EMC lip ‘stand’ which include the etymologically related word wèi 位 EMC wi^h ‘position’.
          The earliest occurrence of the name Líjiān (in the variant reading Líxuān 黎軒) is in Shĭjì 123 in what purports to be Zhāng Qiān’s report on the countries of the far west after his return to China ca. 125 B.C.E. It comes at the end of his account of Ānxí (Parthia) and reads:

. . .。其西則條枝。北有奄蔡黎軒。條枝安息西數千里 , 臨西海。

. . . To the west [of Ānxí] lies Tiáozhī and to the north Yăncài and Líxuān. Tiáozhī is situated several thousand li west of Ānxí and borders on the Western Sea. . . .

This is the standard and most natural pronunciation found, for example, in the Takigawa edition and the recent Zhónghuá shūjū edition. That is, the section on Ānxí ends with mention of three other more distant countries, after which a new section begins on one of these, namely Tiáozhī. Yăncài, already mentioned in the text as a country northwest of Kāngjū (at that time in the region of Tashkend), has long been identified with the Aorsoi of western sources, a nomadic people out of whom the well-known Alans later emerged (Pulleyblank [1962: 99, 220; 1968:252]). On the assumption that Líxuān (that is, Líjiān) was in roughly the same direction, the equation with Hyrcania on the southeastern side of the Caspian Sea fits perfectly.
          There are two other references to Líxuān in Shĭjì 123, neither of which contradicts this. In the first, which has a parallel in Hànshū 61 but is not referred to by Leslie and Gardiner, it is said that after Zhāng Qiān’s death “more envoys were sent to Ānxí, Yăncài, Líxuān, Tiáozhī and Shēndú (India)” 因益發使安息, 有奄, 黎軒, 條枝, 身毒 (Zhonghua ed., p. 3170). Though Líxuān again comes in juxtaposition to Tiáozhī, it also again comes immediately after Yăncài.” Pulleyblank (1999), pp. 74-75. [Note that Pulleyblank has considerably more detail on the name Líjiān in this article, if you wish to check it further].

GR No. 1611, gives discusses several possibilities for the derivation of the name Lijian in its various forms:

“[a] JIAN [CHIEN¹]

(Etymological) Skin of a dried animal

1. Piece of copper from the harness of a horse. 2. From 梨靬 or 犛靬 or黎靬 li² jian¹ [li² chien¹] (Historical geography – phonetic transcription of the ancient Greek Seleukidai) Li-chien: a. The Persian Hellenistic Empire of the Seleucides (365-64 BCE), of modern Afghanistan to the Aegean Sea; plus particularly : The Hellenistic Syria of the Seleucid kings (c. 358-93 BCE). At this period (dynasty: 西漢 Western Han 206 BCE – 8 CE) beginning, after the conquest of Bactria by the 月氏 Yuezhi, about 100 BCE, the exchanges, across the Pamir, between China and the West. B. All lands and kingdoms to the west of China; by extension : The Roman Empire (dynasty: 東漢 Eastern Han 25-220). – Cf. 大秦 da⁴ qin² [ta² ch’in²].

[b] QIAN² [CH’IEN²]

From 麗靬 or 驪靬 li⁴ qian² [li⁴ ch’ien²] (Historical geography) Liqian (Li-ch’ien) : ancient sub-prefecture situated in modern 甘肅 Gansu (Kan-su), instituted under the 東漢 Eastern Han dynasty to settle prisoners originally from territories designated under the name of 梨靬, 犛靬, 黎靬 “Lijian [Li-chien]” (Cf. supra), and abolished during the 北魏 Northern Wei dynasty (南北朝 period of the Dynasties of the South and the North, 420-589).” Translated and adapted from the French.

The character 黎 li is another form of 梨; both translated as ‘pear’ (although Karlgren gives ‘to plough’ for the first character and ‘pear’ for the second, and GR No. 6842, while giving ‘pear’ as the primary meaning, also gives, ‘old’, ‘aged’, ‘to divide’, and ‘dismember,’ as alternate meanings). All three forms of li show similar reconstructed pronunciations.

黎 – K. 519g * liər / liei; EMC lεj

梨 – K. 519h *li̯ər / lji; EMC li

犛 – K. 979j * li̯əg / lji; EMC lɨ / li

Hirth (1885), p. 159 ff., and 170, n. 1, suggested it represented Rekem, an old name for Petra – both meaning ‘rock.’

          Several scholars have suggested that it must have been originally derived from ‘Alexandria’ or ‘Alexander.’ See, for example: Dubs (1957), pp. 2-3, and Sitwell (1984), p. 213, n. 22. Leslie and Gardiner (1996), pp. XVIII-XXVI and 253-254 argue that Li-kan (Lijian) referred originally to the Seleucid Empire. Also – see quote from GR above and under GR, No. 6864. For detailed reviews of the many theories about the origin and various forms of the name, see CICA: 117, n. 275, and Dubs (1957), pp. 24-26.

“[Li-jien was also] used by the Chinese for Rome and the Roman empire. Their later name for the Roman empire was Da^4H-ts’in^2TU, the use of which begins in the Later Han period, when, in A.D. 166, a man came to the border of China, stating that he was an envoy from “the King of Da^4H-ts’in^2TU, An^1JZ-dun^1WA [Marcus Aurelius Antoninus].” Da-ts’in was used for the Roman empire until the Middle Ages, when the name Fu^25DZ-lin^3TS came to be used instead (for the Eastern Roman Empire). Prefacing the account of Da-ts’in in the History of the Later Han Dynasty, there is the statement, “The country of Da^4H-ts’in^2TU is also called Li^2MGDZ- jien^1MGG.” This statement is repeated in other Chinese accounts of foreign countries, so that there can be no reason for doubting it.

The name Li-jien was almost surely a Chinese transcription of the Greek word “Alexandria” and originally denoted the Alexandria in Egypt. We may even perhaps be able to tell how this word came into use in China.

          “Between 110 and 100 B.C., there arrived at the Chinese capital an embassy from the King of Parthia. Among the presents to the Chinese Emperor are stated to have been fine jugglers from Li-jien. The jugglers and dancers, male and female, from Alexandria in Egypt were famous and were exported to foreign countries. Since the King of Parthia obviously esteemed highly the Emperor of China, he naturally sent the best jugglers he could secure. When these persons were asked whence they came, they of course replied “from Alexandria,” which word the Chinese who disliked polysyllables and initial vowels and could not pronounce certain Greek sounds, shortened into “Li-jien.”. When they also learned that this place was different from Parthia, the Chinese naturally used its name for the country of these jugglers. No Chinese had been to the Roman empire, so they had no reason to distinguish a prominent place in it from the country itself. The Romans moreover had no name for their empire other than orbis terrarum, i.e., “the world,” so that these jugglers would have found it difficult to explain the name of the Roman empire! In such a fashion there probably arose the Chinese name Li-jien which, for them, denoted the Roman empire in general.” Dubs (1957), pp. 2-3. See also Dubs’ detailed discussion of the various forms of this name, ibid., pp. 24 n. 6.

“It is possible that Li-jien originally meant ‘the land of Alexander’, just as An-hsi meant ‘the land of the Arsaces’; and that, having first been applied to the Seleucid kingdom, it was then extended to cover the nations (including Rome) whose rulers regarded themselves as the heirs of Alexander. It was a convenient coincidence that one of the largest cities of the West also bore this man’s name; but, pace Dubs, it seems most unlikely that Roman soldiers would ever have described themselves as ‘Alexandrians’.” Sitwell (1984), p. 213, n. 22.

11.3. Dahai 大海 [Ta Hai] – ‘a great sea.’ I believe this must refer to what we now know as the Indian Ocean including the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. For details refer to Appendix C.

11.4. The city of Angu 安谷 [An-ku] = Gerrha or modern Thaj.
          It seems probable that the ‘Angu’ of the Weilue refers to the ancient trading city of Gerrha, and its port on the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf. We are told that to travel by boat from Angu to Haixi [= Egypt] with favourable winds took two months and with slow winds half a year. In Section 16 of the text it says that that, from Zesan, “can take half a year to cross the water, but with fast winds it takes a month” (to reach Lüfen, which is only a short distance by land and “across the sea” by a very long bridge from Haixi or Egypt). So, it is reasonable to deduce that Zesan was approximately half way between Angu to Egypt, and the northern part of Azania fits this description remarkably well.
          Gerrha admirably fits the statements in the Weilue that Angu is, “on the frontier of Anxi (Parthia)” and is in close communication with Zesan [= Azania].”

“There was more about Gerrha [in the Greek and Roman writers] than about any other place in Arabia, but even so it was not more than could be committed to a small piece of paper. Oddly enough, in Arrian’s description of Alexander’s preparation for a campaign against Arabia, including the coastal explorations of 323 B.C., there was not the slightest mention of Gerrha. But Eratosthenes, writing about a hundred years after Alexander, tells of the merchants of Gerrha carrying their spices and incense overland to Mesopotamia. This is contradicted by Aristobulus, says Strabo, who tells that the merchants travelled by raft to Babylonia. Strabo, who wrote in the last two decades B.C., quotes Artemidorus, of the previous century, as saying: “By the incense trade . . . the Gerrhaei have become the richest of all tribes, and possess a great quantity of wrought articles in gold and silver, such as couches, tripods, basins, drinking vessels; to which we must add the costly magnificence of their houses; for the doors, walls, and roof are variegated with inlaid ivory, gold, silver, and precious stones.”
          The historian Polybius about the same time tells of a campaign of the Seleucid king, Antiochus III, who took a fleet along the Arabian coast in 205 B.C., with the intention of conquering Gerrha; but he was persuaded by large presents of silver and precious stones, to leave the city unharmed.
          There was thus little doubt that in the first, second, and third centuries B.C. Gerrha was an exceedingly wealthy city, trading overland and by sea in aromatics, presumably the frankincense of the Hadramaut. Strabo even tells us where Gerrha lay, but his account is difficult to interpret. Gerrha, he says, is “a city situated on a deep gulf; it is inhabited by the Chaldeans, exiles from Babylon; the soil contains salt and the people live in houses made of salt. . . . The city is about 200 stadia” – about 60 miles [actually only about 37 km – as 1 Greek stadium = 185 metres] – “distant from the sea.” And you sail “onward,” he says, from Gerrha to Tylos and Arados, which are the Bahrain islands.
          The elder Pliny, writing in the middle of the first century A.D., is more explicit, and I knew the description by heart. Describing the Arabian shore of the Gulf he comes to the island of Ichara, which must be our Ikaros, and then the Gulf of Capeus, and then the Gulf of Gerrha. “Here we find the city of Gerrha, five miles [five Roman miles = 7.41 km] in circumference, with towers built of square blocks of salt. Fifty miles [74.1 km] from the coast, lying in the interior, is the region of Attene, and opposite to Gerrha is the island of Tylos, an equal number of miles distant from the coast; it is famous for the vast numbers of its pearls . . .”
          Tylos, we knew, was Bahrain, and the region of Attene fifty miles inland was normally believed to be the Hofuf oasis. . . .” Bibby (1970), pp. 317-318.

D.T. Potts has, I believe, convincingly identified the town of Gerrha with modern Thaj, and located the port of Gerrha near the modern port of al-Jubayl:

          “A recent attempt by W. W. Müller to deduce the Semitic origin of the Greek name ‘Gerrha’ has important implications for the solution to the problem of the site’s location. Müller postulates that the ancient Hasaitic designation for ‘the city’ would have been *han-Hagar, from which an Aramaicized ‘Hagarā’ could have developed. As the use of Aramaic in this area is well-attested (see ch. 5 below), this presents no difficulties. From the form ‘Hagarā’, then, the Greek form ‘Gerrha’ can be derived. The application of the term ha—ar to a walled city with towers and bastions was stressed by H. Von Wissmann in his final, posthumously published work on Sabaean history. If a similar usage obtained in north-eastern Arabia where, as we have seen, the South Arabian alphabet was used in the indigenous Hasaitic inscriptions, then one immediately thinks of Thaj as a likely candidate for the site of ancient Gerrha. Pliny’s statement that Gerrha ‘measures five miles round and has towers made of squared blocks of salt’ is, moreover, reminiscent of the white limestone city wall at Thaj discussed above; nor are there any other sites of the period in eastern Arabia which fit such a description. Finally, if we remember the admittedly rough calculation of the distance between Gerrha and Teredon which brought us to the region of al-Jubayl, it is interesting to note that this is in fact Thaj’s traditional and indeed only outlet to the sea. Thus, there exists at least a strong possibility that Thaj and al-Jubayl are the sites of the inland town of Gerrha and its coastal port.” Potts (1990), pp. 89-90.

“As we have seen, Androsthenes’ information on Tylos [modern Bahrain], and by extension that of Theophrastus, can be dated to the lifetime of Alexander. Some of Pliny’s material, such as the parts drawn from Juba, can be dated roughly to the time of Christ, around the middle of the Parthian period. When we move into the second century AD, an altogether different perspective on Bahrain is afforded by an important inscription discovered during the 1939-40 season of excavations at Palmyra. The text belongs to a group of Palmyrene texts known as ‘caravan inscriptions’, in which a prominent citizen was honoured by his compatriots for services rendered in the caravan trade between Palmyra and Babylonia. In this case, the text records that in AD 131 the Palmyrene merchants of Spasinou Charax erected a statue at Palmyra in honour of Iarhai, son of Nebozabad. What makes this text so important, however, is the added fact that Iarhai is said to have served as ‘satrap of the Thilouanoi for Meredat, king of Spasinou Charax’. Spasinou Charax, a city located near modern Basra in the southernmost Babylonian province of Mesene, was the capital of the small but important kingdom of Characene. Situated in the shadow of Parthia, this kingdom enjoyed commercial success and attendant fame out of all proportion to its size, since Spasinou Charax was the most important Babylonian port of call for ships arriving laden with luxury goods from the East during the first century BC and the first two centuries AD. Palmyrene traders, as purveyors of these Eastern goods to Roman Syria and ultimately to the wider Mediterranean world, had established permanent colonies at Babylon, Vologesias, and, most importantly, at Spasinou Charax.
          The Palmyrene caravan inscriptions leave us in no doubt that Palmyrene commerce with the kingdom of Characene was a great success. Given the close commercial ties between Charax and the Palmyrene community, therefore, it is hardly surprising that the king of Charax should have employed a citizen of Palmyra in a political capacity, as satrap of the Thilouanoi. For many years, however, scholars did not recognise the significance of the satrapal name implied here. It was not until 1968, when a collection of notes completed by E. Herzfeld in 1948 was published posthumously, that the meaning became clear. The Thilouanoi were the inhabitants of Thiloua or Thilouos, which name is clearly an Aramaicised form of ‘Tylos’ [modern Bahrain]. Thus, by the early second century AD Bahrain was a satrapy of the kingdom of Characene.
          Meredat will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 6 below, but it is important to note that, as we now know from a Graeco-Parthian inscription recently discovered at Seleucia-on-Tigris, he was a member of a high-ranking Parthian family. Thus, as a Parthian on the Characene throne, his rule represented an extension of Parthian influence over Charax and the Gulf. That he came into conflict with other branches of the Parthian nobility, however, is likely, and twenty years after he was mentioned in the inscription from Palmyra, he was driven off the Characene throne by the Parthian king Vologases IV and heard of no more. From this time on, a more purely Parthian political presence was established in the central Arabian Gulf. . . . ” Potts (1990), pp. 145-146.

Although modern Thaj is situated well inland, there are some recent indications that the town may, during historical times, have actually been at the edge of a large inlet that joined with the Persian Gulf itself (thus averting the need for a separate port), as the following abstract indicates:

“Holocene sedimentation processes at the Saudi Arabian Gulf coast”

Projekte unter Leitung von PD Dr. Hans-Jörg Barth

Funding: Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (DFG), National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development (NCWCD), Riyadh

Abstract

Eustatic fluctuations of sea level during Pleistocene and Holocene times resulted in remarkable shifts of the shoreline along the Arabian Gulf. But even after the establishment of the present sea level around 1000 years ago, the coastal geography experienced significant alterations. Satellite data indicate that a large territory west of Jubail might once have been part of the Arabian Gulf. Concerning the location of the lost city of Gerrha, which Alexander the Great was planning to invade shortly before his death, archaeological sources mention a large inlet east of the city. The ruins of Thaj 90 km west of Jubail in the middle of the desert are located directly at the western shore of the assumed inlet. That leads to the assumption that Thaj is the “lost city of Gerrha”. Recent accumulation in the Jubail area at the Saudi Arabian Gulf coast is dominated by terrestrial aeolian processes. Cyanobacteria which is abundant in the intertidal flats, were discovered below about 70 cm of terrestrial and marine sediments in a sabkha environment. This sabkha is located in a distance of more than two kilometers from the actual intertidal. ¹⁴C dating of the cyanobacteria provided an age of not more than 700 years. Sedimentation characteristics indicate a significant change in sedimentation processes from marine to aeolian accumulation of terrestrial dune sand some time after the cyanobacterial growth 700 years ago. Progradation at rates of more than three meters per year implies a considerable sand source as well as intensive sand movement. Therefore a reduction in vegetation cover seems most probable to have caused this development. Strong winds moved sandy substrate in southern to southeastern directions where it finally accumulated in the intertidal. Whether a climatic change or human impact or even both led to this reduction in the vegetation cover, is presently unknown.” Downloaded on 10 November 2003, from: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_III/Geographie/phygeo/barth.htm

For more details on these identifications refer to Appendix H.

11.5. Haixi 海西 – literally: ‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt. Refer to Appendix B, especially subsection (a) “Haixi 海西 – literally: ‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt.”

11.6. “With favourable winds it takes two months; if the winds are slow, perhaps a year; if there is no wind, perhaps three years.” This account from the Weilue gives a somewhat different account of the time it can take to reach Da Qin from the Persian Gulf, than the story told to Gan Ying recounted in the Hou Hanshu:

“In the ninth Yangyuan year [97 CE], during the reign of Emperor He, the Protector General Ban Chao sent Gan Ying to Da Qin (the Roman Empire). He reached Tiaozhi (Characene and Susiana) next to a large sea. He wanted to cross it, but the sailors of the western frontier of Anxi (Parthia) said to him:

“The ocean is huge. Those making the round trip can do it in three months if the winds are favourable. However, if you encounter winds that delay you, it can take two years. That is why all the men who go by sea take stores for three years. The vast ocean urges men to think of their country, and get homesick, and some of them die. When (Gan) Ying heard this, he gave up his plan.” TWR.

The shorter time of 2 months to make the round trip from the Persian Gulf to Da Qin in the Weilue compared to the 3 months mentioned in the Hou Hanshu can be explained by the expansion of Parthia to include the port of Gerra, which was considerably closer to the Red Sea ports than Charax Spasinu, the port Gan Ying reached in 97 CE.

11.7. The city of (Wu) Chisan (烏) 遲散 [(Wu) Ch’ih-san] = Alexandria.

          “On the name of Alexandria in Indian literature, cf. in the first place S. Lévi’s paper of 1934, reprinted in Mémorial Sylvain Lévi (Paris, 1937, 413-423). Lévi concurs with the opinion I first upheld in 1914 (JA, 1914, II, 413-417) that the Alasanda of the Questions of King Menander was the Egyptian Alexandria. Moreover, ālisaṃdaga, the name of a bean, and ālakandaka, a name of the coral, must be nouns derived from Alexandria.
          In Chinese Buddhist texts, the Chinese version of the Questions of King Menander gives a form 阿茘散 A-li-san (* •Â-ljie̯-sân), nearer to the Greek original for the vowel of the second syllable than Pâli Alasanda. Lévi (loc. cit. 418) also thought he had found the name of Alexandria in the Chinese version of Nāgārjuna’s commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā; but he elicited it through a correction which I hold as very doubtful.
          Apart from Buddhist texts, I proposed in TP, 1915, 690-691, to identify with Alexandria of Egypt the name 黎軒 Li-hsüan (*Liei-χi̯ɐn), Li-kan 犂靬 (* Liei-kân), etc., known in China from the end of the 2nd cent. B. C. Although others entertain different views, I still think that the equivalence is substantially correct. It remains doubtful whether, in the first half of the 3rd cent. A. D., the name of Alexandria underlies the transcriptions 遲散 Ch’ih-san (* D´’i-sân) and 烏遲散 Wu-ch’ih-san (*·Uo-d´’i-sân) of the Wei lio; cf. HIRTH, China and the Roman Orient, 181-182 (but the equivalence has gained in probability now that we know for certain that 烏弋山離 Wu-i-shan-li [*·Uo-i̯ək-ṣǎn-ljie̯, still more anciently ·O-di̯ək-sǎn-ljia], certainly renders the name of another Alexandria; cf. ZDMG, 1937, 252; TP, 1938, 148). Chao Ju-kua, writing in 1225, has a whole paragraph on 遏根陀 O-ken-t’o (*·Ât-kən-d’â), and describes its Pharos with the wonderful mirror (HR, 146-147; cf. LE STRANGE, Nuzhat-al-Qulūb, transl., 239-241); this last transcription is made the Arabic form Iskandariya.” Pelliot (1959), p. 29.

          “A better phonetic correspondence to Alexandria in a western context [than Lijian] is provided by Chísăn 遲散 or Wūchísăn 烏遲散 EMC ?ɔ dr̮i san’ (or san^h), said in the Wèilüè to be the first place one reaches in Dà Qín and identified by Hirth as Alexandria. The first syllable wū 烏(truncated in the first case) is the regular equivalent in Han times for a foreign initial a-, replaced by ā 阿 EMC ?a, in the new-style transcriptions that appear in the early Buddhist texts. The few xiéshēng connections of chí 遲, which appears to have xi 犀 EMC sεj as phonetic, do not give the kind of clear-cut evidence for *l- as the source of the Middle Chinese retroflexed stop, dr̮, that we find in the cases of EMC d < *l cited above; but neither do they support a connection with Old Chinese dental stops. It is relevant that, as Hirth noted, Middle Chinese dr̮- was sometimes used in transcriptions of Sanskrit to represent the voiced retroflex stop ḍ, a sound that is rather close to [l].” Pulleyblank (1999), p. 76.

“Ancient Alexandria stood about twelve miles from the Canoptic branch of the Nile, with which it was united by a canal. The lake Mareotis bathed its walls on the south, and the Mediterranean on the north. It was divided into straight parallel streets, cutting one another at right angles. One great street, two thousand feet wide, ran through the whole length of the city, beginning at the gate of the sea, and terminating at the gate of Canopus. It was intersected by another of the same breadth, which formed a square at their junction half a league in circumference. From the centre of this great place, the two gates were to be seen at once, and vessels arriving under full sail from both the north and the south. In these two principal streets, the noblest in the universe, stood their most magnificent palaces, temples, and public buildings, in which the eye was never tired with admiring the marble, the porphyry, and the obelisks, which were destined at some future day to embellish the metropolis of the world. The chief glory of Alexandria was its harbor. It was a deep and secure bay in the Mediterranean, formed by the shore on the one side, and the island of Pharos on the other, and where numerous fleets might lie in complete safety. Without the walls of Alexandria, and stretching along the shores of the Mediterranean, near to the promontory of Lectreos, was situated the palace and gardens of the Ptolemies. They contained within their inclosure the museum, an asylum for learned men, groves and buildings worthy of royal majesty, and a temple where the body of Alexander was deposited in a golden coffin. It were endless to enumerate the many palaces, temples, theatres, and other buildings with which Alexandria and its suburbs were adorned.” Edwards and Brown (1835), p. 57.

“This position [as: “the most important commercial city of the Mediterranean world”] Alexandria owed to its natural advantages. There were two magnificent harbours, the Great Harbour to the east and the Eunostus (Harbour of Fortunate Return), with a smaller, artificially excavated harbour at its rear, to the west. The harbours were separated by an artificial dyke, the Heptastadium, linking the mainland to the island of Pharos on which the famous lighthouse stood. These accommodated an immense volume of maritime trade with the Mediterranean world and also made Alexandria an important centre of the shipbuilding industry. To the south of the city, Lake Mareotis, which itself had a harbour on its northern shore, was linked by canals to the Canopic branch of the Nile delta, giving access to the river valley. Not only did this make available to Alexandria as much of Egypt’s domestic produce as she required – the large-scale transport of grain from the valley was, of course, absolutely essential to feed the city’s populace – but it also linked her through the important entrepôt of Coptos to the ports of the Red Sea coast and a network of trading relations with India and Arabia, which reached its apogee in the Roman period. Great though the volume of imports through this route was, it was outweighed, as Strabo noted, by the volume of exports which Alexandria despatched to the south.” Bowman (1996), pp. 218-219.

“But to form an estimate of the number of Jews that statedly resided in Alexandria, it may be sufficient to mention that about the year of Christ 67, while the quarrel was going on between that people and the Romans, which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, the subversion of their ecclesiastical polity and their ruin as a nation, fifty thousand of them were put to death at one time in the city of Alexandria! It is said that at the time this terrible event took place, there were not less than a million of Jews dispersed through the whole province of Egypt, in which they had a vast number of synagogues, and oratories which were either demolished or consumed by fire, for refusing to set up the statues of the Roman emperor, Caius Caligula.” Edwards and Brown (1835), p. 58.

For a discussion of the various Chinese transcriptions of Alexandria see: Pelliot (1959), p. 29.

11.8. The city of Wudan 烏丹 [Wu-tan] = Tanis? I believe that Wudan, Egyptian Ta-an, or Tsàn, refers to the Egyptian city of Tanis, capital of the Eastern Nile Delta.

烏 K. 61a *•o / uo; EMC ?ɔ

丹 K. 150a *tân / tân; EMC tan

“The Ancient Egyptian name of that place was “D’n.t”, in egypto-speak rendered Djanet. I suppose it rather sounded like *Dja’ane, for the Greeks heard it as Tanis (-is Greek ending), but the Hebrews heard it as Zoan, and the Assyrians heard it as Saanu. Perhaps someone else can give you the Coptic, which would be the most relevant for you.” Email correspondence from Aayko Eyma, 24/12/98.

It appears from the Weilue that one could sail all the way from Zesan to the city of Wudan. Assuming this identification of Wudan and Tanis is correct, then reaching Tanis via the ancient Nile canal to the Red Sea was possible. The canal had been recently re-dredged by Trajan and Hadrian. For more details, see Appendix M.

11.9. This text appears to refer to crossing the Sebannitus and then the Canopis branches of the Nile. For details see Appendix M.

11.10. fayudadusan 凡有大都三. “There are, in all, three major cities.” I understand this text to mean that there are three major cities that you meet with on the journey from the Pelusic branch of the Nile to Alexandria. These would have been, at the time, Daphnae, Tanis and Alexandria. In the Chinese text accompanying the translation by Hirth (1885), p. 111, end of line 12, he has the character xi 郤 – ‘interval,’ ‘gap.’ but he doesn’t include this word in his translation – “There are three great divisions of the country [perhaps : three great cities].” It is clear that it must be mistaken for the commonly confused character, que 卻 = ‘now,’ ‘meanwhile,’ etc.
          In fact, the use of the character xi does not make sense here and it was obviously intended to be attached to the beginning of the next sentence, as is made clear in the punctuation of the New China Library 1975 Edition. The translation then reads smoothly, with the following sentence beginning: “Now (or, ‘meanwhile’), if you leave the city of Angu. . . . ” 
          Also, Hirth’s suggestion that du 都 might represent a division of the country cannot be supported. The character at this period had the meaning of a large walled town, city, or a provincial capital; although much later – during the Song and Qing dynasties – it sometimes had the meaning of a small territorial unit. See GR, No. 11668.

11.11. The territory called 海北 Haibei ‘North of the Sea’ here must refer to the lands between Babylonia and what is now Jordan and/or Syria. Refer to Appendix B, especially under the subheading: (b) Haibei 海北 ‘North of the Sea.’

11.12. This text seems to imply that there was a journey of more than a day from Alexandria along the coast before actually sailing for Rome. This gives a total time of seven or more days from Alexandria to Ostia. Six days would seem to be about right for the sailing time from the neighbourhood of Appollonia in Cyrene (west of Egypt) to Ostia, the port for Rome.
          The total sailing times between Alexandria and Puteoli, to the south of Rome, are given in The Times Atlas of World History (1978), p. 91, as “15-20 days (fastest 9 days)”.

“Egypt sent 150,000 tons of annual grain tribute to Rome in the 1^st – 3^rd centuries CE. Sailing to Puzzuoli or Ostia took a month or more, and the return voyage 10-20 days.” Baines and Málek (1984), p. 54.

However, these figures relate to the ordinary voyages of merchantmen. If the winds were right, a fast ship could make it from Italy to Alexandria in less than six days as Priscus of Panium (5^th century CE) reported – refer to Appendix B, subsection (a) Haixi 海西 – literally: ‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt.

11.13. The overall description of the Roman Empire is self-explanatory and quite accurate: “This country (the Roman Empire) has more than four hundred smaller cities and towns. It extends several thousand li in all directions.”

11.14. wangchi 王治 [wang-chih] = ‘the king’s seat of government’ must undoubtedly refer here to the city of Rome, which is situated on the Tiber River some 24 km (15 miles) inland from the Tyrrhenian Sea.

11.15. 松 song = pine trees, bai 柏 = cypress (a generic name for cypresses, thujas, etc), 槐 huai = Sophora japonica L., 梓 zi = catalpa (Catalpa ovata G. Don.), 竹 zhu = bamboo, 葦 wei = reeds, 楊 yang = poplars, 柳 liu = willows, 梧桐 wutong = the “Chinese parasol” or “phoenix” tree (Firmiana simplex = Sterculia platanifolia). See: Schafer (1963), p. 186.
          While the name, Wutong [Wu-t’ung], was used to denote other species of trees (especially outside of China), it is of interest to examine some of the significance this name would have had for the Chinese reader:

“The desert poplar (Populus diversifolia), which is also called the unequal-leaved poplar, bears two kinds of leaves at one time; those on the new growth are narrow and lancet-shaped like the willow, while those on the older branches are broad and tooth-edged. The Chinese name for this strange tree is wutung. Hardy as it is, and able to endure both cold and dryness, it is yet the very first tree to feel the touch of autumn, change colour and cast its leaves. For this reason the Chinese have chosen to make the wutung symbolic of sadness, and the eldest son of a family should lean on a staff cut from the wutung when he follows his father’s coffin in the funeral procession. The bark of the tree carries masses of spongy growth called “tears of the wutung,” doubtless because of this association with sorrow. These trees rise to a height of seventy-five feet, and the branches, meeting overhead, form dignified arched alleys. The patches of woodland are as symmetrical as though they had been planted by hand, and the edge is a clear-cut line with no straggling growth.” Cable and French (1943), p. 280.

“Near the camp we reached that night was a clump of wu-t’ung trees, the first I had seen closely, though we had passed a few in the dark on one of the marches through Kuai-tze Hu – their most easterly range, so far as I know it. The caravan men call them “false” wu-t’ung for some reason of their own. The true wu-t’ung is the Dryandra of the upper Yang-tze, the tree from which is obtained wood oil, one of the most valuable exports of Hankow.¹ The Dryandra may have been originally a sacred tree of the aborigines of the Yang-tze valley, judging from the legends with which the later-coming Chinese adorned it. They say that the first fall of its leaf is the undeniable beginning of autumn – a fitting symbolism for a holy tree. It is yet more venerable because it is the only tree on which the phoenix will alight when it visits the earth. I have never seen the true wu-t’ung, nor do I know how the “false” wu-t’ung got its name, since I have heard Chinese say that it has not much resemblance to the Dryandra; the caravan men explain very simply that it is false because no phoenixes ever perch on it. The masquerading wu-t’ung is the toghraq or wild poplar of the Tarim desert. It is found throughout the half-deserts and desert fringes of Chinese Turkestan and Zungaria, and also, I am told, in India. One of its peculiarities is that parasitic willow shoots are often found growing in the notches of old trees; another is the great variation in the form of the leaf. On the Edsin Gol the leaf is fairly uniform, but in the Tarim basin it is sometimes very nearly round, with slightly serrated edges, and sometimes almost as deeply indented as a maple leaf, The wood is of no use for any carpentry, and burns rather weakly without giving an intense heat. It is impregnated, apparently, with salts of the deserts where it grows. A plentiful sap or pitch oozes out of it when burning, which is used like soda or yeast to raise bread; the camel men call it “wu-t’ung soda.

¹I now find that, according to Giles (Dictionary), the wu-t’ung associated with the phoenix is not the Dryandra but Sterculia platanifolia, while the oil-producing tree also is not Dryandra but Aleurites cordata (t’ung-yu-sha).”

Lattimore (1929), pp. 195 and n. 1; 196.

11.16. sangcan 桑蠶 [sang-ts’an].

“This passage can hardly be translated as anything other than, “The customs of the inhabitants are the following: they practice agriculture and plant the five types of cereals; as for domestic animals they have horses, donkeys and camels; they cultivate the mulberry tree and raise silkworms.” But it is evident that Yu Huan, the author of the Weilue, may have come under the influence, unconsciously perhaps, of the more ancient texts which he compiled.” Translated from Chavannes (1907), p. 180, n. 1.

The term 桑蠶 sangcan [sang-ts’an] is not really as clear-cut as Chavannes states, and the text certainly does not state that they: “cultivate the mulberry tree and raise silkworms” – only that they raise sangcan. The term sangcan is listed by itself immediately after the word 駱驼 luoduo – the normal term for camels.
          On its own like this, sangcan may indeed have meant ‘silkworms,’ but this is not certain – and may not have been the intention here. In the entry under GR No. 9430 we find three definitions: 1. (Entomological) another name for the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, which were used as a medical material. 2. mulberries and silkworms. 3. To feed silkworms with mulberry leaves.
          Additionally, the similar-looking Black Mulberry (Morus nigra L.) tree was native to the Mediterranean region, and may be what is referred to here. They could well have been confused unless they were fruiting, when the large black fruits of the Black Mulberry would have clearly distinguished it from the White Mulberry (Morus alba L.), the leaves of which are used to raise the cultivated silkworm, as it bears white fruits. See the discussion in Hirth (1885), p. 256.

11.17. See the quotes in note 11.2 by Dubs (1957), pp. 2-3, and the translated quote from Saint-Denys (1876), pp. 268-269, in Appendix B, subsection (a) “Haixi 海西 – literally: ‘West of the Sea’ = Egypt.”
          The Shiji chapter 123 – written about 91 BCE – records that when the first envoys from China reached Anxi [Parthia]; “the king sent some of the eggs of the great birds which live in the region [ostriches], and skilled tricksters of Li-hsüan, to the Han court as gifts.” Dubs (1944), p. 277. See also this same event recorded in the Hou Hanshu, Chap. 96A, translated in CICA, p. 117-118.

11.18. This appears to be nothing more than a fabulous story told of an ideal country far-away and is reminiscent of many such stories told by early European travellers to distant lands.

11.19. For an account of these extravagant descriptions of the Roman Empire and its people, see note 11.1.

11.20. This sounds like a sober description of the Parthians’ desire to keep control of and raise taxes on the lucrative trade between China and the Roman Empire. The net result of this policy was, predictably, the development of alternative routes, particularly the route that headed north around the Aral and Caspian Seas to the country of the Alans who had contact with the Romans via Black Sea ports, and the long maritime route from southern Chinese territory (in what is now northern Vietnam) to East Africa and Egypt. Some of this maritime trade could have taken place through the intermediaries of the Roman trading stations or “factories” set up around the Indian coasts and at Oc Eo near the mouth of the Mekong.

11.21. This may well record Chinese surprise at the number of ordinary people who were literate in the Roman Empire. In China, at this time, it was only the privileged elite and government bureaucrats who were able to read and write. This was partly due to the fact that it is easier and quicker to learn an alphabetically-based phonetic form of writing. In addition, Jews (and some of the early Christian groups), insisted that every male learn how to read and write – so they could study the holy scriptures themselves in the original. There was the long Greek tradition of teaching men, in particular, to read and write and this heavily influenced the later Romans to value literacy as well:

“Literacy in Greece was never a craft skill, possessed only by experts, from the start writing was used for a great range of activities, from composing poetry to cursing enemies, from displaying laws to voting, from inscribing tombstones or dedications to writing shopping lists. To be completely illiterate was to be ignorant, uncultured: but our evidence shows that there existed all levels of skill in writing, spelling, and grammar: only a society in which literacy is widespread can offer such a range of evidence from semi-literacy to illiteracy. There is of course no sign that women were expected or encouraged to read, although many of them could. To be cautious, we may say that in a city like Athens well over half the male population could read and write, and that levels of literacy in the Greek cities of the classical and Hellenistic periods were higher that at any period in western culture before this century.” Boardman, Griffin and Murray (1986), pp. 227-228.

After the rise of the Roman Empire, it was common for Greek slaves to act as tutors to the sons of well-to-do Roman families.

11.22. Haibei 海北 [Hai-pei], literally: ‘North of the Sea,’ must refer to the lands between Babylonia and what is now Jordan and/or Syria. Refer to Appendix B for details.

11.23. This passage has caused some confusion to modern scholars. A ting 亭 [t'ing] in China was basically a shed or simple lodge for travellers to stop at, which I have called a ‘stage,’ and a zhi 置 [chih] was a ‘postal station’ or inn that could provide shelter, fresh horses, food and supplies.
          The Roman and Parthian systems of postal relays were further developments of the famous Achaemenid system initiated by Darius I circa 515 BCE. The road from Sardis to Susa was 2,475 km in length, and had 111 postal stations [i.e. on average, one every 4 parsangs, or about one every 22 km]. At normal rates of travel, the whole could be covered in 90 days (average speed = 27.5 km/day). However, by changing mounts and couriers, over 350 km could be covered in a day, and messages could be taken the whole length of the route, from Sardis to Susa, in just seven days. From: Ciolek (2000). See also: Dandamayev (1994), p. 52.
In fact, the Chinese, Parthians, and the Romans all had well-developed systems of postal stations and relays which were quite similar to each other:

“The voyager, having picked a conveyance or riding and pack animals, having loaded up and got under way, next faced the problem of where to stop for the night, and, if he was travelling with hired gear, where to find a change of animals and equipment. As it happened, his choices were often determined by the network of inns and hostels that belonged to the cursus publicus, the government post.
Rome’s cursus publicus was created by Augustus, but the idea of such a service was hardly original with him; it is an essential tool for any government that rules extended areas. The earliest examples we know of go back to the third millennium B.C., when the city-states of Mesopotamia first began to build miniature empires. . . . By the third century B.C., China’s Han dynasty and the super-centralized administration that the Ptolemies had set up in Egypt were running the nearest thing to a modern postal system that the ancient world was to know. The carriers were all mounted. In China the post-stations were some eleven miles apart, with two or more substations in between. In Egypt they were sparser, at intervals of six hours by horseback or roughly thirty miles apart. Some records of one of these Egyptian post offices have been dug up by the archaeologists, so we have a fair idea of the way they worked. Thanks to Egypt’s geography, mail had to go only north and south, along the ribbon of inhabited land bordering the Nile. The offices handled at least four deliveries daily, two from each direction. For packages and other heavier matter there was an auxiliary camel-back service.
          When Augustus conquered and annexed Egypt in 30 B.C., the system was right at hand to serve as a model. He, however, was interested neither in speed nor regular delivery. What he sought was a facility which would forward dispatches when necessary and permit him to interrogate the carriers as well as read the papers they brought. So he fashioned a service in which there were no relays: each messenger went himself the whole route, and since time was not of the essence, travelled in carriages rather than on horseback. As the system developed, the couriers were more and more drawn from the army, especially from the elite unit called speculatores ‘scouts’; instead of scouting the situation of an enemy, they scouted, as it were, the situation at the headquarters they were delivering to. . . .
          In Egypt the Romans may well have maintained the Ptolemies’ mail service, since it was so feasible a system there. But everywhere else the Roman post operated as Augustus had designed it, making sporadic deliveries according to need – or rather the emperor’s need, since officially only men carrying dispatches from him or for him were entitled to the privileges of the cursus publicus. Every user had to have a diploma, as a post warrant was called, signed by the emperor or, in his absence, his authorized agent; governors of provinces could also issue them, but they disposed of a limited number only, rationed out by the emperor. A diploma, entitling one to travel with the use of government maintained facilities, was a prized possession, and inevitably some fell into hands which did not deserve them. . . .
          . . . .  All along the routes at strategic intervals were more or less well-equipped inns called mansiones or stationes; the first term originally applied to places with the facilities to handle an imperial party, the second to posts maintained by the road police, but by this time the two had gradually merged. In between the mansiones or stationes were very simple hostels, mutationes ‘changing places’ as they were sometimes called, which could supply the minimum of a traveller’s needs – a bite to eat, a bed, and, as the name implies, a change of beasts or vehicle. The distance from one mansio to the next depended on the terrain and how thickly an area was populated, but in general an effort was made to keep them twenty-five to thirty-five miles apart, that is, the length of an average day’s travel. In densely settled districts, such as around the capital, they tended to be a good deal closer. There might be one or two hostels between a pair of mansiones, again depending on the terrain. . . .
          The inns and hostels of the cursus publicus were not built specifically for it, nor did they service only those travelling on official business, although these had an ironclad priority. The post, despite the fact that it was run wholly for the benefit of the central government, was largely maintained by the communities along the routes. The emperors simply selected given existing inns of the required quality and incorporated them into the system, requiring them to put up without charge any holder of a diploma who came along. Only in remote areas, as on mountain passes or along lonely tracts of road, did they have to build from scratch. . . ; such places, too, to help meet expenses put up all voyagers, private as well as official. Vehicles, animals, drivers, stablehands – all were requisitioned, wherever possible, from local citizens.” Casson (1974), pp. 182-186.

“As it happens, the Romans were not the only skilled road-builders of antiquity. On the other side of the world the powerful lords of the Han dynasty of China (c. 200 B.C. – A.D. 200) ruled an equally farflung empire, which they too knit together by means of a comprehensive system of highways. Their engineers, like Rome’s, laid the tracks as straight as possible, cutting through forests and bridging streams, and even outdid Rome’s when it came to hacking out roads in dizzying heights. They went in for greater width than Rome; fifty feet is mentioned for major routes, wide enough for nine chariots abreast. We cannot confirm the figure since the Chinese never used paving – gravel surfaces satisfied their needs – and accordingly hardly a trace of their ancient roads has survived. We have only contemporary or near contemporary descriptions to go on, and these cannot always be taken as gospel truth.” Casson, (1974), p. 174.

11.24. The report that there were no bandits or thieves along the roads in the Roman Empire is probably an accurate reflection of the effectiveness of Roman policing and severe application of the law within their territories. However, dangerous wild animals were common – to a degree it is hard to imagine these days.
          Herodotus (5^th century BCE) informs us that in the time of Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, lions were still a danger to caravans in the eastern parts of Greece:

“This road which led him [Xerxes] through Paeonia and Crestonia to the river Echeidorus, which rising in the country of the Crestonians, flows through Mydonia, and reaches the sea near the marsh upon the Axius.
          Upon this march the camels that carried the provisions of the army were set upon by lions, which left their lairs and came down by night, but spared the men and sumpter-beasts, while they made the camels their prey. I marvel what may have been the cause which compelled the lions to leave the other animals untouched and attack the camels, when they had never seen that beast before, nor had any experience of it.
          That whole region is full of lions, and wild bulls with gigantic horns which are brought into Greece. The lions are confined within the tract lying between the river Nestus (which flows through Abdera) on the one side, and the Acheloüs (which waters Acarnania) on the other. No one ever sees a lion in the fore part of Europe east of the Nestus [which divides Greek Macedonia and Thrace], nor through the entire continent west of the Acheloüs [which empties into the Ionian Sea near the southwest corner of mainland Greece]; but in the space between these bounds lions are found.” Herodotus (VII, 124-126), 1996 edition, p. 556.

“Game was plentiful: lions existed in the Euphrates valley until the middle of the nineteenth century. . . . ” Fedden (1955), p. 134.

“From the writings of the ancient historians it appears very clear that Lions were at one time found in Europe, but they have long since totally disappeared. They are also no longer seen in Egypt, Palestine or Syria, where they once were evidently far from uncommon ; and, as Cuvier remarks, even in Asia generally, with the exception of some countries between India and Persia, and some districts of Arabia, they have become comparatively rare. . . . How different it was in the time of the Romans! Struck with the magnificent appearance of these animals, they imported them in vast numbers from Africa, for their public spectacles.” Maunder (1878), p. 382.

11.25. For the translation of wangsuozhi cheng 王所治城 as ‘the king’s administrative capital’ – refer to the section titled: “About Measurements and Administrative Divisions,” at the end of the Introduction.
          For the circumference of Rome to have equalled 42 km, outlying suburbs must have been included. The greatest extent of the walled area of Rome was enclosed by the brick-faced concrete walls built by Aurelian in 270 CE. These were almost 12 miles (19 km) around and enclose an area of approximately 60 sq. kms. Many suburbs were, however, outside the walls.
          The population of Rome by the late 1^st to early 2^nd centuries has been estimated to be over a million people. The population began to decline rapidly during the plagues of the second century:

“Forty years later [after the ‘plague of Orosius in 125] there followed the plague of Antoninus, sometimes known as the plague of the physician Galen. The story is better documented than that of previous outbreaks. Disease started among the troops of the co-emperor Lucius Verus on the eastern borders of the empire. It was confined to the east for the two years 164-6 and caused great mortality among the legions under the command of Avidius Claudius, who had been sent to repress a revolt in Syria. The plague accompanied this army homewards, spreading throughout the countryside and reaching Rome in A.D. 166. It rapidly extended into all parts of the known world, causing so many deaths that loads of corpses were carried away from Rome and other cities in carts and wagons.
          The plague of Antoninus or Galen, is notable because it caused the first crack in the Roman defence lines. Until A.D.161 the empire continually expanded and maintained its frontiers. In that year a Germanic barbarian horde, the Marcomanni from Bohemia and the Quadi from Moravia, forced the north-eastern barrier of Italy. Owing to the fear and disorganization produced by the plague, full-scale retaliation could not be undertaken; not until A.D.169 was the whole weight of Roman arms thrown against the Marcomanni. Possibly the failure of this invasion was as much due to the legions carrying plague with them as to their fighting prowess, for many Germans were found lying dead on the battlefield without sign of wounding. The pestilence raged until A.D. 180; one of the last victims was the noblest of Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius. He died on the seventh day of his illness and is said to have refused to see his son at the last, fearing lest he, too, should succumb. After A.D.180 there came a short respite followed by a return in 189. The spread of this second epidemic seems to have been less wide, but mortality in Rome was ghastly; as many as 2,000 sometimes died in a single day.
          The name of the physician Galen is attached to the plague of A.D. 164-89 not only because he fled from it, but because he left a description of the disease. Initial symptoms were high fever, inflammation of the mouth and throat, parching thirst and diarrhoea. Galen described a skin eruption, appearing about the ninth day, sometimes dry and sometimes pustular. He implies that many patients died before the eruption appeared. There is some resemblance to the Athenian plague, but the undoubted Eastern origin and the mention of pustules have led many historians to assert that this was the first instance of a smallpox epidemic. One theory holds that the westward movement of the Huns started because of virulent smallpox in Mongolia; the disease travelled with them, was communicated to the Germanic tribes upon whom the Huns were pressing and, in turn, infected the Romans who were in contact with the Germans. Against this theory must be set the fact that the later history of the Roman outbreak in no way resembles the later history of European smallpox in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. But, as we shall see in some of the following chapters, the first appearance of a disease often takes a form and a course which is quite different from that of the disease once established.
          After A.D. 189, plague is not again mentioned until the year 250. . . . ” Cartwright and Biddiss (1972), pp. 12-14.

11.26. The title used here is jiang 將 [chiang], which is commonly translated as ‘general.’ However, it sometimes had a less militaristic meaning. Hucker, No. 690 includes: “(3) HAN: Leader of the expectant and unassigned officials who attended the Emperor as courtiers with the title Court Gentleman (lang).”
          Here, the mention of the “thirty-six leaders” seems probably to be a reference to the consuls:

          “Lastly, though Augustus did not form a Privy Council after the pattern of the Hellenistic monarchies, he laid the foundations of such a body. In 27 B.C. he instituted a committee of the Senate, consisting of the two consuls, of one representative apiece from each of the other colleges of magistrates, and of fifteen private members selected by lot, for a period of six months, to prepare the agenda and expedite the business of the whole House. In A.D.13 he reinforced this committee with members of the imperial family and additional nominated members of the equestrian order, and he carried out its recommendations without submitting them to the Senate for confirmation. In addition to this regularly constituted committee, Augustus also convened from time to time informal consilia of assessors in judicial cases, according to the ordinary custom of the republican magistrates. From these two sources the formal Consilium Principis was eventually derived.” Cary (1954), pp. 481-482.

          “The reign of Hadrian also marks an important stage in the history of Roman law. Under this emperor the annual edicts of the Praetors charged with civil jurisdiction at Rome, and presumably also the edicts of the provincial governors, were cast into final shape by a distinguished jurist named Salvius Iulianus. Henceforward the function of interpreting and expanding Roman law devolved mainly upon the Consilium Principis, to which the chief jurists of the day were regularly invited for consultation on judicial matters.” Cary (1954), p. 634.

I have not been able to confirm the existence of any body that had exactly thirty-six members or, if it did, at what time. It seems the largest number of consuls (25) existed under Commodus’ rule about 190 CE. They may have be joined by the consilium princeps, a council of usually five (but, perhaps, at times, more) men who advised the consul on civic improvements and laws that affected the Empire.

11.27. This seems to be another example of exaggerated travellers’ tales – an idealistic account of an exotic foreign civilisation. It may also be an embellished reference to the appeal process under the law afforded to Roman citizens. 

11.28. The Romans were justly famous for their magnificent glassware. The term used here is shui-ching (crystal or clear glass). The Chinese at this period apparently did not know how to make transparent glass so rock crystal and clear glass were often confused. Glass must be what is meant here. See also note 12.12 (30). Furthermore, the idea that the pillars of the palaces were made of glass is not as fanciful as it first sounds:

“Fused mosaic glass of marble-like or figural patterns was employed, for instance, to adorn the surfaces of walls and furniture. When Pliny describes the Theatre of Scaurus, built in 58 B.C. – where the second story of the stage building was faced with glass – he is probably alluding to mosaic glass made to imitate the swirling grains of marble (Natural History XXXV.24). Mosaic glass in bold patterns seems to have been used throughout the Empire period to decorate walls. Figural inlays of mosaic glass also decorated walls and furnishings.
Colorful opaque inlays for opus sectile mosaic were created from pre-formed shapes fitted together. Glass also came to be used in place of marble for tessera mosaics laid on floors, walls, and vaulted ceilings. The advantage of glass tesserae over marble one rested primarily with their consistently glittery quality and their range of colors, which could be produced on demand. According to Pliny, glass mosaic for walls and ceilings was introduced at Rome in the late first century B.C. The myriad uses made of opaque and colorful glass notwithstanding, clear glass was the most frequently admired in the world of Rome. In Pliny’s words:

. . . there is no other material nowadays that is more pliable or more adaptable, even to painting. However, the most highly valued glass is colorless and transparent. . . (Pliny, d. CE 79, Natural History XXXVI.66).”

From: Root, et al. (1982).

“Thanks to the discovery of glass-blowing in the Syro-Palestinian region during the first century B.C., glass vessels became commonplace throughout the empire by the first century A.D. and from time to time were exported to places as far afield as Scandinavia and the Far East.
          . . . . Augustan Rome was a rich city with a population that probably approached one million. Italy had other large cities, too, and the demand for manufactured items, including glass, was enormous. Glassmaking quickly became established, and blowing came into its own as the only technique that made large-scale glass production practicable.
          At the same time, glass became fashionable. Although lacking the intrinsic value of rock crystal and precious metal, it is attractive and, while some looked down on glass because it was cheap, others admired it. . . . The Romans’ ambivalence about glass is neatly summed up in Petronius’ Satyricon, where Trimalchio, the quintessential parvenu, remarks to his guests at dinner, “You will excuse me for what I am about to say: I prefer glass vessels. Certainly, they don’t smell and, if they weren’t so fragile, I would prefer them to gold. These days, however, they are cheap.” As Timalchio observed, glass vessels do not impart a taste or smell to substances they contain, and for this reason they were frequently used for food, perfumes, and medicines; indeed, the physician Scribonius Largus (active about A.D. 50) insisted that certain medical preparations should only be kept in glass containers.
          Glass was used at all stages in the preparation and consumption of food. Although the very rich would eat from gold and silver plates, many more used glass vessels for serving food, for drinking, and for washing hands between courses. Indeed, Propertius (died ca. 2 B.C.) reported that glass services were used instead of metal ones for drinking or dining in summer, and Seneca (died ca. A.D. 65) maintained that fruit appears more beautiful when it is in a glass vessel. At his absurdly lavish dinner party, Trimalchio served rare, vintage wines in glass amphorae. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, various foods and condiments, such as garum, a popular fish sauce, were stored in glass bottles and jars. In his treatise on agriculture (written ca. A.D. 60-65), Columella recommended using glass jars for preserving pickles. The jars should have vertical sides, he wrote, so that the contents can be compressed. Glass containers not only preserved the flavor, but also had the advantage (in a society with a high level of illiteracy) of allowing one to see the contents without removing the cover.” Whitehouse (1997), pp. 79-81.

          “The Sanskrit word vaiḍūra, which means lapis lazuli, beryl or cat’s-eye gem, is the origin of liu-li. Before Buddhism spread to China, the Chinese name for lapis lazuli, a precious stone from the north-west, was miu-lan. From the Han to the Northern dynasties miu-lan and liu-li came to be interchangeable terms for a few kinds of precious stones. . . .
          The word po-li underwent the same kind of transition [as liu-li]. The Sanskrit word sphāṭika, phalika in Pali, meaning crystal or quartz, is related to po-li. In the early Chinese context po-li and crystal (shui-ching) were synonyms (Chang Hung-chao 1921: 43). However, imported fake crystal enabled a few Chinese to realize that both po-li and the so-called crystal were man-made materials. Ke Hung (AD 284-386) pointed out that the imported ‘crystal vessels’ were actually made by mixing five kinds of minerals. He also ridiculed the ‘ignorant people’ who believed that the ‘crystal’ was a kind of natural precious stone like jade (Pao-p’u-tsu Nei-p’ien: II, 21). Because, by the third and the fourth centuries, most buyers did not distinguish between po-li and crystal, the two terms came to mean either rock crystal or transparent glass.
          During the period when the ancient Chinese imported po-li or liu-li they also continued to make their own glass, probably in order to imitate jade. The Later Han scholar Wang Ch’ung describes man-made jade thus: ‘The jade made out of melted jade-like stones is as brilliant as real jade’ (Yang Po-ta 1979: 77). The major characteristic of Chinese glass, as analysed by P. D. Ritchie, is the high proportion of lead, and in some samples, barium (1937). It contains much less silicon, the major element of modern glass, than does the glass from Egypt and other ancient countries. The high lead content resulted in a lower melting point and the greater fragility of the glass. Barium and other elements made it opaque. Wang Ch’ung made his comments in the period when the Chinese continued to make this opaque fragile glass long after they had seen the transparent glass vessels from foreign countries, they apparently did not understand that both their opaque material and the transparent glass shared similar chemical components and thus belonged to the same category of glass, at least as classified by modern glass experts. When the author of the history of the Northern Wei records that a merchant from the Yüeh-chih taught the Chinese how to make liu-li (WS: CII, 2275), he does not consider the jade-like materials long produced in China to be liu-li.
          The distinction between liu-li and po-li is not always clear outside Buddhist literature. The category liu-li includes transparent or translucent glass, which was a treasure for the emperors and other élite. In the legends about the Former Han Emperor Wu, liu-li was one of the treasures in his ‘Exotic Jewels Palace’, and the screen of another palace was made of ‘white liu-li’ – which can mean either white or transparent glass (Lu Hsün 1939: 347-9). In the Chin period, a minister, Wang Chi, who was considered extremely generous and extravagant, entertained Emperor Wu with po-li utensils (CS: XLII, 1206). An anecdote of Chin times records a comment on a liu-li vessel: ‘Why is this empty vessel a jewel? Because it is clear and transparent’ (Shih-shuo-hsin-yü: XXV, 595). What the owners actually treasured was the transparency of a glass vessel, be it called po-li, liu-li or crystal [shui-ching].
          Chinese élites were not alone in yearning for the transparent material. Pliny complains that crystal was a ‘crazy addition as a symbol of wealth and prestige’ in Rome (XXXVII 10). He says that Indian crystal was the most preferred (XXXVII 9). When the Indians exported crystal to the Roman empire some genuine crystal was probably also transported to China. Pliny’s time also saw a rapid development of glass-making in the West. He says that the glass-ware of his days closely resembles rock-crystal (XXXVII 10, XXXVI, 67). A few centuries later in China, the most extravagant prince Yüan Chen in the Northern Wei boasted of a few dozen crystal plates and bowls, glass (liu-li) vessels and red-jade cups. All of these vessels came from the Western Region (YHC: IV, 207). These ‘crystal plates and bowls’ were very likely transparent glass, as Ke Hung had pointed out two centuries earlier. . . .
          From the Han period on the Chinese viewed both the Roman empire and India as producers of liu-li. The official history of the Former Han described liu-li as a product of Chi-pin in the Kashmir region [sic – refer to Appendix K](HS: XCVI, 3885). At that time liu-li still mainly denoted lapis lazuli, whose origin was not far from Kashmir. By the time that the Later Han history identified the Roman empire as the origin of liu-li (HS: LXXXVIII, 2917) the word liu-li had come to mean glass. Later historians followed this tradition of viewing liu-li as of Roman origin until the Northern Wei History, when Yüeh-chih merchants, probably citizens of the small state surviving from the Kushan empire, are credited with the introduction of glass-making techniques.
          Like China, India began to produce glass much later than Egypt and Mesopotamia, but unlike China it produced good-quality glass very early. Very few samples from Taxila, Nalanda, Ahicchatra, Arikamedu and other sites show traces of lead, and none of them show any barium (B. B. Lal 1952). This feature enabled Indian workers to make transparent and clear glassware. Pliny referred to glass from India as being of good quality (XXXVI, 66; Schoff 1912: 220). Moreover, Roman traders brought flint glass to Barygaza (Periplus: 49). Indian workers must have been familiar with the technology of processing glass. The early Christian era witnessed the best period of glass production in ancient Indian history (Dikshit 1969: 25). However, Indian workers in the Kushan period do not seem to have been familiar with glass-blowing techniques. Most glass vessels found in Taxila were foreign imports, the local products being limited to moulded objects such as seals and beads (Dikshit 1969: 81ff.) Glass tiles in Taxila reveal that Indians were skilful at moulding large pieces of glass (B. B. Lal 1952: 22).” Liu (1988), pp. 58-62. See also: Stern (1991), pp. 113-124.

“Among the products of Nature, the most expensive... on the earth’s surface, it is rock-crystal...” Pliny NH (a), p. 377 (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204).

11.29. 澤散 Zesan [Tse-san] – Azania in East Africa. See note 15.1.

11.30. 驢分 Lüfen [Lü-fen] = Al Wajh on the east coast of the Red Sea? See note 16.1.

11.31. 且蘭 Qielan [Ch’ieh-lan] = Wadi Sirhan. See note 17.1.

11.32. 賢督 Xiandu [Hsien-tu] = Leuke Kome. See note 18.1.

11.33. The king of Sifu 汜復 [Szu-fu] = Petra. See note 19.1.

11.34. The king of Yuluo 于籮 [Yü-lo] = Karak. See note 20.1.

Section 12 – Products of Da Qin (Roman territory)

12.1. Fine linen – xichi 細絺 [hsi ch’ih] – fine linen. The term can refer to any ‘linen’ but in China usually referred to dolichos or hemp cloth. Here, in the Roman context, though, it undoubtedly referred to linen from flax – a major product of the Empire.

“Egypt, which had long been a big supplier of wheat, linen, and building stones, and the sole provider of papyrus and mosaic glass, now became [under the Julian-Claudian emperors, AD 14-68] the great entrepôt for Rome’s African and Asian trade. This hinged upon Alexandria, a city of about 500,000 inhabitants [the second largest in the Roman Empire], and a great processing as well as a great trading centre. Its linen industry made special cloths for the Asian trade, and its weavers also worked on Indian cottons and Chinese silks.” Simkin (1968), p. 38.

“Chinese silk, moreover, is mentioned only twice [in Diocletian’s famous Edict of 301 CE]; white silk at 12,000 denarii a pound, against 1,200 for the best linen yarn. . . . ” Simkin (1968), p. 47.

“The ancient world’s writing paper was either papyrus or parchment; papyrus was cheaper, practically all of it came [during the time of the Ptolemies] from Egypt, and its manufacture and sale belonged to the crown. So too did the textile industry, which, using native flax, produced for export not only fine fabrics but very likely much of the linen that went into sailcloth.” Casson (1959), p. 159.

“Originally a pleated robe was the mark of haute couture. Then the robe with a spotted pattern became démodé. Fenestella writes that the togas of Phyrgian wool with a smooth surface began to be in vogue in the last years of the late Emperor Augustus. Togas closely woven with poppy fibres go back further, and are already alluded to by the poet Lucilius in the case of Torquatus. The toga with a purple border had its origin in Etruria. I understand that kings used robes of state. Embroidered robes were already in existence in Homer’s time and are the origin of those worn at triumphs.” Pliny the Elder (1991), pp. 125-126 (NH VIII.195).

12.2. The Roman exchange rate in the 3^rd century Weilue of gold to silver at 1 : 10 is very close to the 1 : 11 ratio of Pliny’s time (c. 77 CE):

“Pliny, a well-informed adviser of Vespasian (A.D. 69-79), reckoned that each year Indian trade drained Rome of 12,500,000 denarii and that the Arabian and Chinese trade together of at least another 12,500,000 denarii. The denarius was a silver coin – perhaps it was helpful that Rome preferred silver to gold while India had the opposite preference – and in Pliny’s day had a content of 3.1-3.3 grams. The aureus had a gold content of 7.3 grams so that, as an aureus was worth 25 denarii [and, therefore, Rome was exporting the equivalent of 7,300 kg of gold each year], the two metals had an exchange ratio of 1 :11. . . .
          By modern standards this is not a large drain for a great empire, but it was substantial for the Ancient World as a few comparisons may indicate. It has been estimated that, between 200 and 150 B.C., the Roman Republic obtained 261,000,000 denarii as booty or indemnities from the Mediterranean conquests, Gaul, Asia, and Spain’s gold mines, the chief western source. This works out at 50,000,000 denarii a year, twice Pliny’s estimate of the annual loss to Asia. The Emperor Tiberius, moreover, a frugal man, left his successor only 750,000 denarii. In China, the usurping Emperor Wang Mang, by A.D. 23, had accumulated a gold treasure of 156,200 kilograms and so equivalent to 540,000,000 denarii, or about twenty-two times Pliny’s estimate.
          The crucial question, of course, is the relation of Rome’s gold drain to its Asian imports. Rostovtzeff held that ‘the goods of the east were paid for, without doubt, partly with silver and gold coins, as Pliny says, but mostly by goods produced in the empire, especially in Alexandria’. No evidence is adduced for this view but it is, perhaps, supported by the apparent success Vespasian had in halting the outflow of coins to India. Although, too, the Periplus refers to ‘a great quantity of coin’ being sent to South India, and a profitable exchange for gold and silver at Barygaza, it does not mention significant exports of coin to other ports of the Erythraean Sea and lists many exports from Rome or Egypt. . . . ” Simkin (1968), pp. 45-46.

“It was later decided to strike denarii at 40 to the pound of gold and the emperors gradually reduced the weight of the gold denarius; most recently Nero devalued it to 45 denarii to the pound.” Pliny NH (a), p. 293 (bk. XXXII, chap. 47).

To follow these quotes it should be pointed out that 25 silver denarii equalled one gold denarius. Also, one Roman pound equalled 327.25 grams.
          Thus, from the latter quote of Pliny’s it can be calculated that the Roman gold to silver standard had been 10 : 1 and was gradually reduced. By the time of Nero it was about 1 : 11. However, it may have been raised again after Nero’s time. According to Prasad (1977), p. 174:

“in Plato’s and Xenophon’s time and more than 100 years after the death of Alexander 10 : 1.” This, apparently, continued for some time, probably into the period covered by the Weilue: “The relative value of silver and gold was 10 : 1 which continued for a long time. It was an international relative value. Ancient India by establishing the Mana standard of exchange currency internationalised the relative value at 10 : 1.”

For the trade of Roman coins to India see also: Lebedeva (1988); Sherkova (1990); Nagaswami (1995), pp. 21-27; Ray (2003), esp. pp. 181, 210-213.

12.3. ‘Sea wool’ or ‘silk’. There are two early references to shuiyang 水羊 – literally, ‘water-sheep,’ in Chinese literature that have caused considerable confusion for many years. It appears that it referred to the very rare byssus or thread like filaments produced by the large Pinna nobilis shell found in the Mediterranean. These shells produced an extremely fine, yet strong and beautiful silky fibre. Refer to Appendix D.

12.4. ye jiansi 野繭絲 – “silk from wild cocoons.” For a full description of the use of wild silks in the Roman Empire, refer to Appendix E.         

12.5. Haidong – ‘East of the Sea’ = Persis, and other lands to the east of the Persian Gulf. Refer to Appendix B.

12.6. The Chinese terms for the silks in this passage are: 絲 szu – silk thread; a general word for silks; and 綾 ling – damask or twilled silk = Sogdian parang (pr’ynk, pryng) – Kageyama (2003). See note 12.12 (46).

          “It has been supposed that the Greeks learned of silk through Alexander’s expedition, but it probably reached them previously through Persia. Aristotle (Hist. Anim., V, xix, 11) [4^th century BCE] gives a reasonably correct account: “It is a great worm which has horns and so differs from others. At its first metamorphosis it produces a caterpillar, then a bombylius, and lastly a chrysalis – all these changes taking place within six months. From this animal women separate and reel off the cocoons and afterwards spin them. It is said that this was first spun in the island of Cos by Pamphile, daughter of Plates.” This indicates a steady importation of raw silk on bobbins before Aristotle’s time. The fabric he mentions was the famous Cos vestis, or transparent gauze (woven also at Tyre and elsewhere in Syria), which came into favour in the time of Cæsar and Augustus. Pliny mentions Pamphile of Cos, “who discovered the art of unwinding the silk” (from the bobbins, not from the cocoons) “and spinning a tissue therefrom; indeed, she ought not to be deprived of the glory of having discovered the art of making garments which, while they cover a woman, at the same time reveal her naked charms.” (XI, 26). He refers to the same fabric again in VI, 20, “the Seres, so famous for the wool [= silk floss. See: Casson (1989), pp. 238-239] that is found in their forests. After steeping it in water, they comb off a soft down that adheres to the leaves; and then to the females of our part of the world they give the twofold task of unravelling their textures, and of weaving the threads afresh. So manifold is the labor, and so distant are the regions which are thus ransacked to supply a dress through which our ladies may in public display their charms.” Compare Lucan, Pharsalia, X, 141, who describes Cleopatra, “her white breasts resplendent through the Sidonian fabric, which, wrought in close texture by the skill of the Seres, the needle of the workman of the Nile has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out the web.”
Silk fabrics of this kind were much affected by men also during the reign of Augustus, but this fashion was considered effeminate, and early in the reign of Tiberius the Roman Senate enacted a law “that men should not defile themselves by wearing garments of silk.” (Tacitus, Annals, II, 33) the cost was enormously high; from an account of the Emperor Aurelian we learn that silk was worth its weight in gold, and that he neither used it himself nor allowed his wife to possess a garment of it, thereby setting an example against the luxurious tastes that were draining the empire of its resources.” Schoff (1912), pp. 264-265.

It seems that quite early in the silk trade from China to the Mediterranean, the silks were taken to Sidon and Tyre to be dyed and a method was found to reweave the thick Chinese cloths into transparent gauzes. It is of great interest to find descriptions of this process corroborated in both the Roman and the Chinese sources. These dyed silk gauzes soon became fashionable.
          Ma Duanlin [Ma Tuan-lin] in his Wenxiantongkao [Wên-hsien-t’ung-k’ao], ch. 330 has a rather similar passage to the one in the Weilue but gives more details:

“They [people from Ta Ch’in] make all kinds of rugs [Chü-sou, T’a-têng, Chi-chang, etc.]; their colours are still more brilliant than are those manufactured in the countries on the east of the sea. They always made profit by obtaining the thick plain silk stuffs of China, which they split in order to make foreign ling kan wên [lingganwen 綾绀紋 = ‘purple patterned damask’], and they entertained a lively trade with the foreign states of An-hsi [Parthia] by sea.” Ma Duanlin [Ma Tuan-lin], quoted in: Hirth (1885), pp. 80-81. 

Procopius, writing about 500 CE said:

“The manufacture of silken garments had for many generations been a staple industry of Beirut and Tyre, two cities of Phoenicia. The merchants who handled these and the skilled and semi-skilled workmen who produced them had lived there from time immemorial, and their wares were carried from there into every land.” Williamson (1966), pp. 115-116.

“In Parthian times, some of the high officials of both Palestinian and Babylonian Jewry participated in the international silk trade. The Babylonians included Ḥiyya the Elder, Abba the father of Samuel, Judah b. Bathyra of Nisibis, and others; the first named was probably related to, and a Palestinian representative of, the Babylonian exilarch (see below). Among the Palestinians was R. Simeon the son of R. Judah. Babylonia was the western entrepôt of silk from China; the thread was woven and manufactured into clothing for the Roman market in Palestine and Syria. Jews, represented on both sides of the frontier, were in a favourable position to profit from the trade. So, in particular, were the representatives of the Jewish administrations established by the respective imperial régimes. Since the silk trade was closely supervised by the Parthian government, it stands to reason that the Jewish participants were encouraged by the government, which found them an efficient means of carrying on the international exchange.” Neusner (1983), pp. 912-913.  

“The Chinese trade differed from the Indian trade mainly in that the bulk of its material consisted in silk textures which, before they were thrown on the Roman market, had to undergo the process of dyeing, chiefly purple dyeing, at Tyre or Sidon, or that of being woven (rewoven?) at Berytus or Tyre. The next route from the Red Sea to the manufacturing towns of the Phœnician coast, however, did not lead through Egypt, but through the country of the Nabataeans.” Hirth (1885), pp. 158-159.

“Towards the other extremity of the line of commerce, at Palmyra, some woolen cloths and Chinese silks found in tombs and having, perhaps, served as shrouds, present similarities of style and technique with fragments of material from Lou-lan, in the eastern region of Lop-nor, likewise found by Aurel Stein. An exchange of professional knowledge had been able to take place between the two races of weavers. Fabrics of monochrome silk with a damask weave have been found at Palmyra which Mr. Pfister calls the Han weave. It produces a thick material, as it has two faces; on one side it shows the pattern of damask; on the other it has the appearance of a taffeta, which serves to stiffen it (the specialists pronounce taffeta or linen cloth the simplest fabric to weave, the warp and the weft are mixed together like in darning; this is the most rudimentary technique). The combination of these two weaves into one represents quite an advanced art of weaving, which is attributed to the Chinese. These materials, damasked according to the Han weave, had a scintillating appearance. The Parthian standards of the battle of Carrhae [53 B.C.], to which history has definitely attributed a heavy responsibility, were probably made of Chinese damask.
          It was the taste for light weaves which caused the abandonment of these heavy silks, even though in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries Chinese silk had become abundant. A Palmyrene material has been found from the 2^nd century – it has a woolen weft dyed with cochineal, an expensive dye (yet less than the prohibitively priced purple) on a weft of Chinese silk, almost invisible, dyed with madder, which colours cheaply. The silk served only as a base like the coarse canvas of a beautiful tapestry, and it was the damask wool that was shown.” Translated from: Boulnois (1992), pp. 147-148.

“A piece of crimson damask with a rhombic design was recovered from one of the 2^nd century B.C. tombs excavated at Mawangtui, Changsha, Hunan Province: A Damask is a monochrome fabric made by the use of the drawloom. The background is woven by plain weave, while the decorative patterns appear as twill weave with warp threads three up and one down. . . . ” Anonymous, 1976: note 56.

“Similarly, the use of other prohibited textiles [for the Buddhist clergy] such as silk obtained from the silk-worm (koseyya) is also associated with the Chhabbagiyas [“or ‘Group of Six,’ who were prone to the emulation of an elite lifestyle”], as is the use of silk-mixed woollen rugs and wrappers. The Buddha is shown as reluctantly accepting gifts of expensive silk and woollen shawls imported from the Sibi country in the north-west (Vinaya Piṭaka I: 281). This association of expensive and fine textiles with elite status is evident in descriptions of the nāgaraka or urban elite in Sanskrit literature. The Mandasor inscription refers to women wearing two garments of silk on special occasions, while Kalidasa describes weddings where both the bride and the groom were attired in expensive fabrics termed dukūla and identified as silk (Kumārasambhava VII: 7, 26, 73; Raghuvaṁśa VII: 18, 19).” Ray (2003), p. 221.

“Another use of textiles was as a medium of exchange. The Kharoshthi inscriptions from Central Asia dated to around the fourth century indicate that silk was used as a payment in transactions, and even render the price of a woman as equivalent to forty-one bolts of silk (Burrow 1940: 27,95). Similarly, there is mention of Buddhist monasteries fining monks in silk.” Ray (2003), p. 227.

12.7. These “nine-coloured jewels” are almost certainly fluorite (calcium fluoride - also known as fluorspar). It not only comes in more colour varieties than any gem other than quartz, but it also exhibits fluorescence, phosphorescence and thermoluminescence.
          The reference to them being of “inferior” or “second-rate” quality stems, I would imagine from the fact that fluorite is relatively soft and is easy to scratch or damage (unlike jade).
          Interestingly, the colours attributed to it in our text (blue, carnation red, yellow, white, black, green, purple, red, dark blue) closely approximate the following modern description (which also lists nine distinct colours):

“Fluorite is a mineral with a veritable bouquet of colors. Fluorite is well known and prized for its glassy lustre and rich varieties of colors. The range of common colors for fluorite starting from the hallmark color purple, then blue, green, yellow, colorless, brown, pink, black and reddish orange is amazing and only rivaled in color range by quartz. Intermediate pastels between the previously mentioned colors are also possible. It is easy to see why fluorite earns the reputation as “The Most Colorful Mineral in the World”. . . .
          Most specimens of fluorite have a single color, but a significant percentage of fluorites have multiple colors and the colors are arranged in bands or zones that correspond to the shapes of the fluorite’s crystals. In other words, the typical habit of fluorite is a cube and the color zones are often in a cubic arrangement. The effect is similar to phantomed crystals that appear to have crystals within crystals that are of differing colors. A fluorite crystal could have a clear outer zone allowing a cube of purple fluorite to be seen inside. Sometimes the less common habits such as a colored octahedron are seen inside of a colorless cube. One crystal of fluorite could potentially have four or five different color zones or bands.
          To top it all off, fluorite is frequently fluorescent and, like its normal light colors, its fluorescent colors are extremely variable. Typically it fluoresces blue but other fluorescent colors include yellow, green, red, white and purple. Some specimens have the added effect of simultaneously having a different color under longwave UV light from its color under shortwave UV light. And some will even demonstrate phosphorescence in a third color! . . . .
          Another unique luminescent property of fluorite is thermoluminescence. Thermoluminescence is the ability to glow when heated. Not all fluorites do this, in fact it is quite a rare phenomenon. A variety of fluorite known as “chlorophane” can demonstrate this property very well and will even thermoluminesce while the specimen is being held in a person’s hand activated by the person’s own body heat (of course in a dark room, as it is not bright enough to be seen in daylight). The thermoluminescence is green to blue-green and can be produced on the coils of a heater or electric stove top. Once seen, the glow will fade away and can no longer be seen in the same specimen again.” Amethyst Galleries Inc. (2000).

Fluorite was considered a luxury item in the Roman Empire as this account from Pliny makes clear:

“That same victory [over Mithradates IV of Pontus, in eastern Anatolia in 63 BCE] first brought myrrhine ware to Rome. Pompey was the first to dedicate fluorspar bowls and cups from his triumph to Capitoline Jupiter. Vessels of fluorspar immediately passed into everyday use, and even display stands and tableware were eagerly sought. This kind of extravagance increases daily. An ex-consul drank from a fluorspar cup for which he had paid 70,000 sesterces, although it only held 3 pints. He was so enamoured of it that he used to chew the rim. Yet this damage increased its value, and no item of fluorspar today bears a higher price-tag on it. . . .
          When the ex-consul Titus Petronius was at the point of death, he broke a fluorspar ladle for which he had paid 300,000 sesterces, thus depriving the emperor’s dining-room table of this legacy. Nero, however, as was fitting for an emperor, outdid everyone by paying a million sesterces for a single bowl. That a commander-in-chief and Father of his Country paid so much to drink is a matter worthy of record.
          The East exports fluorspar vessels. There the mineral is found in many otherwise unremarkable places, especially in the kingdom of Parthia. The best specimens of fluorspar, however, occur in Carmania. The actual mineral is thought to be a liquid that is solidified underground by heat. Pieces of fluorspar are never larger than a small display stand, and usually seldom even the size of the drinking vessels to which I have alluded. They shine, but not intensely – indeed, they can more accurately be said to glisten. Their value lies in their variegated colours. As the veins swirl round they vary repeatedly from purple to white to a mixture of the two, the purple becoming fiery, and the milk-white, red, as though the new colour was passing through the vein.
          Some people reserve special admiration for pieces whose edges reflect colours as we see them in the inner part of a rainbow. The smell of fluorspar is also one of its attractions.” Pliny NH, XXXVII, 18, 20-21; (1991), pp. 366-367.

12.8. This probably refers to a mountain near the important oasis of Hami (I-wu 伊吾 – modern Kumul). Alternatively, it could possibly be a reference to the Yiwulu [I-wu-lü] Mountains to the west of Shenyang (Mukden) in Manchuria (modern Liaoning Province), where an unusual stone, called xunyuqi [sün-yü-k’i or hsün-yü-ch’i], which was classed as a type of jade is found. A piece of it was obtained by Da Cheng [Ta-Ch’êng], an Imperial Commissioner when he passed through the region circa 1884, who said:

“I obtained a piece of jade produced in the I-wu-lü mountains. It was cut and polished into the shape of a girdle pendant, in size not exceeding an inch. I confess I have not yet seen such big ones. The common name is ‘stone of Kin chou.’ It is not very expensive or esteemed. The jade substance in the ring under consideration is similar to the Kin chou stone. There are especially differences between the old and the modern ones: if it has lain underground for a long time, the color receives a moist gloss and reflects under the light. Truly it is an unusual kind of jade.” Laufer (1912), p. 109.

12.9. Chapter 118 of the Hou Hanshu provides interesting details of Chen Pan’s career:

“During the Yuanchu period [114-120 CE] in the reign of Emperor An, An Guo, the king of Shule (Kashgar), exiled his maternal uncle Chen Pan to the Yuezhi (Kushans) for some offence. The king of the Yuezhi became very fond of him. Later, An Guo died without leaving a son. His mother directed the government of the kingdom. She agreed with the people of the country to put Yi Fu (literally, ‘Posthumous Child’), who was the son of a younger brother of Chen Pan, and born of the same mother as him, on the throne as king of Shule (Kashgar). Chen Pan heard of this and appealed to the Yuezhi (Kushan) king, saying:

“An Guo had no son. The men of his mother’s family are young and weak. I am Yi Fu’s paternal uncle; it is I who should be king.”

The Yuezhi (Kushans) then sent soldiers to escort him back to Shule (Kashgar). The people had previously respected and been fond of Chen Pan. Besides, they dreaded the Yuezhi (Kushans). They immediately took the seal and ribbon from Yi Fu and went to Chen Pan, and made him king.” See CWR Section 21.

In the section on the Kingdom of Jumi or Keriya the Hou Hanshu (CWR Section 3) adds:

“In the first Yangjia year [132 CE], Xu You sent the king of Shule (Kashgar), Chen Pan, who with 20,000 men, attacked and defeated Yutian (Khotan). He beheaded several hundred people, and released his soldiers to plunder freely. He replaced the king [of Jumi] by installing Cheng Guo from the family of [the previous king] Xing, and then he returned.”

These accounts involving the Kashgari prince, Chen Pan, being held hostage by the Kushan king (who “became very fond of him”) almost certainly form the basis of the story that Xuan Zang, the famous Chinese pilgrim monk, heard when he was travelling through the Punjab in 633 CE. Of interest is the fact that the Kushan king, who remains unnamed in the Hou Hanshu, is named as Kanishka in Xuan Zang’s account:

“When Kanishka was reigning the fear of his name spread to many regions so far even as to the outlying vassals of China to the west of the Yellow River. One of these vassal states being in fear sent a hostage to the court of king Kanishka, (the hostage being apparently a son of the ruler of the state). The king treated the hostage with great kindness and consideration, allowing him a separate residence for each of the three seasons and providing him with a guard of the four kinds of soldiers. This district was assigned as the winter residence of the hostage and hence it was called Chinabhukti. The pilgrim proceeds to relate how Peaches and Pears were unknown in this district and the parts of India beyond until they were introduced by the “China hostage.” Hence, he tells us, peaches were called “Chināni” and pears were called “China-rājaputra.” Watters (1904-1905); reprint 1973, I, pp. 292-293 and p. 194. See also: Beal (1884), pp. 56-58; Wriggins (1996), pp. 48, 229, n. 22.

If the recent dating of the beginning of Kanishka’s era in 127 CE – see Falk (2001) – is accepted, it becomes necessary to explain the traditional association of Kanishka with Chen Pan – as the text says that he was sent as a hostage to the Kushan king “during the Yuanchu period [114-120 CE] in the reign of Emperor An.” [Note: a number of writers have repeated the mistake (made first, I believe, by Sten Konow in his work of 1929) of claiming that the Yuanchu period ran from 114-116. In fact, the Yuanchu period ran 114 to 120 CE – see Tung (1960)].
          The involvement of Kanishka several years before the beginning of his era, could be explained in any of several ways: Chen Pan could have been sent to the Kushans while Kanishka was still a prince; Kanishka could have ruled jointly for a period with his father, Wima Kadphises; or Kanishka might have been ruling for some time before 127 CE. It is, in fact, likely that the inauguration of this new era celebrated Kanishka’s conquests in northeastern India, rather than the beginning of his reign, as is usually assumed. 
          In addition, the first character of Chen Pan 臣槃 was possibly not intended to represent a part of the king’s name but was, rather, a title that meant something like a ‘subject,’ ‘vassal,’ or ‘minister.’ See Williams, p. 44, also GR No. 649.

12.10. jingshi 青石 [ching shih] is not specific. The term often referred to lapis-lazuli, but could have been any other blue or green stone. As it came from Haixi (Egypt), and was presumably considered rare and valuable, it could have been emerald or peridot from the Egyptian mines. It is impossible to decide definitively. GR No. 2136, lists under ching shih: Chlorothionite; granite; freestone; diorite; and ultramarine and lapis lazuli. See also: Pelliot (1959), pp. 58-61; Williams (1909), p. 158; Schafer (1963), pp. 230-234 and nn.
          Hirth (1875), p. 72, translates this phrase: 疏勒王臣磐獻海西靑石金帶口各一 as: “… the king and minister of Su-lê presented to the court each a golden girdle beset with blue stones from Hai-hsi. . . .”.
          geyi 各一, the last two words in the phrase, mean “one of each,” so that the gift from the Chen Pan was not “a golden girdle beset with blue stones” but, rather, “a blue (or green) gem and a golden girdle.” See GR 5909, p. 685.
          This king, Chen Pan 臣磐, was surely the same Chen Pan 臣磐 mentioned in the Hou Hanshu who was made a hostage of the Yuezhi during the Yuanchu period [114-120 CE], and was later placed on the throne of Kashgar by the king of the Yuezhi.
          In 132 CE, Chen Pan defeated Khotan and: “In the second Yangjia year [133 CE], Chen Pan again made offerings (including) a lion and zebu cattle.”
          Chen Pan seems to have had a very long reign because the next paragraph from the Hou Hanshu tells us: “Then, during Emperor Ling’s reign, in the first Jianning year [168 CE], the king of Shule (Kashgar) and Commandant-in-Chief for the Han (= Chen Pan?), was shot while hunting by the youngest of his paternal uncles, He De. He De named himself king. (see TWR Sections 3 and 21).         

12.11. 卽次玉石也. This could be read literally as either: ‘approaching the quality of jade’ or, possibly, ‘approaching second-class jade.’

“Chinese sources refer to the production of jade in the prefecture of Kue-lin, Kuang-si Province (G. DEVÉRIA, Histoire des Relations de la Chine avec l’Annam, p. 95, Paris, 1880). But this remains somewhat doubtful, as the designation in this case is yü shih, “jade-stone” (instead of yü) which may refer and usually refers to only jade-like stones.” Laufer (1912), p. 25.

12.12. Roman Product List

12.12 (1) gold – 金 jin.

“I must not pass over the fact that gold, with which all mankind is madly obsessed, is scarcely tenth in the list of valuable commodities, while silver, with which gold is bought, is almost twentieth.” Ibid. p. 377 (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204).

“According to some sources, Asturia, Gallaecia and Lusitania produce 20,000 pounds of gold in a year; Asturia supplies the largest amount. Spain has long been the main gold-producing area in the world.” Pliny NH (a), p. 299 (bk. XXXIII, chap. 78).

“All gold contains a varying proportion of silver – some a tenth, some an eighth. In one mine only – Albucrara in Gallaecia – the proportion of silver found is a thirty-sixth, which makes this gold more valuable than the rest. Where the proportion of silver is at least one-fifth, the ore is called electrum; grains of this are found in ‘channelled’ gold. An artificial electrum alloy is also made by adding silver to gold. If the proportion of silver exceeds one-fifth, the electrum offers no resistance to the anvil.” Ibid. pp. 299-300 (bk. XXXIII, chap. 80).

“If we wish to speak of an area where Roman coins had no currency this is the territory east of Mesopotamia. There are not sufficient grounds, therefore, to suppose (as Lebedeva does, p. 52) that Roman coins penetrated the Afghano-Pakistan area along caravan routes and not across the sea. This suggestion used to be made, it is true, concerning the Central Asian finds of Roman coins. However, Zeimal links them to the “steppe” section of the continental trade route and not with the main route that ran across the Iranian plateau from Egypt and the Near East.
          A different solution may be offered concerning the Indian finds as a whole, and not just those of coins: that Roman coins penetrated India through the ancient ports of Barigaza and Barbarikon. Here the author of the Periplus made a very relevant comment. Gold and silver coins were imported into Barigaza, he said, because it was profitable to exchange them for local coinage. This remark is also interesting in terms of the economic bases of Egypto-Roman trade with India through this port. In any case, this passage alone provides quite direct testimony of the monetary basis of Roman trade with India. . . . ” Sherkova (1990), pp. 108-109.

For an interesting account of the role played in international trade at the time between China, Rome, and other countries, see Dubs (1958), Appendix II, “Wang Mang’s Economic Reforms,” especially pp. 506-516.

12.12 (2) silver – 銀 yin. Silver has always been in rather short supply in most of China requiring imports from the south (modern Yunnan) or overseas.

“But the eight provinces mentioned above combined cannot produce half as much silver as Yunnan. The mining and refining of this metal, therefore, can be carried on continuously only in the latter province.” Sung (1637), p. 238.

12.12 (3) copper – 銅 tong.

“In China there was a customary ratio between gold and [copper] cash (10,000 cash to 1 catty of gold, 130 to 1).” Dubs (1958), p. 515. [Note: One Han “catty” or jin 斤 equalled 244 grams or 7.85 troy ounces.]

          “According to the Shan-hai ching [Geographic Classic] there were 437 copper producing mountains in China. This is an estimate probably based on fact. Among the present sources of supply in China, Szechuan and Kweichow are foremost in the west while in the southeast there are imports from overseas. There are, in addition, many copper mines at Wuchang in Hukuang and Kuang-hsin in Kiangsi.” Sung (1637), p. 242.

For the nationalisation of copper production and its use in currency see Dubs (1958), pp. 526-527.

“Gold, silver and copper were the main metals traded and exchanged in antiquity both as currency and as bullion. Though sources of copper, lead and some tin are available in the subcontinent, the Periplus refers to the import of copper, tin and lead to Kane (section 28), Barygaza (section 49) and Muziris (section 56).” Ray (2003), p. 233.

12.12 (4) iron – 鐵 tie. Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) makes a brief reference (Natural History, bk. XXXIV, chap. 144) to the production of iron with a high carbon content (nucleus ferri, or steel) to provide hard edges for blades. In the next section (145) he pointed out that the Chinese (‘Seres’ – who may have been the Central Asiatic tribes in contact with the Chinese) produced the best iron and that it was imported into the Roman Empire:

“There is also a great difference in the way furnaces are used: by one special process the iron is smelted to give hardness to a blade; by another, to give solidity to anvils and hammer-heads. But the chief difference is the water into which the red-hot metal is at intervals plunged. . . .
          Of all the various kinds of iron Chinese takes first prize: it is exported to us along with fabrics and skins. The second prize goes to Parthia. These are the only kinds of iron forged from pure metal, all others being alloyed with a softer metal. . . . ” Pliny NH (a), p. 320 (bk. XXXIV, chaps. 144-145).

12.12 (5) lead – 鉛 qian. China possessed good supplies of lead and had no need to import any:

          “There are more lead-producing mines than there are copper or tin. . . . The price of lead is low, yet it is an amazingly versatile metal.” Sung (1637), p. 252.

          “Lead offers what at first sight seems to be a problem. The Periplus’s lists of objects of trade reveal that the sole market for Western lead was India: shippers delivered it to Barygaza (49:16.21) on the northwest coast and to Muziris/Nelkynda on the southwest (56:18.19). Conformably, Pliny states categorically (34.163) that India has no lead. This is not so: she has ample deposits of it; as an authority cited by Watt (iv 602) puts it, “there is probably no metal of which the ores have been worked to so large an extent in ancient times, excepting those of iron.” But there is a plausible explanation why Pliny thought otherwise and why we find India importing lead: the commonest lead-bearing ore there is galena, and, as Watt suggests, it may well have been worked solely for the silver it contained.” Casson (1989), p. 28. See note 12.12 (6) for the recent discovery of ancient Muziris, just south of the mouth of the Periyar river mouth in Kerala State, southwestern India.

“Lead. – Pliny ( XXXIV, 47-50 ) distinguishes between black lead and white lead; the former being our lead, the latter tin. . . . White lead he says came from Lusitania and Galicia, doubting its reported origin in “islands of the Atlantic,” and its transportation in “boats made of osiers, covered with hides.”

          Black lead, he says, came from Cantabria in Spain, and his description suggests galena, or sulphide of lead and silver. It came also from Britain and Lusitania – where the Santarensian mine was farmed at an annual rental of 250,000 denarii.
          Lead was used in the form of pipes and sheets, and had many medicinal uses, being used in calcined form, made into tablets in the same way as antimony…, or mixed with grease and wine. It was used as an astringent and repressive, and for cicatrization; in the treatment of ulcers, burns, etc., and in eye preparations; while thin plates of lead worn next to the body were supposed to have a cooling and beneficial effect.
          As an import at Barygaza lead was required largely for the coinage of the Saka dominions.” Schoff (1912), p. 190.

12.12 (6) tin – 錫 xi. Tin has always been in high demand for making bronze and is far less common (and therefore expensive) than the other ingredient, copper.

          “Tin is produced in many places in southeastern China, but in very few in the northeastern parts of the country. Tin is called ho in ancient books, because it was produced most abundantly in Lin-ho Commandery [in modern Kwang-si], Eight-tenth’s of today’s tin supply comes from Nan-tan and Ho-ch’ih in Kwangsi, followed by Heng-chou and Yung-chou [both in Hunan]; large quantities are also produced in Ta-li and Ch’u-hsiung [in Yunnan], but these places are too remote and not easily accessible.” Sung (1637), p. 251

Recent research shows that tin was being exported long distances at a very early date. The following abstract from the 33^rd International Symposium on Archaeometry, 22-26 April 2002 Amsterdam. The evidence shows that tin from East Africa was being brought to the Mediterranean by about 1000 BCE.

“163 Central Africa as a Source of Phoenician Tin

John E. Dayton

University College London, The Institute of Archaeology, 78 Dean Street, London W 1V 6BE, UK

Recent lead isotope analyses of tin ingots found in Haifa in 1982 have thrown new light on possible sources of Bronze Age tin. The writer analysed Central African leads in 1971, 1978 and 1986, and found that they had a very young and unmistakable signal. The analyses of Begernanli show that some of the Haifa tin came from the extensive tin fields of Central Africa. These are not from mythical locations with ppm’s of tin but from areas with large tin mines exist producing thousands of tons a year.
          The ancient Egyptians made voyages from about: 2500 BC to “The Land of Punt” whose location has been the subject of much speculation. Tin bronzes are late in appearing in Egypt, with the arrival of foreign rulers known as the Hyksos c. 1650 BC (In the writer’s opinion the true bronzes of Ur dated c. 2400 BC are an anachronism).
          Now we have firm evidence of the Phoenicians, great sea-faring traders obtaining tin from Uganda at about 1000 BC. The mineral deposits of Central Africa and other load isotopes analyses will be discussed. showing that long distance trade in metals existed from early in the 2nd millennium B.C. More lead isotopes analyses are needed to clear up this mystery, and the route to Punt.” [Downloaded from: http://www.geo.vu.nl/archaeometry/abstracts/metaltopic.pdf on 9/12/03. Some minor typing errors have been corrected]

It would seem likely that this trade would have been continued into Roman times, although we have no direct proof of it yet.

          “Tin presents a somewhat similar problem [to lead, in that it was imported into India], but in this case there is no ready explanation. Tin was a commodity much in demand in ancient times for, alloyed with copper, it forms bronze. Western tin found a market in Avalitês (7:3.18) and the “far-side” ports (presumably included under the term “the aforementioned” in 8:3.26-27 and the passages noted above), in Kanê (28:9.15), and in two places in India, Barygaza (49:16.21) and Muziris/Nelkynda (56:18.19). It so happens that just across the Bay of Bengal, there are rich deposits in Burma, Thailand, and Malay (Watt vi 4 57-60), some of which recent archaeological discoveries indicate were exploited in very early times.³⁶ The Periplus makes it clear that India had trade contacts with these places (see under 63:21.1), and perhaps she did fill part of her requirements from them; if so, one wonders why she did not fill all her needs from so convenient a source.”

36. See R. Smith and W. Watson eds., Early South East Asia (New York, 1979), 25, where D. Bayard affirms that current evidence supports a date prior to 2000 B. C. for the first appearance of bronze in mainland Southeast Asia, and 37-38, where I. Selikhanov argues not only for the use of local tin but for its exportation to the Near East. On India’s scanty tin resources, cf. J. Muhly in AJA 89 (1985): 283.

Casson (1989), p. 28.

Tin was imported from the West into India, as the Periplus mentions it was imported to Barygaza and Muziris/Nelkynda, ports on the western coast of India (see news item about the rediscovery of Muziris below). This was probably because it was cheaper to import it from the West rather than ship it from Southeast Asia, land it on the east coast of India and then transport it overland, or ship it all the way around Sri Lanka. Alternatively, political problems at the time might have interrupted the supplies of tin from the East.

          “Tin. – Hebrew, bedil; Greek, kassiteros; Sanscrit, kasthira; Latin, stannum. This metal, the product of Gallicia and Cornwall, was utilized industrially at a comparatively late period, having been introduced after gold, silver, copper, lead, and mercury. It made its appearance in the Mediterranean world soon after the migration of the Phœnicians to Syria. The Phœnician traders may have found it first on the Black Sea coast, coming overland from tribe to tribe; and finally that of Cornwall. The value of tin in hardening copper was soon understood, and the trade was monopolized for centuries by the Phœnicians and their descendants, the Carthaginians. How carefully they guarded the secret of its production appears in Strabo’s story ( III, V, 11 ) of the Phœnician captain who, finding himself followed by a Roman vessel on the Atlantic coast of Spain, ran his ship ashore rather than divulge his destination, and collected the damage from his government on returning home.
          There is much confusion in the early references to this metal, because the Hebrew bedil ( meaning “the departed” ) was also applied to the metallic residue from silver-smelting – a mixture of silver, lead, and occasionally copper and mercury. The same comparison applies to kassiteros and stannum. Pliny, for example, distinguishes plumbum nigrum, lead, and plumbum candidum, stannum. Without any definite basis for determining metals, appearance was often the only guide.
          Suetonius ( Vitell. VI, 192 ) says that the Emperor Vitellius took away all the gold and silver from the temples, ( 69 A. D. ) and substituted aurichalcum and stannum. This stannum could not have been pure tin, but rather an alloy of lead, like pewter.
          The letters from the King of Alashia ( Cyprus ), in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, indicate the possibility of the use of tin there in the 15^th century B. C., and of the shipment of the resultant bronze to Egypt; and tin, as a separate metal, is thrice mentioned in the Papyrus Harris, under Rameses III ( 1198-1167 B.C. ). This confirms the mention of tin in Numbers XXXI, 22. By the time of Ezekiel ( XXVII, 12 ) it was, of course, well known; here it appears with silver, iron, and lead, as coming from Spain. The stela of Tanutamon describes a hall for the god Amon, build [sic] by the Pharaoh Taharka at Napata (688-663 B. C. ), of stone ornamented with gold, with a tablet of cedar incensed with myrrh of Punt, and double doors of electrum with bolts of tin. (Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. IV ).
          By the Greeks the true tin was understood and extensively used, and the establishment of their colony of Massilia was largely due to the discovery of the British metal coming overland to the mouth of the Rhône. The Romans ultimately conquered both Galicia and Cornwall, and then controlled the trade; but to judge from Pliny’s account, their understanding of it was vague.
          According to the Periplus, tin was shipped from Egypt to both Somaliland and India.
          Lassen ( Indische Alterthumskunde, I, 249 ) and Oppert, arguing from the similarity between the Sanscrit kasṭhira and the Greek kassiteros, would transfer the earliest tin trade to India and Malacca; but it seems probable that the Sanscrit word was a late addition to the language, borrowed from the Greek with the metal itself; which, as stated by the Periplus in §§ 49 and 56, came to India from the west.” Schoff (1912), pp. 77-79. [Recent archaeological information showing the very early development of bronze manufacture in the East would seem to put in question Schoff’s assertion here].

It now appears that the site of ancient Muziris has finally been discovered south of the present mouth of the Periyar River in Kerala State, southwestern India:

Archaeologists stumble upon Muziris

By M. Harish Govind

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 22. Striking archaeological evidence suggests that the legendary seaport of Muziris, which was a bustling Indo-Roman centre of trade during the early historic period between the first century BC and the fifth century AD, could have been located at Pattanam, near Paravur on the south of the Periyar rivermouth.

K.P. Shajan, geoarchaeologist, who has put forward the hypothesis, says that despite its legendary status, researchers had not so far been able to identify the actual physical location of Muziris. The search for the legendary town on the Malabar coast had been focussed on the northern banks of the Periyar, on the basis of literary evidence from Sangam literature and "Periplus of the Erythrean Sea", among others.

However, the remains unearthed from the area belonged to the 12th century AD, whereas Muziris had been a bustling urban settlement more than 1,000 years earlier. Nothing had been found from the area with a clear Roman connection, a fact which baffled both Indian and foreign researchers. All that they knew was that it was located near the mouth of the Periyar.

Among other things, what led Dr. Shajan and his team to Pattanam was clear geological evidence which suggested that the river Periyar had shifted its course from the south to the north over the millennia. A branch of the Periyar, called the Periyar Thodu, runs close to Pattanam and satellite imagery indicates that the Periyar delta lies on the southern side and the river could have flowed close to Pattanam about 2,000 years ago. This would place the ancient site alongside the Periyar in keeping with the descriptions in literary sources.

The residents of the Pattanam site, which is known by the names of ‘Neeleswaram’ and ‘Ithilparambu’ at present, regularly used to come across a large amount of broken pottery shards and ancient fired bricks while digging the ground. In fact, the ancient bricks were commonly being used along with laterite blocks for construction purposes, Dr. Shajan said.

The site covers an area of about 1.5 sq km and the deposit is about two metres thick. It has produced fragments of imported Roman amphora, mainly used for transporting wine and olive oil, Yemenese and West Asian pottery, besides Indian rouletted ware common on the East Coast of India and also found in Berenike in Egypt. Bricks, tiles, pottery shards, beads and other artefacts found at Pattanam are very similar to those found at Arikamedu and other early historic sites in India.

The most striking finds from Pattanam are the rim and handle of a classic Italian wine amphora from Naples which was common between the late first century BC and 79 AD, when pottery production in the region was disrupted by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Islamic glazed ware from West Asia indicate that the site remained active beyond the early historic period. The finds from Pattanam were displayed at the Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan today.

The director of the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), P.J. Cherian, said etymological evidence supplemented the other evidence gathered from Pattanam. “The word ‘pattanam’ is derived from Prakrit and Pali and means coastal town in almost all Indian languages. Oral traditions in the area too suggest that Pattanam was inhabited by foreigners in the distant past and was a well-known marketplace with wealthy people.”

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Archaeologist Confirms Ancient Indo-Roman Site in Kerala
Francis C. Assisi

Southampton, April 21: A historical mystery surrounding Indo-Roman trade routes may have been solved, says a report by Southampton University archaeology research fellow Roberta Tomber.

Armed with an Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) grant to investigate Indo-Roman trade, and with the guidance of David Peacock who heads Archaeology at the University of Southampton, Tomber worked with local archaeologists in Kerala where she identified the first fragments of Roman wine amphorae found on the south-west coast of India.

The striking archaeological evidence suggests that the legendary seaport of Muziris, which was a bustling Indo-Roman trading center during the early historic period between the first century BC and the fifth century AD, could have been located at Pattanam, near Paravur on the south of the Periyar river delta.

“These were found in Pattanam, north of Paravoor. The whole area is strewn with pottery samples. Though many of them are of Indian origin, a few pieces of Indo-Roman era were also found. A detail exploration of the area will alone help establish this fact,” said Dr K. P. Shajan, who chanced upon the evidence during a geological survey.

What led Shajan, geoarchaeologist, and his team to Pattanam was clear geological evidence which suggested that the river Periyar had shifted its course from the south to the north over the millennia. A branch of the Periyar, called the Periyar Thodu, runs close to Pattanam and satellite imagery indicates that the Periyar delta lies on the southern side and the river could have flowed close to Pattanam about 2,000 years ago. This would place the ancient site alongside the Periyar in keeping with the descriptions in literary sources.

The site covers an area of about 1.5 sq km and the deposit is about two metres thick. It has produced fragments of imported Roman amphora, mainly used for transporting wine and olive oil, Yemenese and West Asian pottery, besides Indian ware common on the East Coast of India and also found in Berenike in Egypt. Bricks, tiles, pottery shards, beads and other artefacts found at Pattanam are very similar to those found at Arikamedu and other early historic sites in India.

According to the University of Southampton report, the most striking finds from Pattanam are the rim and handle of a classic Italian wine amphora from Naples which was common between the late first century BC and 79 AD, when pottery production in the region was disrupted by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Islamic glazed ware from West Asia indicate that the site remained active beyond the early historic period

Archaeologists have long believed in the existence of the ancient port of Muziris in this area, where Romans traded for pepper and other spices from India and even further East, but its location was still unknown. 'We now have for the first time archaeological evidence of where Muziris was located,' she said. 'It was a very important port for the Romans and would repay careful excavation. I hope to be involved in this work in the future.'

Tomber claims that the pottery pieces found by Shajan, a marine geologist, from Pattanam near Paravoor, are parts of Roman wine amphora, Mesopotamian torpedo jar and Yemenite storage jar. “It is the first time that we have found evidence in Malabar coast. The clay is very different from what was used in India during the same period. A lot of black minerals are present,” she says.

If this claim is true, then the pieces are the first evidence of Roman pottery to be found in Kerala. It also strengthens the theory that the port of Muziris was in the belt of Kodungallur-Chettuva.

Tomber suggests there are several factors that strengthen the belief that these are remnants of first century Roman trade. “Pottery is considered a very important evidence to solve an archaeological enigma. Here we work on typology. Such examples have also been found during excavations in Egypt,” says Tomber.

Tomber has extensive experience of working on Roman sites at the Red Sea ports of Quseir al-Qadim (ancient Myos Hormos) and at Berenike, both in Egypt, with Professor David Peacock. Now, with David Peacock, she has an Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) grant to investigate Indo-Roman trade.” Downloaded on 26 April, 2004 from: 
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12.12 (7) ‘divine tortoises’ – shengui 神龜 [shen-kuei]. Literally “divine tortoises (or turtles)” – tortoises suitable for divination. 

“Another object deserving attention is named in the same list [the Weilue’s list] Shên-kuei神龜 (‘ divine tortoises ‘). Tortoises might be found in any country, but the idea of divine tortoises was purely Chinese. According to ancient folklore, some tortoises were naturally inspired with a magical virtue, and whoever happened to obtain one of such a kind was sure to make an enormous fortune, while men might foresee the future by burning its shell and auguring from the cracks thus produced thereon. The Shih-chih, in its Kuei-t’sê-lieh-chuan 龜策列傳, expatiates on the nature, variety, and treatment of these mysterious creatures, suggesting at the same time that they might be caught about the Yang-tzŭ-chiang.” Shiratori (1956b), p. 64.

“[The Yüeh-shang were] Southern tribes settled to the south of Chiao-chih 校趾 (Tonking) by others identified with Nan-chang 南掌 (Laos) on the border between Yunnan, Burma and Annam.
          They are recorded in Chinese sources for their very special tributes consisting in the time of Yao of a fabulous divine tortoise with a history of the world from the creation downward carved on its shell, of a white pheasant at the beginning of the Chou dynasty, and of another white pheasant in the year 1 A.D., etc.” Molè (1970), p. 132, n. 272.

“Buddhists sell turtles for the devout to release at temples.” Parry-Jones and Vincent, (1998), p. 29.

The Hanshu records that Wang Mang in 10 CE set the values of the various kinds of monies then in use in China: “gold, silver, tortoise-[shells], cowries, cash, and spade-money. . . . ”:

“Sovereign’s tortoise-[shells], the edges of whose carapaces reached a foot and two inches were [declared to be] worth 2160 [cash] and were [made the equivalent of] ten pairs of large cowries. Duke’s tortoise-[shells, the edges of which reached] nine inches [or more], were [declared to be] worth five hundred [cash] and were [made the equivalent of] ten pairs of big cowries. Marquises’ tortoise-[shells, the edges of which reached] seven inches or more, were [declared to be] worth three hundred [cash] and were [made the equivalent of] ten pairs of small cowries. Viscount’s tortoise-[shells], the edges of which reached] five inches or more, were [declared to be] worth a hundred [cash] and were [made the equivalent of] ten pairs of little cowries. The [foregoing] were the four denominations of tortoise-[shell] currency.
          Of large cowries (ta-pei), four inches eight fen or more 9.25 cm or 3.6 English inches [in length], two made one pair (p’eng), and were [declared to be] worth 216 [cash]. . . . ” Dubs (1958), pp. 487-488. [Note on sizes: “one foot two inches” = 27.7 cm or 10.9 English inches; “nine inches” = 20.8 cm or 8.2 English inches; “seven inches” = 16.2 cm or 6.4 English inches; “five inches” = 11.55 cm or 4.5 English inches.]

“Tortoise-shell receives more mention in first-century Greek texts than any other object of trade. It was available in several regions of the Indian Ocean littoral: the Red Sea, the Horn and east coast of Africa, the southern coast of Arabia, India, Sri Lanka and the Indonesian archipelago. Commercial tortoise-shell today comes from a single source, the hawksbill turtle, and is used for objects of personal adornment. The Greeks and Romans used shell of several large varieties, terrestrial as well as aquatic, but above all they used it for large objects such as for veneering beds, sideboards, doors and so on. According to the Periplus Maris Erythraei, the fishing communities or Ichthyophagoi were involved in the trade of tortoise-shell, which they collected from the islands just off Massawa on the west coast of the Red Sea (section 4) (Casson 1989: 101-2).” Ray (2003), p. 27.

It is of interest that popular Chinese culture still shows special veneration for turtles and tortoises, although this does not stop people from eating them or their eggs. See Mesny (1899), 335, 352.

12.12 (8) white horses with red manes: 白馬朱髦 baima zhumao. White horses with red manes are mentioned in ancient Chinese accounts as being very desirable, costly, and fit for the use of the emperor. ‘White horses with red manes’ were probably a particular breed and it is interesting to find them mentioned here in the list of products that, “Da Qin (the Roman Empire) has plenty of.”

“Shuo-wen 10A: 2a, sub wen (Chin Shao quotes this passage in a summary form) says, “A horse with a red mane, a white body, and eyes like actual gold is named wen. It is auspicious for the chariot of the emperor. In the time of King Wen of the Chou [dynasty], the Dog Jung presented one. . . . The comment on the Spring and Autumn [Tso-chuan, Dk. Hsüan, II, (Legge, p. 289b)], says, ‘The hundred quadrigae of wen horses’, which are horses with more than one color 畫馬. The Chief of the West, [later King Wen], presented Chou with one in order to save himself.”
          The Yi-wen Lei-chü (compiled by Ou-yang Hsün, 557-641), 93: 3b, quotes the Grand Duke’s Liu-t’ao (prob. iv or v cent. B.C. or later) as saying (this passage is not found in the present Liu-t’ao), “When the King of Shang arrested the Chief of Chou, [Chi] Ch’ang, [later known as King Wen], at Yu-li, the [Forseen] Grand Duke, [Lü Shang], with San Yi-sheng, took a thousand yi of gold and sought for the [most] precious things in the world to ransom the crime of their lord. Thereupon they obtained from the clans of the Dog Jung wen horses with fine hair, red manes, and eyes like actual gold, and named [the chariot drawn by them], “The quadriga with chi-szu [sic – should be written chih-sheng] 斯雞之乘 [the name of a supernatural variety of horse...”] and presented it to the King of Shang.” Dubs (1958), p. 290, n. 9.14.

“Horses for imperial cavalries [during the Tang dynasty] were imported by the thousands from Fergana in central Asia. More necessity than luxury, these strong, swift creatures were essential for China’s ongoing struggles with the northern nomadic tribes. The Chinese bred the horses for such special color combinations as white horses with black manes or yellow horses with red manes, and military units prided themselves on having matched pairs.” Levathes (1994), p. 37.

12.12 (9) Fighting cocks: 駭雞 haiji [hai-chih] = fighting cocks according to a personal communication (2^nd July, 1998) from Dr. Edmund Ryden, Fujen Catholic University, Taiwan. Dr. Ryden also kindly pointed out that: “Zhuangzi knew of fighting cocks”.

12.12 (10) Rhinoceroses: 犀 xi.

“Another commodity which was fed into the trade of the Indian Ocean from the Barbarā coast was rhinoceros horn, possibly the single most valuable item in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, a veritable apotropaion of apotropaia, which could also afford raw material for the jeweler. The Chinese could, of course, obtain horns from their own southern provinces and from South and Southeast Asia, but the market was so elastic that from time to time Arab merchants found it worth their while to bring to China the horn of the African rhinoceros.” Wheatley (1975), p. 106.

“Contrary to a universally held Western misconception, the rhino’s horn is not widely considered to be an aphrodisiac. Only the Romans (and, nowadays, a few Indians) believed it to have this property, presumably either because it is long, hard and pointed upwards or because the rhino itself is so generously endowed by the size of its penis and takes over an hour to complete its copulation. This is the only time that rhino’s horn has been given a medicinal value in Europe, although its value as a wondrous object associated with the unicorn existed for hundreds of years. . . .
          In the Far East, however, it is another story and rhino horn has been on the books of traditional herbalists and exponents of folk-medicine since well before the time of Christ. . . .
          Depending upon where one looks in the Far East, rhino horn has a variety of wonderful properties. In India, it is still – though very infrequently – offered as an aphrodisiac when mixed with herbs and swallowed in milk or honey: it was from the East that the Romans heard of this supposed property. Similarly taken, it is also said to cure arthritis, muscular pains and spasms and paralysis: fat and stomach lining are also said to cure polio and skin diseases. In the past, the horn was burnt under the anus of hæmorrhoid sufferers to alleviate their condition and to counteract constipation. . . .
          It has been the horn of the Asian rhinoceroses which has been considered the most effective medicine but, with the decline of the Asian rhinos in the last two centuries, the Chinese have turned to the African rhinos for their supplies, dosages being increased because the African rhinos do not apparently have the concentrations of power of the Asian ones. . . .
          Rhino horn shavings are given as a treatment for the lowering of fever such as typhus and malaria. The idea, as is so often the case with such traditional brews, is that the liquid cleanses the body of poisons. Additionally, it is regarded as a cure for laryngitis, bronchitis, tuberculosis and poor eyesight. Dried and powdered rhino’s blood is sold as a tonic for sufferers of anæmia which it probably does help to cure being, like snake’s blood, rich in iron.” Booth (1988), pp. 156-159.

The kingdom of Huang-zhi [Huang-chih] (which was probably the kingdom at the mouth of the Ganges – Colless (1980), pp. 164-172), sent a rhinoceros to the court of Wang Mang in 2 CE, and perhaps also in 5 CE. Dubs (1958), pp. 71, 214-215. The Hou Hanshu has this interesting passage:

“In the ninth Yanxi year [166 CE], during the reign of Emperor Huan, the king of Da Qin (the Roman Empire), Andun (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), sent envoys through Rinan (Commandery on the central Vietnamese coast), beyond the frontiers, to offer elephant tusks, rhinoceros horn, and turtle shell. This was the very first time there was (direct) communication (between the two countries. The tribute brought was neither precious nor rare, raising suspicion that the accounts (of the ‘envoys’) might be exaggerated.” TWR,Section 12.

“The rhinoceros, like the elephant, was a familiar animal in north China in prehistoric and perhaps early historic times, but was already a rarity by the time of the ages illuminated by books. It is likely that two of the three Asian species of rhinoceroses were familiar to the archaic Chinese: we have small sculptures of both a one – and a two-horned kind surviving from Shang, Chou, and Han times; these must represent the Javanese (or Sunda) rhinoceros and the Sumatran rhinoceros respectively, both once widespread on the mainland and in the islands, but now restricted to remote parts of Indonesia, and on the verge of extinction.” Schafer (1963), p. 83.

“The horn of the rhinoceros played a role in the minor arts of T’ang very similar to that of ivory, and indeed the two substances were regularly linked in language, particularly in parallel verse. The demand for rhinoceros horn was very great, so that, although many rhinoceroses still lived in Hunan, as we have seen, and their horns were submitted to the court as tribute, it was also necessary to import them. From close at hand, they were obtained in Nan-chao and Annam; more remotely, they came to the port of Canton from the Indies, and in such quantities that the near extinction of the Indochinese rhinoceroses in modern times can in large part be attributed to the China trade of the T’ang. . . .
          Rhinoceros horn was important in medieval Chinese medicine, especially as an antidote for all kinds of poison. Belief in its efficacy goes back to the fourth century, and may have originated in China, to spread to Western Asia and the Roman empire.” Schafer (1963), p. 241.

“Similarly, medicinal use of rhinoceros horn has accounted for much of the animal’s decline in numbers. Between 1970 and 1993, 95 per cent of the world’s population of black rhinoceros disappeared, and Javan and Sumatran rhinos hover on the brink of extinction. . . .
          . . . . One repeated fallacy is that rhinoceros horn is used as an aphrodisiac in TCM [‘traditional Chinese medicine’]. It is, in fact, prescribed for life-threatening fevers and convulsions and has been clinically shown to have fever reducing properties.” Parry-Jones and Vincent (1998), pp. 27, 29.

“Despite the fabled creature’s existence in ancient legend, the real rhino was certainly known to the Greeks and Romans. Both Agatharcides and Strabo wrote about it in recognisable detail, and the Roman poet, Martial, wrote of its ability to ‘toss bears into the stars’: Pliny states that the rhino was the sworn enemy of the elephant which it attacked by gouging its horn into the soft under-belly of the larger animal. These accounts were most probably inspired by the writers having seen animal contests between rhinos and bears or elephants: exotic animal fights were frequently staged for public entertainment in Rome. That Pliny writes of a single horn suggests that he had not seen an African two-horned rhino, but an Indian one. And yet other contemporary sources clearly distinguish between the one-horned and two-horned varieties.” Booth (1988), p. 32.

“The skin of the Rhinoceros is an article in great demand in several countries of Asia and Africa. It is manufactured into the best and hardest leather that can be imagined; and targets and shields are made of it, that are proof against even the stroke of a scimitar. When polished, the skin is very similar in appearance to tortoise shell. Their horns are manufactured into drinking cups, the hilts of swords, and snuff-boxes, by several oriental nations ; and in the palmy days of ancient Rome, we are told, the ladies of fashion used them in their baths, to hold their essence bottles and oils.” Maunder, (1878), p. 574.

“A wide range of personal items were made from rhino horn: I have seen cutlery and manicure sets with rhino horn handles, snuff boxes carved out of blocks of horn, brass document seals mounted on horn and even rhino horn combs for holding hair in place, inlaid with silver, gold or ivory. These items are today very scarce on the antique market and consequently valuable.” Booth (1988), p. 154.

12.12 (11) Sea turtle shell: 玳瑁 daimei. Tortoise shell – “especially the precious sort from the hawk’s bill tortoise (Chelonia imbricata).” Williams, p. 747. Also see: GR No. 10278 where it is said to mean: Sea turtle. Shell from the carapace of the sea turtle used to make luxury items.

“The men of T’ang got tortoise shell,²⁴⁷ for making ladies’ hairpins and headdress ornaments and inlays in expensive household objects, from Lu-chou in Annam.” 

²⁴⁷From the “hawk-billed turtle” (Chelonia imbricata), Chinese tai-mei.

Schafer (1963), pp. 245, 337, n. 247.

“Tortoise shell receives more mention in the Periplus than any other object of trade. It was exported by, or available at, ports in all the regions the author mentions. . . . Commercial tortoise shell today comes from a single source, the handsome shields of the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata), a large sea turtle, and is used mostly for smaller objects: combs, brushes, and personal adornments such as rings, brooches, and the like. The Greeks and the Romans, as is clear from this passage and others... as well as from other authors (Pliny 9.39, 33. 146; Martial 9.59.9), used the shell of several varieties, terrestrial as well as aquatic, and used it above all for large objects, for veneering beds, sideboards, dining couches, doors, etc. . . . The “genuine” tortoise shell is no doubt that of the hawksbill turtle, which is found in many waters, including the Red Sea. . . . ” Casson (1989), pp. 101-102.

“From those animals that breathe, the most expensive produce found on land is ivory; in the sea, the turtle’s shell.” Pliny NH (a), p. 377 (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204).

12.12 (12) Black bears 玄熊 xuanxiong. This is undoubtedly a reference to the Eurasian Brown Bear (also known as “Black Bear”) that produced the gall and bile still highly valued today in Chinese medicine.

“For over a thousand years, the bear has been an important part of traditional Oriental medicine as well. During the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, the Korean government imported thirty live Asiatic black bears from Thailand to feed to its country’s athletes in the belief that the bear meat would enhance the athletes’ performance.
          Most people have heard about bear paw soup. Today a small bowl of the watery broth, which is reputed to confer health, costs wealthy Japanese and Korean diners eight hundred dollars a bowl.
          In the Oriental medical pharmacopoeia, the most important part of a bear is the animal’s gall bladder. A freshly removed gall bladder looks like a plastic bag, 10 to 12 centimetres (4 to 5 inches) long, filled with thick, greenish fluid. The gall bladder and its contents of bile are dried and then crushed. Once the powdered ingredients reach a consumer in the Orient, they may sell for $50 a gram ($1764 an ounce). The powdered gall bladders are prescribed to treat heart disease, headaches, abdominal pain and even hemorrhoids. . . .
          The bile of bears was first mentioned in a pharmaceutical report written in China in the fifth century. By A.D. 1000 in China, the ingestion of bear bile was the treatment of choice for jaundice, abdominal pain and distention – all complications known to be caused by liver and bile duct disease, and in particular, gallstones. It was not until the early decades of this century that western scientists finally investigated the composition of bear bile, and when they did they identified a new bile acid and coined the scientific name ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), the “Aurso” prefix in recognition of the origin of the compound.
          In subsequent research, it was learned that administration of UDCA could dissolve gallstones in humans and thus alleviate the symptoms, namely, the pain, jaundice and abdominal distention, without producing any substantial side effects. Today, after extensive clinical testing, UDCA is the medical treatment of choice in many hospitals in North America for the dissolution of certain kinds of gallstones. It appears that the Chinese were right two thousand years ago. . . . ” Lynch (1993), pp. 213-214.

“Demand for bear bile still threatens Asian bears, even though there are now regulations on international trade in all species.
          . . . . Bear farming in China is particularly controversial. Around 7600 captive bears have their bile “milked” through tubes inserted into their gall bladders. According to Chinese officials, 10,000 wild bears would be needed to be killed each year to produce as much bile. But many Westerners argue that bear farming is cruel.
          . . . . Tauro ursodeoxycholic acid, the active ingredient of bear bile, can be synthesised and is used by some Western doctors to treat gallstones, but many TCM [‘traditional Chinese medicine’] consumers reject it as being inferior to the natural substance from wild animals.” Parry-Jones and Vincent (1998), pp. 27-29.

          “BEAR-GALL:– Hsiung-tan 熊膽. The bear is met with in Manchuria, Shensi, Kansuh, and perhaps other provinces. Fêng-t’ien Fu Sheng-king is said to be the source of the animals which supply the drug-market with sundry articles, which are just of that degree of scarcity which serves to place any very nauseous substance in the very fore-front of Chinese estimation. Mr. Swinhoe reports that one species only of the bear, the Helarctos formosanus, is met with in Formosa. “It is black with a white crescent on the breast, and is allied to the Sun-bear of Japan.” Ho-nan, Shan-si and Shan-tung formerly supplied this animal, whose paw, called Hsiung-fan 熊蹯, is a great delicacy, and is supposed to strengthen and harden the constitution. Bear’s grease is credited with much the same power of nourishing the hair in China as in the west. Bear-gall is a very expensive substance, sold in the form of a soft, black, sticky bolus, having a bitter aromatic flavour. It is seldom genuine. If it be drawn across a pool of ink, the ink (Chinese) should retreat from the track. Cooling, alterative, astringent, anthelmintic, and neurotic properties are supposed to reside in this substance, which is given homoeopathically in hepatic and abdominal affections. It is probably useful as a laxative and stomachic to the same extent as Ox-gall.” Mesny (1895), p. 150.

12.12 (13) chichi 赤螭 [ch’ih-ch’ih] – Red hornless dragon(s).

GR No. 1918 says that chi, “red”, refers particularly to the colour of cinnabar, or of fire. It is true that cinnabar was considered to be the “Blood of the Red Dragon” – especially among Taoist alchemists (see Shafer (1957), p. 133), but this always referred to the chilong 赤龍 – long 龍 being the ‘normal’, or ‘common’ variety of dragon, whereas chi 螭 is an unusual form. It is sometimes described as a ‘hornless’ variety, and sometimes as a baby long. In either case, it seems likely here that that an unusual form of ‘dragon’ was chosen to distinguish its product or ‘blood’ from real cinnabar.
          I have not found any other reference to chichi. It seems most likely that that the term refers to the red resin, known in the Roman world as “dragon’s blood,” or, rather, to the dragons that were supposed to produce it.
          “Dragon’s blood” is a cinnabar-coloured gum exuded from a various species of Dracæna tree grown on the island of Socotra, and the neighbouring areas of Arabia and Africa. It was used as a dye and medicine in the Mediterranean. It was also used for ceremonial purposes in India.
          The “dragon’s blood” known to the Romans was mostly collected from the base of the leaves of Dracaena cinnabari which is native to the island of Socotra and is mentioned in the Periplus (30:10. 17) as one of the products of Socotra:

          “This [“Indian cinnabar”] is dragon’s blood, the resin secreted at the base of the leaves of Dracaena cinnabari (see Western Arabia [op. cit. under 24:8. 10] 208, Watt, ii 18), which was used as a pigment and a drug. The tree is native to Socotra, and the islanders have exported its product for centuries (Watt ii 18, Wellsted [op. cit. under 27:9] ii 286–88). Pliny (33.115–16) refers to cinnabar as the name given to dragon’s blood by the Indians. It would appear that the term “Indian cinnabar” was used of the vegetable pigment as against the mineral (red mercuric sulphide). Perhaps this was because another form of dragon’s blood, very similar to that from Dracaena, did come, if not from India at least by way of India, namely, the resin of a palm, Calamus draco Wild., which grows in Malay and the East Indies and is the source of the dragon’s blood of modern commerce (Watt ii 17). This could well have been called “Indian” in the West because it arrived there through Indian merchants or on Indian ships.” Casson (1989), pp. 169-170.

Socotra had been an important trading centre since at least the time of the Ptolemies, and was strategically placed 126 nautical miles east of Cape Guardafui on the Horn of Africa, near the entrance to the Gulf of Aden. There was great confusion in the Roman world between the resin, “true” dragon’s blood, and the mineral cinnabar:

“Cinnabar, that called Indian – (Dragon’s blood). The confusion between dragon’s blood (the exudation of a dracæna) and our cinnabar (red sulphide of mercury) is of long standing, but less absurd than it seems at first sight. The story is given by Pliny (XXXIII, 38, and VIII, 12). The word kinnabari, he says, is properly the name given to the thick matter which issues from the dragon when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant, mixed with the blood of either animal. The occasions were the continual combats which were believed to take place between the two. The dragon was said to have a passion for elephant’s blood; he twined himself around the elephant’s trunk, fixed his teeth behind the ear, and drained all the blood at a draught; when the elephant fell dead to the ground, in his fall crushing the now intoxicated dragon. Any thick red earth was thus attributed to such combats, and given the name kinnabari. Originally red ochre (peroxide of iron), was probably the principal earth so named. Later the Spanish quicksilver earth (red sulphide of mercury), was given the same name and preferred as a pigment to the iron. Later, again, the exudations of Dracæna cinnibari in Socotra and Dracæna schizantha in Somaliland and Hadramaut (order Dracænae), and Calamus draco in India (order Palmeæ), were given the name kinnabari. Being of similar texture and appearance, the confusion is not surprising, as the Romans had no knowledge of chemistry.
          Pliny noted the errors made by physicians in his day, of prescribing the poisonous Spanish cinnabar instead of the Indian; and proposed a solution of the problem by calling the mercury earth minium, the ochre miltos, and the vegetable product kinnabari, but usage did not follow him. We now give the mercury earth the old Greek name for dragon’s blood, and the dried juice we give the same name in English.” Schoff (1912), p. 137.

“Legend has it that the tree sprung up from the congealed blood shed by a dragon and an elephant as they fought to the death. Cinnabar, the crimson red resin from the tree’s leaves and bark, was highly prized in the ancient world. It was used as a pigment in paint, for treating dysentery and burns, fastening loose teeth, enhancing the colour of precious stones and staining glass, marble and the wood for Italian violins. Although it no longer has a commercial value, cinnabar is an important resource for the 40 000 people who live on Soqotra. They use it to cure stomach problems, dye wool, glue pottery, freshen breath, decorate pottery and houses and even as lipstick.” Downloaded from www.rbge.org.uk/Arabia/Soqotra/misty/page03.html on 10/10/01, the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh site.

Shiratori (1956b), p. 65, n. 99, quotes in Chinese from the Yunmengfu in the Sima Lie zhuan which I translate and adapt as follows:

“According to the Zhengyi: ‘The Wen-ying says that chi 螭 is the offspring of a long 龍 dragon. The Zhengyi, moreover, says it is a female long dragon. Both are wrong. The Guanya [name of a dictionary based on the Erya, and compiled about 230 CE] says if it has a horn it is called jiu 蚯; if it doesn’t have a horn it is called chi. According to it, jiu and chi are different species of long [dragon] and not [true] long.”

The confusion between the resinous ‘dragons’ blood’ and true cinnabar in the Roman world seems to be echoed by the Chinese. Chinese alchemists called the mineral cinnabar chilong 赤龍, which literally means, ‘red dragon.’ GR No. 1918, p. 1012. For: “Blood of the Red Dragon,” see Shafer (1957), p. 133. [Note, however, that long refers to the ‘true’ or common dragon and is not identical with chi 螭, the hornless dragon.]
          In later centuries ‘Dragons’ blood’ from the various species of Dracæna trees was replaced to a great extent by a similar red resin produced by one of the rotang or rattan palms of the genus Daemonorops, found in the Indonesian islands and known there as jerang or djerang, which is used in China to give a red surface to writing paper.  

“The effusion of the lac insect was in turn confused with the blood of a mythical or semi-mythical animal, the Chinese “unicorn.” One of the red kinos which was traded about the Old World under the name of “dragon’s blood” was in China styled “unicorn gutta” and was thought of as desiccated blood. It was the product of the fruit of an Indonesian rattan palm, but trade in it was confused with Socotran dragon’s blood, the resin of an entirely different plant, and with a different Indonesian kino, and also with lac. In T’ang it was used as an astringent drug and prescribed for hemorrhages, partly at least on the principal of imitative magic, because of its bloodlike color. It cannot be said with certainty that it was also used as a dye, but it was commonly employed in this way in its Malayan homeland, and the Chinese pharmacologists emphasize that it was used in just the same way as lac.” Schafer (1963), p. 211.

Another, less likely possibility, is that “red dragons” may have been seen as the origin of (red) amber:

“But Tuan Ch’eng-shih, our T’ang bibliophile and collector of curiosa, has this to say:

“Some say that when the blood of a dragon goes into the ground it becomes amber. But the Record of the Southern Man has it that in the sand at Ning-chou there are snap-waist wasps, and when the bank collapses the wasps come out; the men of that land work on them by burning, and so make amber of them.” Schafer (1963), p. 247.

12.12 (14) bidushu 辟毒鼠 [pi tu shu] – ‘poison-evading rats’ = mongooses? The Chinese use the character shu, usually translated ‘rat,’ to also designate mustelids, a family of small animals, often sought for their furs, including the weasel, the ermine or stoat, the mink, the otter, martens, and the like. The mongoose looks very similar to weasels, and many species are famed for their ability to fight and kill poisonous snakes – a favourite entertainment at village fairs in India. They are not immune to snake poison but, are very quick and agile, usually striking at the snake’s head and cracking its skull.
          They are easily tamed and are frequently kept around households for their ability to rid the area of rats, snakes and cockroaches. They readily perform their snake-killing abilities if placed together with a cobra or similar poisonous snake, and this is a common stunt performed at India fairs. In fact, they are only really effective against snakes such as the cobra which is relatively slow-moving and the mongoose can get too close for the snake to strike effectively.

“There may be a similarity to the description of the *noudyi rat (mongoose, according to Schafer), sent by Kapisa (Chi-pin, ancient Gandhâra), in 642. This is more likely than a ferret or a weasel, well-known to the west, which Schafer also mentions as sent to China by the Persians.” Leslie and Gardiner (1996), p. 203.

          “A number of mongooses, including those of the genus Herpestes, will attack and kill poisonous snakes. They depend on speed and agility, darting upon the head of the snake and cracking the skull with a powerful bite. They are not immune to venom, as popularly believed, nor do they seek and eat an herbal remedy, if bitten.” NEB VI, p. 996.

For some interesting early references to mongooses, see Yule and Burnell (1886), pp. 596-597, under “Mungoose.”

12.12 (15) dabei大貝 [ta pei] – large cowries. See also note 12.12 (7).

          Couvrier, p. 876, defines ta pei [= da bei] as “large and precious tortoise carapace.” However, the period when the term had this meaning is uncertain. It seems unlikely that we have a second reference to tortoise shell after the specific reference in item No. 12.12. (11) above.
          The word bei usually has the meaning of shellfish, particularly cowries, which were used as money in China up until the Han period and so the term could well mean here “large cowries” or “large shells.” I have, chosen the latter on the basis of its use in the edict of Wang Mang in 10 CE as discussed by Dubs – see item (7) above.
          For information on the use of cowries as money in China and neighbouring regions see: Ke and Zhu (1995). Cowries have been used as a form of money from East Africa to inland northern Asia.
          These shells were still used as money until recent times. This use has proved to be widespread and remarkably persistent. A young lady in her twenties from a village on the north coast of New Guinea told me several years ago that, when she was a child, her grandfather’s house had many strings of cowries hanging from the rafters. Sometimes she was sent to the local store with several strings of them to buy small items.
          Shiratori (1956b), p. 64, refers to ‘tai-pei’ 大貝 as “large conches,” but I have not found any evidence to support his identification.

“The cowrie is the shell of the gastropod Cypaea moneta gathered in the shallow waters of the Maldive islands off the coast of India. Some other species are native to East Asia and hence the issue of the source of cowries found extensively in South and Southeast Asia remains problematic. In the second millennium BCE, these occur as far apart as Harrapan sites in north-west India and prehistoric sites in north China (Wicks 1992: 308-10).
Cowries were widely used in the historical period, sometimes together with coins. In the middle Ganga valley, excavations at Masaon (Ghazipur district, IAR 1964) brought to light a hoard of 3,000 cowries in a pot in levels dated between 600 and 200 BCE. Cowries were also recovered from the iron Age horizon at the site of Khajuri (Allahabad district, IAR 1985-6). The Mahasthan inscription from eastern India of the third to second centuries BCE refers to aid in the form of kākaṇīs and gaṇḍakas, i.e. low-denomination coins and perhaps cowries respectively. The Harśacarita refers to heaps of black and white cowries sent to Bhaskarvarman of Assam, while the Tezpur inscription of the seventh century CE refers to a fine of 100 cowries for failing to obey the Brahmaputra shipping regulations (Singh 1991).” Ray (2003), pp. 30-31.

“. . . . It [the cowrie shell] was used as a currency in Africa until recent times, though it does not figure in the historical record of island Southeast Asia [however, see my note on their recent use in Papua New Guinea above]. Cowries have been found at archaeological sites in the Indian subcontinent, mainland Southeast Asia and north China dated to the second millennium BCE. The question of provenance, however, has no simple answers since some species of the cowrie are native to East Asia as well. Cowries, referred to as gaṇḍaka in the inscriptions from Bengal and Assam, are frequently mentioned in the historical records and epigraphs of mainland Southeast Asia (Wicks 1992: 308-9).” Ray (2003), pp. 208-209.

“Burial goods sets 2 and 3 [from Dian burials in Yunnan] are cowrie containers and marine shells respectively. some of the container lids are decorated with anthropomorphic figurines depicting various activities . . . . Archaeologists call them cowrie containers simply because thousands of cowries shells were held in them. Earlier cowrie containers were made from used bronze drums by cutting open the top surfaces of the drums. Later cowrie containers were specifically designed as receptacles. The frequency distribution of cowries illustrates that they were exclusively distributed in the high elite graves. Traditionally, cowries are believed to have been used as a currency (Wang Ningsheng 1981). Nevertheless, the differential distribution of cowries suggests that they were reserved for the elites only. The majority of the Dian cowries that have been identified as marine cowries (Cypraea annulus L.) originated mostly from the Indian Ocean (Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens 1992). It seems that the Dian elite group was in control of the cowrie source through an exchange network with mainland Southeast Asia. Therefore, cowries were more likely to be used as status markers and for intergroup exchanges between elites (Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens 1992). If cowries were used as a currency in the market, it is difficult to explain the distribution patter that they were restricted only to the high-ranking elite graves, in spite of hundreds and thousands of cowries having been recovered from the Dian burials.” Lee (2002), pp. 116 and 118.

12.12 (16) chequ 車渠 [ch’e-ch’ü] – mother of pearl.  

         The ABC, p. 113 defines chequ as 1. giant clam; tridacna 2. mother of pearl. The GR No. 558, defines chequ [ch’e-ch’ü] as a variant of 硨渠 chequ, meaning tridacne (= giant clam) or, alternatively, a ‘basin,’ the large shells of which are still use in many tropical countries. It produces a nacre used by jewellers.
          It seems to me that ‘mother-of-pearl’ is what is meant here and (due to the several different kinds of pearls mentioned later in the list), it probably came from the various types of pearl oysters. The other meaning of chequ – ‘giant clam,’ may possibly have been what was indicated here:

“The giant clam called Neptune’s cradle²⁵² lends the stuff of its glossy white, deeply furrowed shell to the uses of lapidary. In ancient China this “mother-of-pearl” (and perhaps others) was regarded as a stone, its source being unknown, and it was polished like jade. It was especially popular in early medieval times for making wine cups and other drinking vessels. Under the T’ang emperors nacre was reputed to be a product of Rome,²⁵³ and it was known to be one of the Seven Precious substances, the Saptaratna, of Indian tradition.²⁵⁴ The chances are that the shell of this great scallop was still being imported in T’ang times, but the available texts are not conclusive.”

252 “Tridacna gigas. Chinese * ki̯w^wo-g‘i̯^wo. See Wheatley (1961), 91-92.”

253 ATS, 221b, 4155c.”

254 Li Hsün, in PTKM, 46, 38a. Its Indian name was musāragalva, but the lexicographers disagree as to the meaning of this word; some say “coral”; some say “mother-of-pearl.”

Schafer (1963), p. 245.

“The shells of some of the Tridacna gigas weigh 500lbs [227 kg], and are used in some Catholic countries as receptacles for the holy water used in churches. The animal is correspondingly large.” Maunder (1978), p. 700.

“Although the translators consistently translated the Sanskrit word musāragalva as ch’e-ch’ü, the meaning of the Chinese word is as obscure as that of its Sanskrit counterpart. Chinese dictionaries define it either as a kind of sea-shell or as a kind of precious stone.” Liu (1988), p. 161.

          ‘Mother of pearl’ or the lustrous nacre which is found in many shells, is frequently used in jewellery. Its position in the list between large cowries and carnelian makes this choice particularly likely. In recent centuries most commercial mother of pearl has been produced from trochus shells which have beautifully nacreous shells (family Trochidae – particularly T. niloticus. The family is widespread throughout the tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific oceans).
          Sheikk (1987), pp. 73, 85, states that Mother of Pearl is found at Indus sites from earliest Neolithic times. It was traded from its source in the Persian Gulf.

12.12 (17) manao 瑪瑙 [ma-nao] – carnelian.

          Carnelian is a form of reddish chalcedony which is hard and polishes well. It was, and is, commonly used for impressing seals as wax does not stick to it:

“By “carnelian” we mean a reddish variety of chalcedony, that is, of translucent cryptocrystalline silica. Here the word is used to translate Chinese ma-nao (etymologized as “horse brain”), a word which has more often been Englished as “agate.” “Agate” is a name given to banded chalcedony, the bands being in contrasting colors – say, bluish gray and white. But ma-nao is (in T’ang at least) usually some shade of red, and if we say that ma-nao is “agate” it is necessary to explain that we mean an agate in which that color is prominent. But it is simpler to say “carnelian.”
          Carnelian was imported in some quantity from the West, and all of it was used to make small utensils. We have specific instances of carnelian (including a vase of that material) sent to the court from Samarkand and from Tukhāra. The latter nation offered the raw mineral as a worthy gift, and it must be assumed that this was turned over to the T’ang court lapidaries. . . . ” Schafer (1963), pp. 228-229, 233.

Carnelian intaglios have been found at two major archaeological sites rich in Roman artefacts in India and southern Vietnam:

          “Meanwhile, there remains for us a curious trace of the passage of the Romans through Indochina: in 1944, at Oc-Eo, in the province of Iranbassac [in southern Vietnam] about twenty kilometres from the Gulf of Thailand, French scholar Louis Malleret’s party discovered in an archaeological site, alongside Chinese and Indian objects, a certain number of jewels set in gold and silver, intaglios of local or Roman inspirations, mostly in carnelian, some medallions from the period of the Antonines [138-192 CE], and several other objects. According to all the latest interpretations by the specialists, these objects “furnish the proof that during the first two or three centuries of the Christian era, the site of Oc-Eo produced artists who created intaglios of the purest Roman style and were capable of reproducing the skilful technique. These are not the flotsam of a distant current carried from the Western world that have grounded on the furthest shores of a peninsula of the Asiatic world. These are the creations of an art incorporated into the domestic and social life of the populations of this country...”
          What can be concluded from this? Has an important Roman mission stayed in this place; has it taught the western techniques to the local artisans? Was a real Roman colony founded here? It has been ignored. . . .
          This lucky find of Indian and Roman objects in the same site is comparable to the discoveries of Virapatnam (without doubt the ancient Pouduke or “New town of Ptolemy”). There, near Pondicherry, on this [east] coast [of India] which was believed to be less visited than the other [western coast] by Mediterranean navigators, have been found glass pearls, cornelian, agate, jasper, garnets and coloured quartz, a ring bezel of carnelian, engraved with [what is], perhaps, the effigy of Augustus, typical Italian pottery from the celebrated works of Arezzo (Arretium) in Tuscany, all dating from the first century of our era. In the same spot were discovered some lapidary tools: grindstones, stones to crush and polish, precious stones in the process of cleavage, or unpolished. Lapidary art is very ancient in India. It is assumed, therefore, that these pieces have not been imported from Rome and that they are, mostly, local imitations. It could be that here, as at Oc-Eo, there was a community of artisans where Indian workers, directed by Roman agents, created objects with the intention of exporting them in the style determined by Mediterranean purchasers – or simply of the spontaneous appearance of an imitative industry, undoubtedly profitable – , for the stones were cheaper, and the workmanship at least capable enough. It could also be that we are in the presence of a real Roman colony, perhaps of groups of Western merchants, tempted by the hope of a better life, married to local women; or even of artisans who had rebelled against their lot as slaves, and had taken advantage of a landing to escape?” Translated from: Boulnois (1992), pp. 95-97.

People living along the Central Asian trade routes used various forms of chalcedony, including carnelian, to carve intaglios, ring bezels (the upper faceted portion of a gem projecting from the ring setting), and beads that show strong Graeco-Roman influence. Fine examples of first century objects made from chalcedony, possibly Kushan, were found in recent years at Tillya-tepe in north-western Afghanistan. See Sarianidi (1985), pp. 45-46, 129, 244, 253-254; also: Sarianidi (1989), pp. 124-134.

          “By sardonyx, as the name itself implies, was formerly meant a sarda [‘sard’ – a deep orange red type of chalcedony, sometimes classed as a carnelian, but darker in colour] with a whiteness in it, like the flesh under a human finger-nail, the white part being transparent like the rest of the stone;³ and that this was the character of the Indian sardonyx is stated by Ismenias, Demostratus, Zenothemis, and Sotacus. The last two give the name of blind sardonyx to all the other stones of this class which are not transparent, and which have now monopolised the name. . . . Zenothemis writes that these stones were not held in esteem by the Indians, and that some were so large that the hilts of swords were made of them. It is well known that in that country they are laid bare to view by the mountain streams, and that in our part of the world they were at the outset prized from the fact that they were almost the only ones¹ among engraved precious stones that do not take away the wax with them from an impression. We have in consequence taught the Indians themselves by the force of our example to value these stones, and the lower classes more particularly pierce them and wear them round the neck ; and this is now a proof that a sardonyx is of Indian origin. Those of Arabia are distinguished above others by a broad belt of brilliant white which does not glitter in hollow fissures or in the depressions of the stone, but sparkles in the projections at the surface above an underlying ground of intense black. In the stones of India this ground is like wax² or cornel [cherry] in colour, with a belt of white also around it. In some of these stones there is a play of colours as in the rainbow, while the surface is even redder than the shells of the sea-locust. C. 6 (24). Zenothemis says there are numerous varieties of the Indian onyx,³ the fiery-coloured, the black, the cornel with white veins encircling them like an eye, and in some cases running across them obliquely. Sotaeus mentions that there is also an Arabian onyx, which differs from that of India in that the latter exhibits small flames each encircled with one or more belts of white in a different way from the Indian sardonyx, which is speckled but not marked with circular veins like the onyx. According to this writer onyxes are found in Arabia of a black colour with belts of white. Satyrus says that there is an onyx in India of a flesh colour,⁴ partly resembling the carbuncle and partly the chrysolite and the amethyst, and he condemns the whole of this class. The real onyx, he points out, has numerous veins of varying colours, along with streaks of a milk-white hue, and as these colours harmoniously shade into each other they produce, by their combinations, a tint of a beauty which is inexpressibly charming.”

³ Ktêsias informs us that in India there are certain high mountains with mines which yield the sardine-stone and onyxes and other seal stones. He gives no indication of the locality of these mountains, but Dr. v. Ball says that possibly Oujein, in Malwa, or some of the other places where mines of Chalcedonic minerals occur, was intended. The word sardonyx is compounded of the Greek words σάρδιov, ‘sard,’ and Śvυξ, ‘a finger-nail.’

¹ He probably intends to include the sarda or cornelian here. – Bohn’s Trans. of Pliny.

² A variety, probably, of common chalcedony.”

³ The onyx is an agate formed of alternating white or black or dark brown stripes of chalcedony. The finest specimens are brought from India. The word means finger-nail.

⁴ It is somewhat doubtful whether this kind of onyx (carnelian or cornelian) derives its name from caro, carnis, ‘flesh,’ or from cornus, ‘the cornel.’

McGrindle (1901), pp. 130-132 and nn.

“Some precious stones found at Chinese archaeological sites may have been of foreign origin, but it is impossible to determine their provenance. For example, the Chinese word for agate or carnelian, ma-naô, derives from the Sanskrit word aśmagarbha and was introduced by Buddhist literature in the Later Han (Chang Hung-chao 1921: 36). Some of the agate and carnelian ornaments found in China might have been imported from Central Asia and India under the inspiration of Buddhism. However, since agate was indigenous to China one cannot tell which artifacts are foreign.” Liu (1988), p. 64.

Carnelian is found at Mehgarh-III, an early Indus site, by about the early 4^th millennium B.C. Possible sources include Rajasthan and Kathiawar, the Helmund River in Seistan, and the Lyari hills, Porali basin, Kohistan and Hab River valley. Sheikk (1987), pp. 72, 85).

12.12 (18) nanjin 南金 [nan-chin] – literally, ‘southern gold’. The identification of this product is not at all clear. David R. Knechtges (2003) discusses its poetic references but then (ibid., pp. 39-40), adds that it was a precious product sent from the southeast as a tribute item:

“Southern Gold” is an old phrase that first occurs in the Classic of songs in one of the praise songs for a ruler of Lu (Mao shi 299), who by virtue of his moral example obtained the allegiance of the southeastern tribes. The last stanza of the song reads:

Fluttering are those soaring owls,

They land in the grove by the circular pool,

They eat the mulberry fruit,

And present us with fine songs.

Awakened are the Huai River tribes,

Who come and offer their treasures:

Large turtles and ivory tusks,

And large gifts of southern gold.

I should point out that what I have translated as “gold” is more correctly “metal.” More specifically it probably should be understood as copper, which was the ore of which the Wu area had a rich supply. I have translated it as “gold” here better to fit the poetic line. Somehow “southern metal” does not resonate well in English. The phrase ‘southern gold” as Lu Ji uses it has several meanings. First, it represents a valuable resource of the southeast. Second it is an ancient tribute item that was presented at the royal court in the Zhou. Like “southern gold,” Lu Ji is one of the great treasures of the southeast. Indeed, in a letter attributed to Lu Ji’s contemporary Zhang Hua, Lu Ji and his brother are specifically referred to as “gold of the south.” And like southern gold, he has been presented as tribute from his fallen Wu kingdom to the Western Jin court.”

It is hard to believe that copper would ever have been so highly valued as to be included with “large turtles and ivory tusks” as a tribute item. Copper was commonly and widely available in many parts of China. The ancient, and still standard, word for copper is: 銅 tong, and this list in the Weilue makes specific mention of copper as its third item. It seems unlikely to me that copper would have been .
          I suggest that ‘southern gold’ was more likely to refer to bronze 青铜 qingtong, for which the southeast has been famous from ancient times; or it could have been brass. Both these metal alloys (copper plus tin or, sometimes lead, for bronze – copper plus zinc for brass) were considered far more valuable than copper, and both had a striking “golden” hue. Both metals were imported into China from the southeast.
          Bronze was particularly important to early Chinese culture and is stronger than iron if properly alloyed (1 part tin to 8 parts copper). It also expands slightly on cooling making it an ideal material for moulding, as it faithfully reproduces the details of the mould. In fact, it was only after the technology for making true steels rather than iron were developed, that bronze was surpassed as a material for weapons such as swords and spear points.
          The rapid spread of iron use around the end of the Zhou and beginning of the Han dynasty may be attributed more to the ready availability of iron ore compared to tin rather than to any inherent advantage of iron over bronze. With a higher proportion of tin, bronze also makes excellent sonorous chimes.
          Yunnan (to the southeast of “China proper”) was an important source of tin and had ample supplies of copper ore plus a very ancient tradition of superb bronze working. It seems probable that superior bronze implements were traded into China from an early age, and possibly given the name, nanjin or “southern gold.”         

Brass also may be considered a candidate for “southern gold”:

          “1684. HUANG TUNG黄銅: – Yellow copper. Brass generally, a wonderful alloy of copper and other metals, any alloy of copper and zinc is called brass in English and Huang-tung in Chinese.
          When the alloy is hard and sonorous for gongs an musical instruments it is called Hsiang-tung 響銅 [‘sonorous copper’]. In such cases the alloy may possibly be wholly or in part tin. Six parts copper and four parts zinc make a fine soft brass like Muntz’s metal called lailon in French. This can be polished almost as bright as gold when warm. . . .” Mesny (1899), p. 350.

“Brass. – The Greek word is oreichalos, “mountain-copper,” which Pliny ( op. cit. XXXIV, 2 ) makes into a hybrid, as aurichalcum, golden copper; brass, a yellow alloy, as distinguished from pure copper or the darker alloys. Pliny describes it as an ore of copper long in high request, but says that none had been found for a long time, the earth having been quite exhausted. It was used for the sestertium and double as, the Cyprian copper being thought good enough for the as.
          Oreichalch seems to have been a native brass obtained by smelting ores abundant in zinc; the Roman metallurgy did not distinguish zinc as a separate metal.
          Mines yielding such ores were held in the highest estimation, and their exhaustion was deeply regretted, as in the case of the “Corinthian brass.” But later it was found by accident that the native earth, calamine, an impure oxide of zinc, added to molten copper, would imitate the true oreichalch; and this the Romans did without understanding what the earth was, just as they used native oxide of cobalt in coloring glass without knowing the metal cobalt.” Schoff (1912), p. 69.

“Oreichalkos (the variant spelling in the text [of the Periplus] also occurs in the Greek papyri from Egypt; cf. P. Giss. 47.6 and Frisk 41-42), literally “mountain copper,” originally referred to some kind of copper but by the end of the first century A.D. was used of brass. Brass was produced by alloying copper with zinc-bearing ore (zinc as a metal was unknown in ancient times); see R. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology 8 (Leiden, 1964), 265-75 and, on the nomenclature, 275-76.” Casson (1989), p. 112.

For details on the sources, production and uses of copper, bronze, brass and tin in China in the 17^th century, see: Sung (1637), pp. 197, 242, 247, 251-252.
Alternatively, the name, nanjin or “southern gold,” could possibly refer to the striking golden colour of certain wild silks; although this is by no means certain. See item 12.12 (3) in this list.
          There are a number of references in early Chinese literature to nanjin as a very rare and highly-prized tribute item coming from the south. Unfortunately, as seen above, it has never been clear exactly what this product was. The Hanyu da cidian has several references to nanjin which show that as early as the Later Han it was being included in a list of rare treasures which also included precious jewels, special fine silk (used to produce fans), and fine mulberry paper. In the Pan shui it is listed along with ivory as a tribute item and says in a later entry that it was a form of unbleached silk.

“Nan Jin see Pei Wen Yun Fu p. 1425. I think this is a kind of silk.” Dr. Ryden, personal email 2/7/98.

“India has a monopoly on the muga caterpillar, which thrives in the humidity of the Assam Valley and produces a shimmering golden silk. The eri silkworm, raised on the castor plant in India, produces silk that is extremely durable, but that cannot be easily reeled off the cocoon and must be spun like cotton or wool.” Hyde (1984), p. 14.

The beautiful and expensive golden-coloured “wild” silk called “Muga” is produced only in the Brahmaputra Valley - mainly Assam and adjoining parts of Burma. This silk has always been highly prized - not only for its beautiful natural golden sheen, which actually improves with ageing and washing – but for the fact that it is the strongest natural fibre known. Garments made of it outlast those made of ordinary silk - commonly lasting 50 years or more.
           In addition, it absorbs moisture better than ordinary silk and is, therefore, more comfortable to wear. Nowadays, it is mainly sought after for the highest-quality saris given as dowry presents to wealthy brides in India. There is, apparently, quite a racket in India, where other “wild” silks are dyed so they can be passed off as the more expensive Muga variety.

12.12 (19) cuiqueyuhe 翠爵羽翮 [ts’ui-ch’üeh yu-he] – kingfisher feathers.         

This term has caused some confusion among previous scholars:

“22. Tsui-chüeh yü-ke 翠爵羽翮 (WL, Sung-shu)⁶⁹. Hirth and Needham suggest that this must be a jewel or mineral, “green nephrites”, not kingfisher feathers. Others punctuate as two items, perhaps a jewel and feathers?

⁶⁹ HIRTH, p. 46, NEEDHAM, vol. 3, p. 665, SCHAFER, pp. 110-111, H/R, pp. 235-236, FANG HAO, p. 184. See also KCTSCC 28, 46.

Leslie and Gardiner (1966), p. 212 and n. 69; also ibid, p. 73, n. 78.

The division of the phrase is, I believe, unjustified and unnecessary. Nor is there any indication or reference to a gem or other mineral product.
          I have identified this phrase as “kingfisher feathers” on the basis that kingfisher feathers were an important and valuable import into China at this period. Furthermore, the actual meanings attached to the Chinese characters are clear and unambiguous. Here are the definitions of the following entries according to Le Grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise:

翠 (GR 11530) – 1. (Ornith.) Kingfisher : Alcedo atthis. 2. The blue-green plumes of the kingfisher (used as ornaments).

爵 (GR 3080) – [b] ch’üeh [= Pinyin: que] – generic name for little birds (e.g. sparrows)

羽翮 (GR 13156 + 3879; Vol. VI, p. 1050) – “羽翮 yü³ he² (Ornith.) Quill of a bird feather. b. (by extension) Plume, plume of the wing.

Kingfisher feathers had been an important luxury trade item since early times in China. During the Han they were particularly sought after for wall hangings and bedcovers – in later centuries they became fashionable as headdress decorations and bridal adornments. The Hanshu gives an interesting account of their early use in the Chinese court:

“In the time of Emperors Wen [170-157 BCE] and Ching [156-141 BCE] [the mood] had been one of silent contemplation [rather than one of positive action]: for five reigns the people had been nurtured; the lands below the skies were prosperous and rich; there was wealth and strength in plenty, and military horses in full abundance. It was therefore possible [to accumulate manifold resources]. Having beheld rhinoceros horn, ivory and tortoise shell, [the men of those days] founded seven commanderies, including Chu-ai; allured by betel-nuts and bamboo staves, they opened up the commanderies of Tsang-k’o and Yüeh-sui; and learning of the horses of Heaven and of the grape they started communicating with Ta Yüan [Ferghana] and An-hsi [Parthia]. From then on rarities such as luminous pearls, striped shells, lined rhinoceros horn and kingfisher feathers [were seen] in plenty in the empress’ palace; the p’u-shao, dragon-stipes, fish-eye and blood-sweating horses filled the Yellow Gate; groups of great elephants, lions, ferocious beasts and ostriches were reared in the outer parks; and wonderful goods of diverse climes were brought from the four quarters of the world.
          Thereupon [the emperor] had the Shang-lin [Park] enlarged and the K’un-ming Lake dug out; he laid out the palace with its thousand gates and myriad doors, and erected the [two] eminences, [the one] where the spirits dwell and [the other] which leads to Heaven; he hung aloft the curtains in their different series, fastened together with Sui pearls and Ho jades. The Son of Heaven took his place within, with his back against a screen figured in black and white; he was decked in a coverlet of kingfisher plumes and reclined on an armrest decorated with jade. Wine was set out [sufficient to fill] a lake, and meats [in plenty like] a forest, to entertain the guests of the four barbarian peoples; and as spectacle for them to admire, there were exhibited [the dancers] of Pa-yü, [the perch-climbers] of Tu-lu, the pole springing up from an [artificial] sea, with [the ballets] of the Man-yen [monster] and of the fishes and dragons, and [the performance] of the bull game.” CICA: 198-201.

          “Fairy feathers, plumes to satisfy the heart, had to be beautifully colored. So, like the royal artisans of Hawaii, who plundered the nectar-eating drepanids, the royal artisans in Ch’ang-an desired such feathers as the as the glorious yellow ones of the oriole, and the iridescent turquoise ones of the kingfisher. Kingfisher feathers were by far the most important, and had been used since the earliest times in jewelry and the richest kind of decoration, whether of the human body or of dwelling places. T’ang literature abounds in references to objects as large as tents or canopies and as small as finger rings and other ladies’ trinkets embellished with pieces of kingfisher plumes:

Mud stuck to her pearl-sewn shoes;

Rain wet her halcyon-plume hairpins.

Some of the highly prized feathers of this enameled bird came from a remote part of Lingnan, but most were a product of Annam, where an uneasy T’ang protectorate still ruled.” Schafer, (1963), p. 110.

“The ancients attributed to the Kingfisher innumerable habits and properties equally improbable. They supposed that it built its nest upon the ocean; but as this floating cradle would be likely to be destroyed by storms, they endowed the bird with powers to lull the raging of the waves during the period of incubation: hence those tranquil days near the solstice were termed halcyon days: and that the feathered voyager might want no accomplishment, they attributed to it the charm of song. They also kept the dead body of the bird as a safeguard against thunder, and as a relic by which the peace of families would be preserved. But it is not to the fanciful genius of the ancients alone that this bird is indebted for wonderful attributes. The Tartars and Ostiaks preserve the skin about their persons as an amulet against every ill; and they consider that the feathers have magic influence, when properly used, in securing a female’s love: nor are such superstitions entirely confined to barbarous nations; for there are persons, it is said, who believe that if the body of a Kingfisher be suspended by a thread, its breast, by some magnetic influence, will invariably turn to the north.” Maunder (1878), pp. 359-360.

12.12 (20) xiangya 象牙 [hsiang-ya] – ivory.

“From those animals that breathe, the most expensive produce found on land is ivory; in the sea, the turtle’s shell.” Pliny NH (a), p. 377 (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204).

“The other product of Barbarā [the coast to the north of Tse-san / Azania, from the port of Opone, around the Guardafui Peninsula to the entrance of the Red Sea] mentioned by Tuan Ch’eng-shih [in his Yu-yang Tsa-tsu, ‘Assorted dishes from Yu-yang’, written “soon after the middle of the ninth century A.D.”] was ivory, but he offered no further comment, and we have to wait until Sung times for details of the African trade. The primary sources of ivory available to the Chinese in Sung times were South and Southeast Asia, both lying within the natural range of the Indian elephant, but there were also supplementary supplies to be obtained through Arab intermediaries from the coasts of Zangibār and Barbarā, where the African elephant was laid under tribute. It is symbolic of the Arabo-Persian monopoly of trade in the Arabian and Azanian Seas that the ivory staple seems not to have been on the African continent at all, but at Murbāt on the Hadramaut coast. According to Chao Ju-kua, African ivory, with its delicate streaking on a white ground, was considered superior to that from any part of Asia.” Wheatley (1975), p. 106.

“Ivory was a valuable commodity in the maritime network. The Muziris papyrus indicates that it made up 7.4 per cent of the cargo for transport between Muziris and Alexandria. Assuming a talent weight of 31.5 kilograms, the full shipment before collection of the quarter tax would have included 105 talents 13 minas of tusks, that is 3,314 kilograms and 17 talents 33 minas of ivory fragments, that is 553 kilograms. Thus the extremely valuable nature of the cargo in the western Indian Ocean trade is evident (Rathbone 2001:461). . . .
The finds of ivory objects have, however, been few and include figurines from Pompeii, Ter and Bhokardhan and comb, bangles, mirror handles, dice and other objects from Taxila. Two sites stand out for their hoards, Begram in Afghanistan and the Jetavana treasure from Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. The fame of the site of Begram rests on the 1937 and 1939 discoveries by J. Hackin’s team of a large number of extraordinary artefacts in two sealed-off rooms in that part of the ‘New Royal City’ referred to by the excavators as the palace, dated to the first century CE. The Sasanians are said to have destroyed this structure in the third century. These objects consisted of glassware, bronzes, plaster medallions, porphyry and alabaster objects from the Graeco-Roman world, fragments of Chinese lacquer boxes and bowls and ivories and bone objects.
The extraordinary collection of ivory and bone carvings from Begram is unparalleled by any other single find from anywhere in South or Central Asia. More than a thousand individual pieces were discovered in the two excavated rooms and can be roughly divided into two categories: plaques and bands, either engraved or in relief, and sculptures in high relief. The ivories vary in thickness from approximately 2 millimetres thick to between 8 and 12 millimetres thick (Mehendale 1997: 46). On some ivory and bone objects traces of red and black paint were also found. While red appeared predominantly on floral and zoomorphic decoration, black was sometimes used to accentuate the contours of the bodies, strands of hair or the eyes of human figures. . . .
A somewhat different use may be indicated for the 400 objects of bone and ivory, which formed part of the foundation treasure buried at the second-century BCE to third century CE Buddhist stupa at Jetavana, Anuradhapura, in Sri Lanka. The Jetavana treasure comprises a very large collection of local and imported objects including ceramics, intaglio seals, Roman, Indian and foreign coins, more than 600,000 beads, ivory, bronze ornaments, jewellery in a range of materials, sculptures, seven gold sheets with assorted pages of the text of the Prajñāpāramitā and so on (Ratnayake 1990: 45). The ivory and bone objects include nearly thirty types of artefacts, but it is significant that some of these are stylistically similar to the ivories from Begram. Another significant find of an ivory figurine was from a relic casket from the Ruvanvali dagaba in Sri Lanka dated to the second century CE. The nude female figurine wears a girdle of beads around the waist (Ray 1993/1959: 266-7).” Ray (2003), pp. 231 and 233.

12.12 (21) fucaiyu 符采玉 [fu ts’ai-yu]. Coloured, veined jade.

 It is not exactly clear what is meant here, but GR Vol. II under No. 3631, , p. 718, gives: “符彩 fu² ts’ai³ 1. Veins and colours (of a jade).” The ABC dictionary gives (p. 270): “fūcăi 符采N. markings on jade.” And, of course, 玉 yu means jade (or other precious gemstones). So, I have translated the term as, “coloured veined jade.”

12.12 (22) mingyuezhu 明月珠 [ming-yüeh-chu] – ‘Bright moon’ pearls.

“The large pearls range from 0.5 to 1.5 inch across. There is a variety known as “pendant pearl,” which is slightly oval in shape, somewhat resembling an inverted cooking pot, with one side highly lustrous suggesting gold plating. One of these is worth as much as a thousand taels of silver. This pearl since ancient days, has been labelled “bright moon” or “light at night.” Actually, these beautiful names have been accorded to the pearls because they glimmer with a thread of light if held against the sun on a fair day, not because there are pearls that really shine in the dark of night.” Sung (1637), p. 298.

“Ming-yüeh-chu are pearls produced in the southern seas, and if compared with those produced in the fresh water inside China, they are bigger in size and of a superior quality. Since the ancient times, pearls are produced mainly from the southern seas such as the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Persia, the Red Sea, and so on. In the Han period, pearls produced in the Red Sea were imported through the eastern territory of the Roman Empire. . . . ” Harada (1971), p. 72.

“The Indian Ocean is our main source of pearls, the most prized of all jewels. To get pearls men – including the Indians – go to the islands, which are very few in number. The most productive are Taprobane [Sri Lanka] and Stoidis, together with the Indian promontory of Perimula. Special praised are the pearls from the islands around Arabia and in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.” NH (b), IX, 106 (p. 135).

          “Ranking first among Oriental pearls for superior form, lustre, and orient are those produced by the mohar, a variety of the Pinctada martensii species of saltwater mollusk. Found in the Persian Gulf with the richest harvest taken from the waters of the great bight that curves from the peninsula of Oman to that of Qatar, the pearls come from depths of 8 to 20 fathoms (48 to 10 feet). Pearls of fine quality are also fished near Bahrain.
          Another important source of Oriental pearls produced by Pinctada martensii is the neighbourhood of Sri Lanka, particularly the Gulf of Mannar between South India and Sri Lanka. These pearls are marketed in Madras, India, together with African pearls, taken chiefly from the banks that lie in the coastal waters of East Africa.” NEB Vol. VII, p. 821.

          “Sung shu 29.1509b. “Luminous pearls”^f, according to later scholiasts, are “night-shining pearls”^g. a variant expression is “luminous-moon pearls”^h, a term current before the Han dynasty. Actually the two latter terms are synonymous, since yeh-kuangⁱ “light of the night” is a metaphor for “moon.” Conrady has observed the use of both of these expressions in reference to precious gems in texts of the Chou Dynasty, ming-yüeh chi chu^j being first observed in Chan-kuo ts’e. He suggests an Indian origin for them, with analogues in candrakânta “moon-beloved” (a gem created by rays of moonlight, and shining only in the moonlight) and harinmaṇi “moon-jewel” (used for emerald”). See A. Conrady, Das Älteste Dokument zur Chinesischen Kunstgeschichte, T’ien-wen, Die “Himmelsfragen” des K’üh Yüan (Leipzig, 1931), pp. 168-169.”

f 明珠

g 夜光珠

h 明月珠

i 夜光

j 明月之珠

Schafer (1952), p. 155, n. 8.

“The “pearl as clear as the moon”, etymologically, gives the sense of the “astrion” of Pliny, perhaps, according to Laufer, our asteria [probably the star sapphire].” Translated from: Boulnois (1992), p 171.

The following lines taken from the charming Han ballad, “Mulberry on the Bank” in Birrell, (1988), p. 169, gives us a picture of a beautiful woman wearing ‘bright moon pearl’ earrings:

“Lo-fu loves the silkworm mulberry,

She picks mulberry at the wall’s south corner,

Of green silk her basket strap,

Of cassia her basket and pole.

On her head a twisting-fall hairdo,

At her ears bright moon pearls.

Of apricot silk her lower skirt,

Of purple silk her upper blouse.

Passersby see Lo-fu,

They drop their load, stroke their beard.”

12.12 (23) yeguangzhu 夜光珠 [yeh-kuang chu], literally – ‘Night-shining pearls,’ or, rather, ‘night-shining (pearl-like) jewels or beads.” These are probably identical to the yeguangbi 夜光壁 [yeh-kuan-pi] – literally: ‘night-shining bi’ that are mentioned in the Hou Hanshu – see TWR Section 12 and note 12.1.

The identification of these “night-shining” gems has been a matter of extensive debate both in China and the West for many years. Recently, balls of fluorite have been claimed to be the famous “night-shining” gems of Chinese history. Specimens have been sold recently in the antique markets of China and Taiwan for truly astronomical sums. Apparently, a 6 kilogram ball of fluorite was sold for 6 billion H.K. dollars in Guangzhou, and a 700 kilogram fluorite ball fetched 80 billion Taiwan dollars in Taiwan.

The claims that the “night-shining” gems were fluorite are almost undoubtedly false, and are based on the well-known ability of certain types of fluorite to glow in various colours (fluoresce) under ultraviolet light and continues to glow (phosphoresce) for some time after the light has been removed. However, it is most unlikely that the ancients were able to produce artificial sources of ultraviolet light and, although some forms of fluorite will also glow when heated (thermoluminescence) or crushed (triboluminescence) – but specimens will only show these qualities once. Although often beautiful and showing a wide range of colours, fluorite is a very common mineral both in China and in other parts of the world and is, therefore, unlikely to have been a much sought-after trade item, or seen as a rarity.

Recently, Dr. WANG Chunyun of the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, has made, I believe, a very strong case that the yeguangzhu (sometimes called yemingzhu) of the ancient texts actually referred to large diamonds of roughly spherical shape which were capable of concentrating the light from weak sources at night and producing a relatively brilliant sparkle or beam of light. He also documents the fact that these very rare and unusually large diamonds were, in fact, found in ancient China as well as India, and convincingly demolishes the theories put forward by previous scholars favouring a number of other minerals, such as fluorite. I am inclined to accept his proposals and refer interested readers to his three recent papers (each with an English abstract): Wang (2004a, b, and c – see Bibliography).

“Then the index system was applied to the discrimination of diamond in ancient literature and records, and it was recognized that at least ten different historical names such as night-shining jewel, precious jewel, white jewel, etc. actually referred to diamond. From the ancient literature covering the nearly 4000 years history lasting from the Five-Emperor Period to the Song Dynasty, about 58 diamond-related items of literature records were initially deciphered, and at least 198 historically famous diamonds thus recorded were discovered, among which there are at least 26 giant grained diamonds with per grain weight exceeding 100 carats [= 200 grams].” From the English Abstract to Wang (2004c).

“The lustre of the diamond is adamantine, a hard brilliant lustre, which is the result of the high reflective index and the strong dispersion ( prismatic effect ) of the mineral. The term is derived from the Greek name adamas (“invincible”) for the diamond. . . .
Since the beauty of the colourless, relatively small diamond is dependent on the fire that it displays, great care must be taken in cutting. It was for this gem that the brilliant cut was designed, and the angle between the crown and pavilion facets is cultivated so that the maximum of white light entering the crown will be reflected back from the pavilion facets and be as widely separated into its spectral colours as possible. If the diamond is large enough, such cutting is not required, because the white light travels far enough in traversing the stone so that its spectrum is well developed. Such is the case with large Indian diamonds that still retain their rather crude pre-18^th century cutting.” NEB, 7, p. 971.

For the sake of completeness I include here a couple of quotes on some of the more plausible alternative theories:

Both the Romans and the Chinese apparently had quite sophisticated crystal lenses at this early period and the Egyptians had glass globes filled with water which were used to magnify as well as to start fires by focussing the sun’s rays circa 3000 BCE and they were “extremely common in the Roman Empire – See Temple (2000), pp. 57-59, 89-90, 92. Conceivably, either the lenses or the water-filled globes could have been used to concentrate weak sources of light at night and were, therefore, called “night-shining” gems, although they never seem to be described as such in Chinese literature:

“A 4-cm biconvex rock-crystal lens was excavated in 1992 from a tomb at Jiangling in Hubei Province. The date of the tomb was the so-called Spring and Autumn Period (722-480 BC); at that time the tomb was in the ancient State of Chu. I have been unable to inspect this lens in person. I believe it is in a small museum in that area, but I was prevented from getting there by floods on the occasion that I tried. The philosopher Wang Chong (Wang Ch’ung in old style) 王充 who was born in 27 AD (in the later Han period) wrote a famous work called the Lun-Heng 论衡. In it he mentions burning lenses. Much of the work was translated by Alfred Forke (Forke, Alfred, Lun-Heng, 2 vols, 2nd edition, reprinted by Paragon Book Gallery, New York, 1962). He says: ‘by burning-glasses . . . one may obtain fire from the sun . . .’ (Vol. II, p. 132) and ‘With a burning-glass one draws fire from Heaven’ (Vol. II, p. 351). And Forke points out that James Legge had found evidence that burning-mirrors were very common during the Zhou Dynasty (1030-221 BC), for which see Forke, Vol. II, p. 497 and the reference he gives to Legge, James, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXVII, p. 449. An enormous survey of optical lenses in China and India was written by the indefatigable Berthold Laufer in 1915: Laufer, Berthold, ‘Optical Lenses’, T’oung Pao, Leiden, Vol. XVI, 1915: pp. 169-228 and 562-3. I have not the space to discuss it. Chinese optics is also discussed by Jin Quipeng in an essay published in English in 1986: Jin Quipeng, ‘Optics’, in Ancient China’s Technology and Science, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1986, pp. 166-75. In his essay, Jin quotes Zhang Hua of the Jin Dynasty (265-420 AD) in his book Record of the Investigations of Things: ‘Cut a piece of ice into a sphere, lift it in the sun and let its shadow fall on a piece of moxa [tinder made from an Artemisia related to wormwood]; the moxa will be set alight’ (p. 174). This is the earliest surviving record which I have found of ice being cut to make a burning-lens; later in the book we encounter a Frenchman who did the same thing in the 18^th century.” Temple (2000), pp. 124-125, n. 13.

“The Chinese lore of “luminous pearls” (or “beads”) and “night-shining pearls” and “luminous moon pearls” . . . goes back to Chou times, and may be ultimately of Indian origin. It has parallels and analogues in many cultures. . . .
          Actually, the luminescent “gems” seen in China were often the eyes of whales, which, like the body parts of many marine creatures, were naturally phosphorescent. . . .
          But there were also luminescent gems of mineral origin; some stones have this quality continually, others only when rubbed or heated. During Hsüan Tsung’s first reign an embassy from Māimargh presented the monarch with a gem called simply * pi̯ɒk. This was the name of an archaic flat stone ring, a symbol of the heavenly kingship in Chou times; but it was also a word used interchangeably with *pi̯äk, “dark blue-green stone” and sometimes “luminescent blue-green stone.” If not a ceremonial jade ring, then, this gift was probably made of chlorophane, the thermoluminescent variety of fluorite, which was undoubtedly the material of the phosphorescent “emeralds” of classical antiquity, such as the green eyes of the marble lion on the tomb of King Hermias of Cyprus, though the Hellenistic alchemists had methods, seemingly magical, of making night-shining gems by the application of phosphorescent paints to stones, the most famous being their “emeralds” and “carbuncles.” Schafer (1963), pp. 237-238. See also the notes under item No. (22) above from Schafer (1952), p. 155, n. 8.

“Allow us to add that, according to Berthelot [Berthelot (M.). Introduction à l’étude de la chimie des anciens et du Moyen Age. Paris, 1893 et Paris, Libraire des sciences et des arts, 1938], the Romans knew how to make gems phosphorescent by rubbing them with tortoise bile. This “trick” had perhaps impressed the Easterners.” Translated from: Boulnois (1992), pp. 170-171.

12.12 (24) zhenbazhu 白珠珠 [chen-pa chu] – genuine white pearls.

“In ancient times the Chinese had obtained some pearls from the waters off their central coast, but with the establishment of the Han dynasty the old province of Ho-p’u, in what is now southwestern Kwangtung, then a savage outpost, became the chief source of pearls. These, along with ivory, rhinoceros horn, silver, copper, and fruits, came to typify the luxury-providing south to the well-to-do northerners. The pearl fisheries of Ho-p’u were worked so intensively that the supply was exhausted. The Grand Protector of the region in Later Han, Men Ch’ang, was able to restore the people’s livelihood by wise methods of control and conservation. He was deified and became the spiritual patron of the fisheries, and the theme of the “return of the pearls” to Ho-p’u was celebrated even in T’ang times in many ‘rhapsodies” (fu) illustrating the bad economic effects of avarice and unrestrained exploitation. . . .
          But the pearls brought in merchant vessels from the South Seas were esteemed above all Chinese pearls for their color and lustre.” Schafer (1963), pp. 243, 244.

          “As a result of the destruction of the Kingdom of Yüeh, which had been founded by the hero Chao T’o in the wilderness about Canton, by the troops of the Warlike Emperor in 111 B.C., the natural wealth of the South and its adjacent waters became available to the monarchs of the Han. Among the new administrative areas set up by the central government for the control and exploitation of this land was Ho-p’u chün – the Province of the Estuary of the Ho River. The province comprised a considerable territory in what is now largely western Kuang-tung, including the Lei-chou Peninsula. The official census states that the province included five counties (hsien), 15,398 (taxable) families, and 78,980 adult persons. The seat of the provincial administration was established at Hsü-wen County near the southwest corner of Lei-chou Peninsula, but was subsequently moved to Ho-p’u County, close to the modern town of that name just east of the Ho River, and north of Pakhoi. The region represented a virtually untouched source of luxury goods for the Chinese court and aristocracy. In the words of the Book of Han: “It is situated by the sea, and abounds in rhinoceros and elephant [i.e. horn and ivory], tortoise-shell, pearls, silver, copper, fruit, and stuffs. Many merchants going from the Central States obtain riches there.” The text goes on to describe Hsü-wen and Ho-p’u Counties as important ports-of-call for ships trading in the South Seas.
          Henceforth pearl-gathering was an important industry in southern China.” Schafer (1952), p. 155.

          “With the partition of the Empire at the close of Later Han, Ho-p’u became the portion of the maritime state of Wu. This southernmost of the Three Kingdoms changed the name of the province from “Estuary of the Ho” to “Pearl Officer”^aa. The renaming was restored before the end of the dynasty.”

aa 珠官 [zhuguan]

Schafer (1952), p. 157.

“Pearls, like coral, were highly valued in ancient China. In Pan Ku’s poems praising the Han palace, pearls figure as importantly as coral. Unlike coral, pearls originated in south India and Ceylon. Pearls were one of India’s important exports to the West during the early centuries AD (Periplus: 56, 59, 61). Fa-hsien [beginning of the 5^th century AD] also remarked on the advanced organization of the Ceylon pearl fishery. The king controlled the sources and took three-tenths of all the pearls that were harvested (864c). It was more convenient to ship these pearls to south China via the sea than overland to the north through Central Asia.
          However, the Periplus mentions that pearls from Persia, although of lower quality than those of south India, were also exported to Barygaza (36). . . .
          It is difficult to determine whether pearls found in north China came by sea or via Central Asia. A Japanese team found pearls in a site along the Amu Darya in Afghanistan (CAKP: I, 179). The fact that pearls were among the jewels found in the tomb of Chang Chün in Liang-chou (CS: CXXII, 3067) proves that at least part of those in China came from India through Central Asia. The following anecdote in the Northern dynasties also suggests that pearls travelled the Northern Route: after the Northern Wei, when north China was again divided into two parts, the Northern Ch’i (AD 550-77) in the east tried to purchase pearls from their neighbours to the west, the Northern Chou. The Northern Chou controlled the route to the Western Region. The fact that the Northern Ch’i sought pearls from a hostile neighbour – and not from the South – suggests that pearls were more easily available in north than in south China.” Liu (1988), pp. 57-58.

“The Indian Ocean is our main source of pearls, the most prized of all jewels. To get pearls men – including the Indians – go to the islands, which are very few in number. The most productive are Taprobane [Sri Lanka] and Stoidis, together with the Indian promontory of Perimula. Specially praised are the pearls from the islands around Arabia and in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. . . .
          There is a great variation in their brilliance. Pearls found in the Red Sea are bright, while those in the Indian Ocean are like flakes of mica and exceed others in size. The longer ones have their own intrinsic charm. The greatest praise is for pearls to be called alum-coloured.” Pliny NH (a), pp. 135, 136 (IX, 106, 112).

“Among the products of Nature, the most expensive derived from the sea is the pearl. . . . ” Pliny NH (a), p. 377 (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204).

12.12 (25) hupo 虎珀 [hu-p’o] – yellow amber – see GR No. 4870.

“... the most expensive products. . . from trees or shrubs, [are] amber, balsam, myrrh and frankincense. . . . ” Pliny (a), p. 377 (XXXVII, 204).

“Hu-po 虎珀, GSR: 57b and 782o : χo / χuo – pak / pɐk. Pulleyblank (1963), p. 124, reconstructs as the “Old Chinese” pronunciation of hu-po *ha̲-•phlak, and thinks – contrary to Laufer (1919), p. 523 – that this may represent Greek ἅρπαξ, [‘arpax’] “amber”.” CICA: 107, n. 226.

          “AMBER :– Hu-po 琥珀, abounds in Yun-nan especially the clouded variety bright or clear Ming-p’o 明珀, Clouded Yün-p’o 雲 珀, flowery ‘Hua-p’o 花珀, stony Shih-p’o 石珀, variegated dark, Chüeh-p’o 碏珀 q.q.v. Dr. F. P. Smith says. The first Chinese name Hu-po is founded upon the legend that the soul P’o 魄 of the tiger 虎 is changed after death into this substance. It is supposed to be the resin of a Pinus or liquid amber, buried for some thousand years, or, perhaps some altered fungus. Small pieces of an indifferent colour are brought from Li-chiang Fu and Yung-chang Fu in Yun-nan, but the market is supplied from Annam, the islands of the Indian archipelago, and according to Dr. Williams, from Africa. O-shih-mo Chüeh-p’o, 阿濕摩掲婆, is given as its Sanscrit name. Cambodia, Korea, and Japan are said to have yielded this substance, whose electrical and chemical and chemical properties are tolerably well described in the Pen-ts’ao. Retinite is probably included under this head. Pieces containing insects &c., are held in great repute. The best pieces are all made into courtbeads and ornaments. Much of what is attempted to be sold is fictitious, being made from colophony and copal. Lenitive, diuretic, sedative, tonic, nervine, astringent and many other fanciful properties are attributed to this inert substance. A dark, jade-like kind of amber called Hsi-p’o 璽珀 said to come from Tangut, yields succinic fumes, and is supposed to be an older fossil than amber.” Mesny (1896), pp. 90-91.

“The ‘Baltic’ Balts are first mentioned by Tacitus, under the name of Aestii; he praises their skill at growing crops, ‘with a patience quite unusual among the lazy Germans’. Of more general importance was that the land of the Aestii produced (and still does produce) most of the world’s supply of amber. Beads of this substance made their appearance in Greece as early as 1500 BC, and were also exported to many other parts of the world. The Roman Empire, as usual, operated on a larger scale than anything done before. From Pliny, for example, we hear that in Nero’s reign (AD 54-68) a Roman businessman visited the amber country and brought back enough amber to decorate all the equipment for a large gladiatorial show. The biggest piece weighed thirteen pounds.” Sitwell (1984), p. 41.

“In Europe the biggest and most important supplies of amber traded in early times were found at Samland on the Baltic coast and in smaller quantities on the North Sea. The chief mining area was near Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg). . . . An important eastern route ran from the Baltic coast along the Vistula and through the territory of Kiev southeastwards to the Black Sea. Here this Eastern amber route linked up with the long and ancient overland connections to the Near East, central and east Asia and India. . . . Some of the amber sold in Asia came from Burma.” Raunig (1984), pp. 14-15.

“Of the extreme tracts of Europe towards the west I cannot speak with any certainty; for I do not allow that there is any river, to which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus, emptying itself into the northern sea, whence (as the tale goes) amber is procured;¹²³. . . . ” Herodotus, 5^th cent. BC, 1996 edition: 274 (III.115). [“Here Herodotus is over-cautious and rejects as fable what we can see to be truth. The amber district upon the northern sea is the coast of the Baltic about the Gulf of Dantzig, and the mouths of the Vistula and Niemen, which is still one of the best amber regions in the world. The very name, Eridanus, lingers there in the Rhodaune, the small stream which washes the west side of the town of Dantzig. The word Eridanus (Rhodanus) seems to have been applied, by the early inhabitants of Europe, especially to great and strong-running rivers.” Ibid, note 123 on page 301 by George Rawlinson. See also: Miller (1959), pp. 15 and 41, n. 26.

12.12 (26) shanhu 珊瑚 [shan-hu] – (red) coral.

“Since the period of the Former Han dynasty coral had been an extremely valuable commodity. . . .
          From where and on what route did coral – so highly valued by the Chinese – come to China? Red coral from the western Mediterranean and the Red Sea was one of the major items shipped to the East from the time of the Periplus (28, 39, 49). The histories of the Later Han (HHS: LXXXVIII, 2919), the Three Kingdoms (SKC: XXX, 861) and the Chin (CS: XCVII, 2544) mention coral as a product of Ta-ch’in, i.e. the Roman empire. A later Chinese account gives a detailed description of how coral was collected from the sea in Ta-ch’in: the Romans dropped iron nets on the coral reefs so that the yellowish young coral would grow on them. Three years later they came back to collect the coral once it had turned red (Hsin T’ang-shu: CCXXI, 6261).
          Those records definitely refer to Mediterranean red coral. There were three possible routes to ship the coral to China. The most frequented route was the Southern Route to India. In the time of the Periplus the primary destination of coral in Roman cargo ships was India. Pliny mentions that coral was as highly treasured in India as pearls were in Rome (XXXII, 11). Coral beads along with beads of other precious materials have been found in north-Indian sites, for example at Rajghat in the level of the pre-Kushan period (Narain 1976-8: II, 12). . . .
          The second possible route was through the Northern Route of Central Asia. The Wei history describes coral as originating in Persia, probably because some coral was transported through Persia and the Northern Route into Central Asia. Ferghana’s gift to the Chao state in 331 AD included coral (Wang Chung-lo 1979: 704).
          The sea route from the Red Sea to south China was the third, and the most unlikely, way. Although there are some vague references to coral imported from southern ports during Han times (Shu-i-chi: 1/3a-b), most other Chinese sources call coral one of the commodities from the Western Region. . . . No matter where the coral originated, north India was probably the main supplier of trans-shipped coral to China before the T’ang dynasty.” Liu (1988), pp. 54-57

“The author lists coral as an import at Barygaza (49:16.21) and at Muzuris and Nelkynda (56:18.19) as well as here [at Barbarikon, near the mouth of the Indus]. According to Pliny (32.21), the Indians prized coral as highly as the Romans did pearls. They have continued to prize it. Watt (ii 532) reports that fine pieces of red coral from the Mediterranean were worth twenty times their weight in gold. The coral exported to India in ancient times must have come from the Mediterranean (cf. under 28:9.16). Indeed, so much was exported from there that by Pliny’s day supplies had become scarce (Pliny 32.23 and cf. Warmington 263-64).” Casson (1989), p. 191.

“Coral is as highly valued among the Indians as Indian pearls. It is also found in the Red Sea, but there it is darker in colour. The most prized is found in the Gallic Gulf around the Stoechades Islands, in the Sicilian Gulf around the Aeolian Islands, and around Drepanum. . . .
          Coral-berries are no less valued by Indian men than specimen Indian pearls by Roman ladies. Indian soothsayers and seers believe that coral is potent as a charm for warding off dangers. Accordingly they delight in its beauty and religious power. Before this became known, the Gauls used to decorate their swords, shields and helmets with coral. Now it is very scarce because of the price it commands, and is rarely seen in its natural habitat.” Pliny (a), p. 281 (XXXII, 21, 23).

“CORALS. The name commonly given to the stony skeletons of polypes, which in warm seas build up the well-known and dangerous reefs. The term is also applied to the skeletons of another group of polypes, which produce the red and pink coral so much used for personal ornaments. The Coral Fishery, to be noticed presently, is only for the latter kind, as the white coral – that which is best known by the beautiful arborescent or massive specimens in our museums – has little commercial value. . . .
          A few words in this place regarding the CORAL FISHERY may not be inappropriate. . . . Red Coral is found in the Mediterranean, on the shores of Provence, about the isles of Majorca and Minorea, on the south of Sicily ; on the coast of Africa ; and, lastly, in the Ethiopic Ocean, and about Cape Negro. The divers say that the little branches are found only in the caverns whose situation is parallel to the earth’s surface, and open to the south.” Maunder (1878), pp. 148, 149.

“The red coral of the Mediterranean, which is not of great value today, was appreciated in Antiquity, in the Orient and the West, in various grades. Some unusual qualities were attributed to it: that of fading on the skin of those who were seriously ill (replacing diagnosis!); and that of protection from dangers. They were put into certain charms of the Middle Ages, and something of its magical character survives in the present practice of wearing it against the “evil eye” in certain superstitious quarters of the Mediterranean. It is always very sought after in Central Asia and in Tibet, and in China it has been made part of medicinal substances for a long time.” Translated from: Boulnois (1992), p. 74.

“Coral was exported [from Egypt] to India as well as to Arabia. . . . Red Sea coral, to be had all along the western coast of Arabia, hardly required importation via shippers from Egypt; moreover, it was considered of inferior quality (Pliny 32.21). The coral referred to here [in the Periplus] must have come from the Mediterranean, which produced prized varieties. . . . ” Casson (1989), p. 163.

12.12 (27) Ten varieties of glass: red, white, black, green, yellow, blue-green, dark blue, light blue, fiery red, purple: 赤白黑綠黃青紺縹紅紫十種流離.

Glass = liuli 流離 [liu-li]. There has been much discussion about whether liuli in these early texts referred to glass or to some natural gemstone. See, for example, Leslie and Gardiner (1996), p. 213.
          By the first century CE glass in all its forms had become one of the major exports of the Roman Empire. This was due to three main factors:

a. Rome had recently acquired the main glass-producing centres of the ancient world which were mainly centred in Syria and Egypt. Rome not only controlled their production and exports but imported the latest technologies (and top craftsmen) to Italy itself where a huge new industry was established.

b. The Syrians, in particular, had not only developed techniques for producing clear glass wares (which, until foreigners became aware of the scam) could be passed off as valuable rock crystal wares, but were able to produce transparent glass in a very wide range of colours. It seems that it was several centuries before transparent (rather than merely translucent or opaque) varieties of glass were produced in China – see below. 

c. The development of glass-blowing in the second half of the first century BCE – probably in Syria – meant that, for the first time, glass vessels could be cheaply and quickly mass-produced. The industry expanded rapidly and by the end of the first century CE free-blown and mould-blown glassware formed the bulk of glass objects produced in the Roman Empire.

It is generally accepted that only opaque glass was produced in China until superior manufacturing technology was introduced by Yuezhi merchants in the fifth century. The following account of this technology transfer also makes it clear that the liuli previously imported from the west was indeed glass:

“According to the Pei-shih . . . it was during the time of T’ai-wu of the northern Wei dynasty (A.D. 424-452) that traders came to the capital of Wei from the country of the Ta-yüeh-chih . . . , bordering on the north-west of India¹ who said that, by fusing certain minerals, they could make all colours of liu-li. They then gathered and digged in the hills, and fused the minerals at the capital (near the present Ta-t’ung-fu in Shan-hsi). When ready, the material so obtained was of even greater brilliancy than the liu-li imported from the west. The Pei-shih specially states that, after this event, articles made of glass became considerably cheaper in China than they had been before. . . .  

1. According to the Wei-shu, quoted in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 364, p. 31, they came from India . . .”

Hirth, pp. 230-231 and n. 1. [Note that Hirth quotes another story from Grosier’s Description de la Chine, edition of 1787, Vol II, p. 464, which relates this event to an “Emperor Tai-tsu” of the Sung, which Hirth maintains was another name for emperor Wen-ti of the Sung (A.D. 424 to 454). Doubt has, however, been cast on the authenticity of this latter story – see Leslie and Gardiner, p. 214 and n. 75. Also: Boulnois (1992), pp. 178-179.]

          “Tracing the history of glass as a commodity in Chinese foreign trade poses several problems. Previously, scholars thought that China did not develop glass-making techniques until the fifth century AD. But since the 1930s, many glass samples have been found in tombs dating from the fifth century BC. Doris Dohrenwend recently summarized the history of Chinese glass comprehensively. She divides Chinese glass into two categories. The small opaque items pre-dating the third century AD are liu-li, and the transparent vessels from the T’ang dynasty onwards are po-li. Between the two phases during the Northern and Southern dynasties there was a ‘glass mini-boom,’ as indicated by a series of glass vessels of doubtful provenance (Dohrenwend 1980: 426-46).
          Today no one doubts that the Chinese made glass long before the Christian era. There is also clear evidence that China imported glass from foreign countries even up to the Ch’ing dynasty. The real question is: did the Chinese regard the ancient opaque items made by them or their ancestors as being the same thing as the transparent or colourful glass they imported at the same time? Obviously not. Both terms, liu-li and po-li, appeared in the Chinese vocabulary after contact with the Western Region, and both have Sanskrit origins.” Liu (1988), pp. 58-59. See also ibid. pp. 60-63, 80, 160-161.

“Glass had been familiar to the Chinese for centuries, and had been manufactured by them since late Chou times. Their language distinguished two kinds of glass, liu-li and po-li. Liu-li was colored glass, either opaque or only dully translucent, or even a colored ceramic glaze; it was akin to the lead glass which we call “paste,” and like paste was thought of as a substitute for natural gemstones, especially for green and blue ones. Indeed, it was sometimes confused with real minerals, such as lapis lazuli, beryl, and, no doubt, turquoise. Po-li, on the other hand, was transparent, either colorless, like rock crystal, and compared with water and ice, or else palely tinted. Liu-li was already old in China, but blown vessels of po-li were a novelty in T’ang.
          Little need be said of the false gem liu-li. It was familiar in both life and literature, and was doubly exotic in that it came occasionally with embassies from the West, and was also reported of distant cultures, such as Pyü in Burma. . . . ” Laufer (1912), pp. 235-236.

“The Chinese word liu-li apparently transcribes Pali veḻuriyam (Sanskrit vaiḏūrya) and in the Buddhist literature continues to have the same referent, that is, “beryl” or some other green gem. For this reason, Laufer (1946), 111-112, did not accept the meaning “glass” for it, and, though he admitted that certain colored glazes were sometimes called liu-li, he considered po-li the only usual word for glass in China. Po-li transcribes a form close to Sanskrit sphaṯika, “crystal.” Cf. Needham (1962), 105-106.” Schafer (1963), p. 335, n. 137.

“One of the products that Rome exported further and further afield, was glass objects, particularly coloured glasses, containers of all sorts, cut glass, glass beads for necklaces from the workshops of Syria or those of Puteoli. These necklace beads have been found from the shores of England to those of the Annam Sea, in Central Asia and the Ukraine. They were made round or oval, pear-shaped and cylindrical, in the shape of disks and amphora, in opaque and translucent glass. There were blues and greens, and whimsical beads made of alternating layers of blue glass, bronze, and white pottery.” Translated from Boulnois (1992), p. 75.

“Glass, for example, initially imported from Hellenistic nations, was first introduced in China during the Warring States period [481-221 BCE], as the fragments discovered at Jincun near Luoyang, or at Changsha have confirmed. Apart from being prized for its beauty, glass, which was as uncommon in China as jade and served as a substitute for jade, was considered priceless by the rulers of that era on account of its rarity. Under the Han dynasty, glass was imported from Syria which filled specific orders for the Chinese market. Indeed, glass was used to produce jewels and inlaid work for belt plates or bronze mirrors. Sometimes it was substituted for jade in the form of small plates that were inserted in the mouths of corpses. Authors even wrote admiring poems to praise this extraordinary substance.” Elisseeff (1983), pp. 163-164.

“The evidence for Roman trade in glass with the cities along the east coast of South India is exactly the opposite of that on the west coast. There is no written evidence, but finds from excavations are abundant. A Chinese record from the end of the second century B.C. says that, among other goods, the Chinese got glass from Kanchipuram.³⁰ No published archaeological evidence for glass trade at Kanchipuram is known to me, nor for glass trade from its ports at Vasavasmudram and Mahabalipuram. However, the chance find of a large fragment of a Mediterranean amphora at Vasavasmudram indicates that Mediterranean wares reached this port. Therefore, the possibility cannot be excluded that glass exported from the West to Kanchipuram was destined for transit trade with China.”

30. J. Duyvendak, China’s Discovery of Africa (London 1949) 9-10. See also Stern (infra n. 37) [E. M. Stern, Ancient Glass at the Fondation Custodia (Collection Frits Lugt) Paris (Groningen 1977) 25-30.]

Stern (1991), p. 117 and nn. 30, 37. See this article for a detailed discussion of the types of glass manufactured in the Roman Empire and exported to India and Africa and which are probably indicative of the types of glass and glass wares exported to China as well. Also see the excellent chapter on the development of glass technology in Uberti (1988), pp. 536-561.

12.12 (28) qiulin 璆琳 [ch’iu lin] – a magnificent form of jade. The oldest reference I can find to qiulin and langgan are in the Guanzi 管子 which says that they originated:

“. . . from the mountains nearby the Yuzhi [Yuezhi];” specifically the Kunlun mountains.
          Now, the compilation of the Guanzi “was probably begun by the scholars of the Chi-hsia Academy founded c. 302 B.C. in Ch’i State, that most of the chapters belong to the third century, while some may still be earlier, and others were added in the second or even the first century B.C. Thus the book was mostly written before the Han period, even though some of its ideas are of a later date. . . .” Pokora (1973), pp. 31-32.

“In the “Qingzhong Jiapian 蜻重甲篇 of the same book [the Guanzi] it is also recorded:

If what is valued at no less than one thousand pieces of gold are white jade discs, then we should be able to persuade the Yuezhi, who are at a distance of 8,000 li, to present tribute. If clasps and earrings worth no less than one thousand pieces of gold are made from qiulin 璆琳 (a kind of beautiful jade) or langgan 琅玕 (a kind of white carnelian), then we should be able to cause the Kunlun Hills 昆侖之虚, which are at a distance of 8,000 li, to present tribute.

The “Qingzhong Yipian” records also: “Jade originates from the mountains nearby the Yuzhi [Yuezhi], which are at a distance of 7,000 li from Zhou 周.” Yu (1998), p. 48.

Yu believes these “Kunlun” Mountains “may have referred to the Altai Mountains,” but I prefer the more usual definition of them as the high chain of mountains separating the Tarim Basin from the Tibetan Plateau and, in particular, the famous jade-bearing regions south of Khotan and Yarkand. Other definitions of qiulin are listed below:

璆琳 is defined in GR No. 2199 as a “beautiful precious stone”; magnificent jade.”

璆 – ch’iu is listed in Williams, p. 171 as: “a hard jaspery kind of stone hung up to tinkle in the wind; the ringing of jade ornaments.”

The character 璆 – ch’iu is listed in Couvrier, p. 386 as a “beautiful stone…” and the equivalent of 球 – ch’iu: “Name of a beautiful stone, which was offered by Yungchou”. Yungchou was one of the nine divisions of the empire made by Yü the Great.

Williams (p. 526) defines 琳 – lin as: “A valuable stone mentioned among the articles of tribute with the球 [ch’iu] in the Shu King; it was brought from the west, and was probably a variety of veined jade.”

12.12 (29) langgan 琅玕 [lang- kan] – probably a whitish chalcedony. There have been many definitions of langgan and, perhaps, it has meant different things at different times. For example, it has frequently been described as a kind of branching coral or “coral tree.”

          The Qingzhong Jiapian of the Guanzi (quoted under 12.12 (28) above), which was probably written around the time of the Early Han, describes langgan being traded into China from Central Asia by the Yuezhi. Probably the Weilue’s account refers to a type of precious stone rather than some form of coral. Yu’s identification of it as a “kind of white carnelian” undoubtedly indicates the whitish form of chalcedony. Carnelian, a form of chalcedony is, by definition, a reddish colour, but it is found in a variety of other colours, including bluish-white, grey, yellow, or brown. It is a waxy, fine-grained form of silica much favoured by gem engravers.
          On the other hand, the GR No. 6687, gives, among its definitions: “balas-ruby : a precious stone of yellow or red from the Indies; a stone in the form of a pearl; name of a tree : a tree of pearl.

          Williams (1909), p. 498 says: “[lang kan:] white coral of a firm texture, branched like a Gorgonia, but not susceptible of polish.” 

“Lang-kan 琅玕is a stone variously said to resemble pearl and jade; the term occurs in the Shu-ching (6.21a; Couvreur, p. 79; Legge, III, 127). Legge suggests that it is lapis lazuli. Schafer describes lang-kan as a fairy gem, the stuff or fruit of a tree of paradise, or of an axial world-tree” (“The Origin of an Era,” p. 545; cf. his The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, p. 246, and The Vermilion Bird, p. 159).” Rogers (1968), p. 257, n. 486.

“Since the period of the Former Han dynasty coral had been an extremely valuable commodity. In eulogies describing the court’s brilliance in Former Han time, Later Han writers such as Pan Ku mentioned ‘coral trees’, i.e. branch coral (Liang-tu-fu, 4a). In fiction written in a later period coral trees symbolize the extravagance of the Former Han court. It is said of Emperor Wu of the Former Han built a shrine with ‘coral window lattice’, and with ‘coral trees’ planted around it, where he searched for immortality in vain (Lu Hsün 1939: 347). This tradition of using coral continued after the Han.¹ It seems that coral was the most precious and, hence, the ideal item of tribute. More specific records about the use of coral appear after the Han. . . . ”

¹ “Even as late as the T’ang. In the famous picture by the T’ang artist Yen Li-pen: ‘Foreign envoys coming with their tributes’ (Schafer 1963), many envoys carry a piece of ‘coral tree’.”

Liu (1988), p. 54, and n. 1. On these “tree corals” see also, for example: Maunder (1878), p. 398 under “Madrepore”.

          “Related to the trees of red coral in P’eng-lai were trees of the mysterious mineral lang-kan in P’eng-lai’s continental counterpart, K’un-lun, where the peaches of immortality grew. These trees of fairy gems, colored blue or green or blue-green, were well known in ancient days, and were reported in the classical books of Chou and early Han. Though the lang-kan tree of the West was, for the medieval Chinese, another fable, like the coral tree of the East, and as Aladdin’s jewelled tree is to us, nonetheless a substance called lang-kan was imported in T’ang times from the barbarians of the Southwest and from Khotan. Some said it was a kind of glass, that is, related to the colored paste called liu-li, but others told of a stony lang-kan, which was a species of coral fished from the sea, red when fresh but gradually turning blue. Perhaps some lang-kan was blue or green coral, and some a glassy blue-green mineral; in any case, it was related to “dark-blue kan,” from which were made miniature mountains brought to China in the tenth century from Yünnan. . . .” Schafer (1963), p. 246.

12.12 (30) shuijing 水精 [shui-ch’ing] – rock crystal or transparent glass – see GR 9942. The Chinese at this period apparently did not know how to make transparent glass so rock crystal and clear glass were often confused but, glass must be what is meant here. See note 11.28.

12.12 (31) meigui 玫瑰 [mei kuei] – various semi-precious gems. The GR, under No. 7682, says that mei kuei referred in ancient times to black mica or biotite. It seems probable that the term meigui 玫瑰originally referred to a bright red sparkling gem, possibly garnet, from whence the word mei derived its other meaning of ‘a (red) rose.’ Dictionaries and other sources turn up a wide variety of definitions of meigui ranging from red garnets to black mica.
          The reason for this confusion is made clear in the 17^th century T’ien-kung K’ai-wu, which states that meigui refers to uncut (though possibly polished) semi-precious stones in a wide variety of colours:

“As for the mei kuei or “round” gems [probably garnet or mica] of the sizes of beans or green lentils, they are of all colors – red, green, blue, and yellow. The mei kuei gems occupy the same rank among gem stones as that of chi among pearls.” Sung (1637), pp. 299-300. Of interest here is the fact that the chi are defined as the lowest grade of pearls: “. . . . and the odd-shaped and fragmentary pearls are called chi.” Ibid, 298).

I have accepted this broader interpretation of mei kuei as uncut semi-precious stones here as the most likely, although I must note that it is not certain the term had this connotation during the Han period.

12.12 (32) xionghuang 雄黃 [hsiung-huang] – realgar – literally, ‘Masculine Yellow.’

          “HSIUNG HUANG 雄黃 :– Red Orpiment of Realgar, also supposed to be allied to Hartal, if not the identical substance.
          Hsiung Huang however abounds in Kuei-chou, and is found in other parts of China. It runs in veins in the mountains whence it is extracted much the same way as cinnabar which it somewhat resembles in appearance.
          The Prefectures of Hsing-yi Fu, Tsun-yi Fu, Ssū-nan Fu, and the Sub-prefecure of Lang-tai Ting, are known to have produced it for ages. It is of a bright red colour with nodules of yellow stuff, and is said to be a natural combination of sulphur and arsenic in equal parts.
          The price in Kuei-chou for the best is about a shilling a pound, 30 cents a catty. See Red Orpiment.
          The semi-transparent substance known in Kuei-chou as Ming Huang 明黃 and found at Chê-hêng in the Prefecture of Hsing-yi, in that Province, is I believe a superior kind of orpiment or realgar and sells in Kuei-chou where it is found at one tael a catty, say one dollar a pound. Its use is, I believe, confined to medicine, whilst Hsiung Huang 雄黃, the subject of this paper, is made up into household ornaments, such as wine pots, wine cups, images, paperweights, and various other kinds of ornaments and charms, to be kept near at hand in use, or worn about the person, with a view of warding off disease.” Mesny (1899), p. 251.

          “HSIUN-HUANG 雄黃, Hsiung 雄, which means the Masculine Yellow, or an equivalent to Superior in quality of colour or effect, and which I believe ought most properly be applied to the mineral when prepared for use as medicine or colouring.” Mesny (1905), p. 425.

          “Realgar (AsS) is a soft, sectile mineral, often powdery. It has a resinous luster, and varies in color from aurora-red to orange-yellow. It occurs commonly in association with orpiment and other arsenic minerals, with stibnite, and with lead, silver and gold ores. It is frequently encountered as a sublimation from volcanoes and hot springs. . . .
          As to the location of realgar mines outside of China, Pliny [Nat. Hist. 35, 22] tells of one on the island of Topazus in the Red Sea, but he says that the mineral was not imported thence. He adds elsewhere [Ibid, 33, 22] that it could be found in gold and silver mines. . . .
          There is little to say about the use of realgar as a pigment in China. Li Shih-chen mentions it, saying it yields a yellow color when ground fine. So say also the writings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but ancient references are lacking, and nowhere is there any indication that it was regarded as at all comparable to orpiment for painting, as indeed it is not.
          On the other hand, realgar has been important in Chinese medicine since antiquity. Its virtues are basically of three sorts, and all three of these are mentioned in the Shen-nung pen-ts’ao ching. The are: (1) as a general restorative and rejuvenator ; for lightening the body to the condition of a deity or Taoist sylph ; (2) for specific diseases, notably chills and fever, scrofula, ulcers, abscesses, and necrosis ; (3) against insect and reptile poisons. These applications of the drug are mentioned again and again, with some variations, in all of the Chinese medical writings down to the time of Li Shih-chen himself.” Schafer (1955), pp. 78, 79, 80, 83.

“Like orpiment, realgar is a compound of sulphur and arsenic, and (also like orpiment) it was thought to be a “seed of gold,” all the more so because it was found near gold deposits. In alchemical lore it was believed to have the power of transforming copper into gold, and even to become gold itself. . . .
          Realgar also had an important place in the materia medica being recommended as a cure for skin diseases, as an antiseptic for poisoned wounds, as a rejuvenator, and as an apotropaion [an amulet to ward off evil]; a prepared realgar egg in the Shōsōin collection of old medicines may be supposed to have the last-named role. In particular, the drug was effective against the incubi which haunted mad women; the sufferer was relieved by fumigating her genitals with a burning ball of realgar and pitch.
          Realgar has been mined, with orpiment, in several parts of China in early times, but in T’ang the best was imported from unnamed countries in the West. There were important deposits of the arsenic sulphides south of Ta-li in the country of Nan-chao; possibly some came into T’ang as well.” Schafer (1963), pp. 219-220.

12.12 (33) cihuang 雌黃 [tz’u-huang] – orpiment; literally,’ Feminine Yellow.’

“TZ’U HUANG 雌黃 :– Feminine Yellow. The female of Hsiung Huang 雄黃, which is Realgar.
          The name Tz’u-huang, I believe ought to be applied to the artificial variety of Realgar, which is equivalent with our orpiment or sulphuret of arsenic, called in India Hartal. Asz Sz.
          According to Thomson’s Chemistry “Orpiment when artificially prepared is in the form of a fine yellow coloured powder, but it is found indigenous in many parts of the world, particularly in Bohemia, Turkey, China and Ava. It is exported from the last two in considerable quantities, and is known in the East by the name of hartal. Native orpiment is composed of thin plates of a lively gold colour intermixed with pieces of a vermillion red, of a shattery foliaceous texture, flexible, soft to the touch like talc, and sparkling when broken. Specific gravity 3.45. The inferior kinds are of a dead yellow, inclining to green, and want the bright appearance of the best specimens. Its principal use is as a colouring drug among painters, bookbinders, etc.”
          In China it is used as a medicine, but is highly poisonous, and deadly, to flies. It is sometimes used to poison arrows and other weapons, and is used for some purpose in the Arsenals at Nanking and other places.” Mesny (1899), p. 251.

          “Orpiment (As₂S₃) is a beautiful yellow mineral, frequently with a lustrous golden color. Sometimes it is found in association with other ores of arsenic and antimony. It is soft, sectile, and markedly cleavable. . . .
          It cannot be told whether orpiment was clearly distinguished from other yellow pigments before the beginning of the Han dynasty. In the second century B. C., the name which became standard for all time appears in the literature of China. . . .
          Since realgar has generally been regarded in China as a more valuable product than orpiment, mines where both of these minerals occurred are usually first referred to as sources of realgar. . . .
          It seems likely that the Chinese would have used orpiment as a pigment in prehistoric times, but the presence of the mineral has not been verified on any object made before the beginning of the Christian era. . . .” Schafer (1955), pp. 73, 75,76,77.         

“The beautiful yellow arsenic sulphide named orpiment (from auripigmentum), also called “king’s yellow” by Western painters, was in China “hen yellow” because it was found associated with realgar, which was “cock yellow.” The alchemists called it, in their cabalistic jargon, “blood of the divine woman” or “blood of the yellow dragon,” and they claimed that the kind like “spat blood” brought up by ship was superior to the native mineral mined in Hunan. It was also named “sperm of gold,” because of supposed mineralogical relation with gold, as azurite was “sperm of copper.” This fine color had been imported from Champa and Cambodia at least as early as the fifth century, and was therefore also called “Kurung yellow.” Accordingly we are not surprised to find it as the golden yellow of the paintings on silk brought back from Tun-huang. The vicinity of Mastūj was reputed in T’ang times to be rich in orpiment and grapes, but we don’t know if either of these products was exported thence to China.” Schafer (1963), pp. 213-214. 

“Tz’u-huang. . . Orpiment (represents the yin principle in the pair of substances, orpiment – realgar).” Translated from: Glossaire de l’alchimie chinoise. By Pregadio (undated).

“There is a method of making gold from orpiment which is mined in Syria for painters; it is found on the surface and has the colour of gold, but is brittle and like selenite. Its potential attracted the Emperor Gaius Caligula who was obsessed with gold. He ordered a great weight of orpiment to be melted; and certainly it produced excellent gold, but the yield was very low and so, although orpiment sold for 4 denarii a pound, he lost out by the experiment which his greed had led him to initiate. The experiment was not subsequently repeated by anyone else.” Pliny NH (a), p. 299 (bk. XXXIII, chap. 79).

12.12 (34) bi 碧 [pi] – a precious stone – sometimes green – sometimes blue. Perhaps a form of nephrite or chalcedony.

GR No. 8810, gives: “1. name of a greenish-blue stone, resembling jade; nephrite; jasper. 2. Blue-green; green jade; jade blue; sky blue. Azure.”

“Pi (pyĕk), on the other hand, though a respectably old word, was less brilliant [than lang-kan] and not exotic at all. In early post-Han times, it had still been the name of a mineral (prase?).⁶⁴ By T’ang, it had been reduced to the status of a color word (except in archaic allusions), apparently a blue or green of high saturation and low brilliance – I have sometimes translated it “cyan” or “indigo.” Apparently Liu Yü-hsi used it as the name of a Nam-Viet gemstone only artificially and allusively.”

⁶⁴ TPYL, 809, 2a, quoting a book called Chin T’ai k’ang ti chi, gives it as a product of Yunnan. Kuang ya quoted in the same place states that some pi is blue and some is green, and that it is produced in Yüeh and Yunnan.

Schafer (1967), pp. 159 and 296, n. 64.

12.12 (35) wuseyu 五色玉 [wu se yü] – multicoloured (literally, ‘five coloured’) jade or gemstone.

          “Dr. BUSHELL informs us that the first sovereign of the Han Dynasty, the Emperor Kao-tsu (B. C. 206-195), announced his accession to the throne by sacrificing to Heaven on a jade tablet engraved with one hundred and seventy characters. The jade was of a bright white color spotted with moss-markings, shining in colors of red, blue, vermilion, and black. The writing was in the li shu of the Han, and the style was clear and strong.
          The question of varicolored jade was brought on the tapis when the Emperor Kuang-wu (25-57 A. D.) made his preparations for the sacrifices on the T’ai-shan and gave instructions to search for a blue stone without blemish, but it should not be necessary to have varicolored stones.” Laufer (1912), 117.

“The perennial demand for beautiful jade, the most magnificent of minerals, underlies the following story: Hsüan Tsung, midway in his reign, marvelled that there was no artifact made from the almost legendary five-colored jade among the gifts recently received from the West, though he had in his treasury a belt decorated with plaques of this handsome stone, and a cup carved from it, both submitted long before. He commanded his generals in charge of the “Security of the West” to reprimand the negligent (but anonymous) barbarians who were responsible. The delinquent savages may have been natives of Khotan, the inexhaustible source of jade, and savages they seemed to the Chinese, despite the refinement of their music and the charm of their women. Whoever they were, they did not fail to start a shipment of the pretty polychrome stuff on its way to Ch’ang-an. Alas, the caravan was attacked and robbed of its cargo by the people of Lesser Balūr, turban-wearing lice-eating marauders from the frigid and narrow valleys on the fringes of the snowy Pamirs. When the bad news reached the sacred palace, the Son of Heaven, in his wrath, sent an army of forty thousand Chinese and innumerable dependent barbarians to lay siege to the capital of the marauders and recover his jade. The king of Lesser Balūr quickly surrendered his booty and humbly sought the privilege of sending annual tribute to T’ang. This was refused, and his unhappy city of Gilgit was pillaged. The victorious Chinese general, leading three thousand survivors of the sack, set out for home. He was followed by a prediction of doom, pronounced by a barbarian soothsayer. And indeed the whole multitude was destroyed in a great storm, except for a lone Chinese and a single barbarian ally. The unfortunate Hsüan Tsung, thus finally deprived of his treasure, sent a party to search for the remains of his host. They found an army of transparent bodies, refrigerated prisoners and soldiers of ice, which melted immediately, and were never seen again.” Schafer (1963), p. 36.

“There are only two colors in jade, white and green; the latter known as “vegetable jade” in China. As for the so-called red jade or yellow jade, they are varieties of unusual stones, spinel and the like, which are not jade even though they cost no less than the latter. . . . Besides the above, the only unusual jade is produced in So-li in the Western Ocean. Under ordinary light, this jade appears white in color, but under the sun red color is reflected from it, and on rainy days it turns blue. We may call this “uncanny jade.” It is part of the Imperial Palace treasures.” Sung (1637), p. 303.

12.12 (36) qushu 黃白黑綠紫紅絳紺金黃縹留黃十種氍毹 [ch’ü-shu] – ten types of wool rugs – yellow, white, black, green, purple, fiery red, deep red, dark blue, golden yellow, light blue and back to yellow.

“Pan Ch’ao’s elder brother, the historian Pan Ku, asked Ch’ao to buy him some wool blankets and rugs. He also mentioned that Tou Hsien, an influential minister in the court, had purchased wool blankets, horses and styrax from the Western Region. They all paid with bolts of white silk (Ch’üan Hou-Han Wen: 25/4a). That the border markets continued to function even during the war suggests that there was regular trade with Central Asians along the border (SC: CX, 2905).” Liu (1988), p. 16.

This account of the qushu in the Weilue seems to find support with some interesting extra details in a number of other 3^rd and 4^th century (and later) texts. These texts, however, refer to qusou 氍 rather than the qushu 氍毹 of the Weilue, although they are usually taken to be identical. Unfortunately, Leslie and Gardiner (1996), mistakenly give the character shu 毹 in their note 30 on page 87:

“9.²⁹ In the country of Ta-Ch’in they weave Ch’ü-sou cloth from wild silkworms, and by means of wool of different colours taken from all kinds of beasts, they weave into them (patterns of) birds, beasts, human figures, and other objects; grass, trees, clouds and numerous oddities. On these rugs they represent parrots flying gaily at a distance³⁰. The cloth shows the following ten colours: carnation, white, black, green, red, crimson, gold, azure, jade colour, and yellow. (KCCY 54, quoting I-wu-chih; TPYL 708, quoting Nan-chou i-wu-chih; PTSC 134, K’ang-hsi tz’u-tien, quoting I-wu-chih).”

29. KCCY 54, p. 14; TPYL 708, p. 3288, which is shorter, and does not mention Ta-Ch’in; PTSC 134 (no. 30), p. 14b; KHTT, vol. 4b, p. 70a. This passage was noted by HIRTH, p. 255, PARKER, 1884-5, vol. 14, p. 42, no. 403, and by CHANG SHU, p. 11b. For wild silkworms, see our discussion in 17.5. Ch’ü-shu cloth was listed in WL, and also mentioned in HHS account of Ta-Ch’in, see our 16.8. We have here a little extra.

30. The reference to parrots is new, but it is unlikely that they are supposed to have come from Ta-Ch’in. The characters for parrots 鸚鵡 [ying-wu] might be considered similar to those for Ch’ü-sou 氍毹 [sic] cloth. Parrots of course have a multitude of bright colours. The colours written here are probably rewritten from those of the WL, with ch’ü-sou in place of ch’ü-shu. See also Hirth (1885), pp. 80; 115, line 27; and 255.
Additionally, carpets were woven from wild silk patterned with coloured wools. In later times, silk was commonly used for the warp material in knotted wool carpets as it is far stronger than wool in relation to its thickness. We probably have here the earliest reference to this technique.

“In 726, the king of Bukhāra sent envoys to T’ang, asking help against Arab raiders. These emissaries brought with them a number of valuable gifts, such as saffron and “stone honey,” and also a “Roman embroidered carpet.”²¹ the king’s wife, the “Qatun,” sent the Chinese empress two large rugs and one “embroidered carpet.”²²

²¹ Here “carpet” is *g’i̯u -g’ i̯əu [sic – probably should read *g’i̯u-g’ i̯e̯u = quqiu 氍毬 – see p. 378 and note 22 below]. Compare the * g’i̯u-ṣi̯u [= qushu 氍毹] of other texts. The latter is equated with Sanskrit varṇakambala, “colored woolen blanket”; see Pelliot (1959), 484.” Schafer (1963), p. 325, n. 21.

²² Here both “rug” and “carpet” are *g’i̯u-g’i̯ə̯u [see note 21], but the former is qualified by *tś i̯a-p’iek [柘辟] , which Laufer takes to be akin to Persian tāftan, “to spin,” and our “taffeta.” See Laufer (1919), 493. Among the gifts from Turgäch, Chāch, and other places, to be mentioned presently, we find *t’âp-təng [毾㲪], which is plainly from the Persian root. All these forms refer to woollen carpets.”

Schafer (1963), pp. 198; 325, nn. 21, 22.  

12.12 (37) wuse tadeng 五色毾㲪 [wu se t’a-teng] – finely patterned multicoloured wool carpets. The characters, wuse 五色, literally mean ‘five-coloured,’ but are commonly employed to denote ‘multicoloured.’ GR No. 10241, gives:

“t’a⁴ teng¹ Rug (manufactured in India, finely made and closely-woven); carpet.” Williams (1909), p. 745 gives: “A kind of coarse woolen serge, first called毾㲪. . . .” The online “Chinese Character Dictionary” gives: “a course woollen serge” for ta⁴ 毾, and “[1] woollen blanket with decorative design or pattern. . . .” for deng¹ 㲪. 

A multicoloured knotted wool rug attributed to the 2^nd century CE was found some years ago in a tomb at Saiyiwake, to the east of Khotan. Interestingly, it contains wool dyed in five colours, as in the description in the Weiue:

“It had been placed over the saddle of a horse buried in this tomb and was discovered nearly intact, complete with corner tassels. The central black field is covered with a diamond grid in red containing leaf-like forms, also in red, with perhaps some yellow. The central field is bordered with four narrow red, yellow, buff and black lines. The wide outer border has a design in bright blue-green, each panel containing a tree in buff and yellow. The tassels are red. Believed to date from the second century A.D., it is the earliest extant example of a type of carpet design generally associated with later Central Asian cultures.” Laing (1995).

There were also two multicoloured fragments of wool tunics found at Saiyiwake and Loulan. The latter has a border which “is a running, mirror-image wave pattern of a type common in third-century Western Asiatic fabrics found, for example, at Dura Europos and Palmyra.”

12.12 (38) wusejiuse shouxia tadeng 五色九色首下毾㲪 [wu sechiu se shou hsia t’a-teng] – ‘multicoloured, lesser quality wool carpets.’ Nine colours of multicoloured (literally: ‘five colours, nine colours’) lower quality wool carpets (shouxia can be translated as: ‘of inferior appearance’). This was, perhaps an indication that these were woven kilms or felt numdah rugs, rather than knotted pile carpets.

12.12 (39) jinlu xiu 金縷繡 [chin lü hsiu] – gold-threaded embroidery.

          “Embroidered robes were already in existence in Homer’s time and are the origin of those worn at triumphs.
          The Phyrgians introduced embroidery with the needle, and for this reason embroidered robes are called ‘Phrygian’. Also in Asia Minor, King Attalus invented weaving with gold, the origin of the term ‘Attalic’ robes. Babylon in particular made famous the weaving of different colours, and gave this process its name. Alexandria introduced damask, a material woven from very many threads, and Gaul invented check patterns. Metellus Scipio includes among the charges laid against Capito that Babylonian throw-over covers for couches were sold for 800,000 sesterces, when not long ago in Nero’s principate these cost 4 million.” Pliny the Elder (VIII.195-196) (1991), pp. 125-126.

The following note from the China Daily dated 17^th May 1999, details archaeological evidence which backs up the Weilue’s listing of gold embroidered cloth:

“URUMQI (Xinhua) - A garment made of fabrics with dazzling gold foil sewn on applique work, dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 24), was recently unearthed from a tomb in Lop Nur, a desolate area in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
          Chinese archaeologists believe this is the earliest woven material with gold patterns ever found in China.
          The discovery pushes the history of fabric-making with gold back 1,000 years earlier than previously believed,” said Li Wenying, an archaeologist participating in the excavation.
          The gold foils were sewn by two different methods. One was to cut coloured silk in the shape of flower buds, petals, stamen and fruits, which were then pinned to the collar, sleeves, lower hem, and back of the garment. Then gold foils were pasted on the silk designs. The other way was to spread gold powder onto the design.
          One archaeologist, Zhou Jinling, described the embroidery as distinctive, dazzling and harmonious in colour.”
          This garment was one of the 200-plus rare cultural relics unearthed from 32 tombs built in the period between the Han and Jin dynasties (206 BC- AD 420) at the Yingpan Ruins in Lop Nur.
            The site lies 200 kilometres east of Loulan, one of the busiest commercial cities on the ancient Silk Road which served as a transportation artery for the flow of goods from China to the West more than 2,000 years ago. The flourishing trade route began to decline in the fourth century.
          The recent excavation, which lasted for more than a month, was the continuation of a protective excavation begun in 1995. During the three-year period, Chinese archaeologists opened 32 ancient tombs and cleared more than 100 robbed tombs over a large area.
          One-third of the unearthed objects were burial accessories, including garments, wooden, bronze, and lacquer wares, gold and silver ornaments, and pearls.
          The most significant finding was three woolen robes with designs of flying men, eagles, and snakes woven with a jacquard technique.”

12.12 (40) zaseling 雜色綾 [tsa se ling] – polychrome (warp twill) fine silk or chiffon.

“Mutlicoloured textiles” are listed in the Periplus (39.8) among the products traded by the Romans at Barbaricon at the mouth of the Indus River. These were probably similar to the ones traded to China. Casson says in his notes on paragraph 39:

“These were a specialty of Egypt: cf. Pliny 8, 196 (where he claims the art of weaving them was invented at Alexandria), Martial 14.150. They were used for garments as well as hangings, carpets, and the like; see H. Blümner, Die römischen Privataltertümer, Müllers Handbuch der klassischen Alterumswissenschaft 4.2.2 (Munich, 1911³), 253. Apparently they were much in demand in India, since Muziris and Nelkynda imported them (56:18.19) as well as Barbarikon, while Barygaza imported one particular type (49:16.22-23).” Casson (1989), p. 190.

“Cf. Gloss. 5.524.34: polimatus est textus multorum colorum; 5.524.32: polimita multicoloria, i.e. any textile, such as brocade, woven with threads of different colors (not “damask,” as in LSJ).” Casson (1989), p. 259.

Schoff says of this same passage:

“Figured linens. – The text is polymita. Pliny ( VIII, 74 ) says: “Babylon was very famous for making embroidery in different colors, and hence stuffs of this kind have obtained the name of Babylonian. The method of weaving cloth with more than two threads was invented at Alexandria; these cloths are called polymita; it was in Gaul that they were first divided into chequers.”
          Martial’s epigram, “Cubicularia polymita” ( XIV, 150 ) indicates that the Egyptian tissue was formed in a loom, like tapestry, and that the Babylonian was embroidered with the needle.” Schoff (1912), p. 167.

“In ancient China, twills had not been much used, though the warp twill was known.” Schafer (1963), p. 196.

“The polychrome damasks of Han had been warp reps. “Brocade” customarily translates Chinese chin.” Schafer (1963), p. 325, n. 4.

“There were fragments of very fine silk [discovered in the Han tombs excavated at Mancheng, Hopei Province in 1968] in plain weave (200 warp and 90 weft threads per square centimetre), embroidery and silk damask. . . . ” “Archaeological Work During the Cultural Revolution” by Hsia Nai, in: Anonymous (1974), p. 9.

A fragment of dark-red embroidered silk was found in a 2^nd century BC tomb at Mawangtui, Changsha, Hunan Province in which: “Vermillion, golden yellow, dark yellow and dark-green silk threads are used in the chain stitch to form this design.” Anonymous (1976), note 54.

“The practice of emperors in the Later Han who granted their ministers and tribal chiefs tens and hundreds of thousands of bolts of silk reveal China’s enormous capacity for silk production (Fang Hao 1963: 134). During the periods of division after the Han the region producing the best silk, Shu, was separated from the north. Rulers in the north nevertheless made up for this loss by encouraging silk production. . . . silk weaving in the north certainly developed rapidly in this period. . . . ” Liu (1988), p. 70

          “From Han to T’ang a dramatic change took place in the technique of silk weaving. Weft-faced weaving, the wool weaving technique in the west of Central Asia, replaced the typical warp-faced Han weaving in producing polychrome silk. A group of textile samples of ‘Sassanian design’ is associated with the new technique. The representative design in a pearl roundel – a ring formed by a string of small circles – enclosing animal motifs. The animal motifs of Persian design could be boars, deer or a pair of horses facing each other, with or without riders. They are stiff in style in contrast to the lively horses, birds or other animals on Han textiles. Having studied these samples carefully Hsia Nai attributes the technical change to influence from Central Asia and to a change in style to suit the Persian market (1963).
          Falling between the typical Han silk and weft-faced silk of T’ang, some samples dated to the Northern dynasties and the Sui dynasty show a transitional technique, the ‘twill’ technique. ‘Twill’ means a basic warp-faced textile using weft to cross two (or more) warps, thus forming some design. Pattern design also differs from both that of the Han and the T’ang silks. Chinese scholars who have studied those samples consider silk of this period as a technical and stylistic extension of the Han. However, just as the twill marked a transition to a new weaving technique, the motifs also changed substantially from the Han style. . . .
          Having examined a series of Chinese damasks and brocades Michael Meister points out that roundel designs using twill technique existed on damask as early as the Han; the roundel was a popular design on Gupta sculpture, especially the pearl roundel with the lotus inside (1970). Indeed this kind of roundel even appears in Kushan sculpture in Mathura, as in a decorative plaque (Rosenfield 1967: Text of Figure 3). . . .
          Another interesting pattern the silk of the Northern dynasties incorporates is a striped or chess-board design. The weaver used different-coloured warps to form narrow or wide stripes which provided a background for stylistic motifs. The entire textile was divided into coloured stripes. The use of different coloured wefts regularly spaced forms a chess-board design. Because this is the simplest method of making a textiles design it is still used in hand weaving in many regions. But, as polychrome patterned silk was an expensive textile, the design must have been produced to suit consumers’ tastes rather than to accommodate a simple technique. Actually, many samples of this design show a complicated weaving technique.
          Han silk did not adopt this simple design. Elaborate motifs are displayed on a one-colour background.” Liu (1988), pp. 72-74. 

12.12 (41) jintu bu 金塗布 [chin-t’u pu] – woven gold cloth. The word bu, translated as “cloth” here (and in the notes below): “specifically refers to hemp or linen cloth (later to cotton), never to silk.” Cammann (1958), p. 6, n. 24.

12.12 (42) feichi bu 緋持布 [fei-ch’ih pu] – purple chi cloth. Hirth (1885), p. 74, n. 1, records that it is: “Called Fei-ch’ih-chu-pu (緋持竹布) in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.”

GR 3441 gives for fei: “1. (Imp. Admin.) Cloth of red silk (under the 唐 T’ang dyn., dark red for functionaries, light for functionaries of the fifth rank). 2. Red; purple.”

 GR 2455 gives for chu-pu [zhubu]: “1. (anc.) Material woven from bamboo fibre in 廣州 Kuang-chou (Guangzhou) or Canton. 2. (present) Cloth of light blue or white cotton.”

The colour fei mentioned here and in note 12.12 (42), refers to either a rich red or a purple and most probably refers to one or more shades of the famous dyes made from murex shells in the eastern Mediterranean which varied in colour from rich deep reds to Imperial purple:

“From amphibious creatures the most expensive products are scarlet and purple dyes made from shellfish.” Pliny the Elder (bk. XXXVII, chap. 204), p. 377.

“The only other extant price list [other than Pliny’s] is from Diocletian’s famous Edict (A.D. 301), issued in an unsuccessful attempt to halt inflation. As it puts the wage of unskilled labour at 25 denarii per day, and that of skilled labour at 50, prices must have risen twenty-five times since Pliny’s day. The text has survived only in fragmentary form so that, although we have prices for about nine hundred items, many prices are missing. This, however, does not explain the surprising omission of Indian cottons among related references to linens and woollens. Chinese silk, moreover, is mentioned only twice; white silk at 12,000 denarii a pound, against 1,200 for the best linen yarn, and purple-dyed raw silk at 150,000 a pound, three times the price for purple-dyed wool. The famous purple from the shellfish of Tyre was an even more expensive commodity than silk.” Simkin (1968), p. 47.

“At any rate, by 1000 B.C. Tyre and Sidon had become the centres for dyed wool and silk of a quality unsurpassed throughout the ancient world.
          The dye came from a small gland in the body of the murex, which had to be removed from a living snail if the brightest hues were to develop properly. Each gland yielded only a drop or two of a yellowish liquid that darkened when it was exposed to sun and air. Processing required constant slow simmering in an outdoor pan for almost two weeks, during which time the precious liquid boiled down to about one sixteenth of its original volume. At this rate it took the glands of some 60,000 snails to produce only one pound of dye, which explains why the essence was so fantastically expensive. One expert has calculated that a single pound of fine quality silk dyed according to the highest Tyrian standards could have fetched as much as $28,000 in modern currency.
          The best dyers did all their processing in lead or tin pans, knowing that brass or iron would discolor the essence. Mainly they used two species of murex . . . [Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris]. Brandaris alone produced a heavy dark tint in cloth, and needed just the right admixture of trunculus plus a carefully controlled double-soaking with added dye from a third snail – not a murex at all – to achieve the lustrous royal purple that was so avidly sought. Other tints – shading down to a pale pink... were achieved by varying the mixture and the amount of exposure to light. All Tyrian purple dyes were colorfast – that is, they did not fade, which contributed as much to their value as their beauty did.
          There was a time, as Rome’s power and prestige began to grow, when any rich citizen could “wear the purple,” a narrow band on his toga. Later this privilege was reserved for senators and, finally, for the emperor alone. Antony and Cleopatra are reputed to have had a warship notorious for its ostentation; its mainsail was colored with Tyrian purple dye.
          Murex dyeing was practiced in several places in the Mediterranean area, including the islands of Malta and Motya, but nowhere was it done with a skill that matched that of Tyrian and Sidonian dyers. Their immense productivity is attested to by the mounds of shells – literally millions of them – that still lie piled around the ruins of the old dye works. In both Tyre and Sidon the works were located to the south, just out of town and downwind, because of the dreadful stench that emanated from the rotting bodies of the mollusks.
          Throughout many ups and downs the dyeing industry continued, surviving even the fall of Tyre and struggling on to 800 A.D., when Charlemagne was importing Tyrian-dyed cloth. It languished thereafter because of its prohibitive cost. Cheap, colorfast aniline dyes ensure that it will never again be revived.” Edey, et al. (1974), p. 61.

“Purple. – A dye derived from various species of Murex, family Muridicidæ, and Purpura, and family Buccinidæ. Pliny ( IX, 60-63 ) tells of its use at the time of our author [of the Periplus]: “The purple has that exquisite juice which is so greatly sought after for the purpose of dyeing cloth. . . . This secretion consists of a tiny drop contained in a white vein, from which the precious liquid used for dyeing is distilled, being of the tint of a rose somewhat inclining to black. The rest of the body is entirely destitute of this juice. It is a great point to take the fish alive; for when it dies it spits out this juice. From the larger ones it is extracted after taking off the shell; but the smaller fish are crushed alive, together with the shells, upon which they eject this secretion.

          “In Asia the best purple is that of Tyre, in Africa that of Meninx and Gætulia, and in Europe that of Laconia. . . .

          “After it is taken the vein is extracted and salt is added. They are left to steep for three days, and are then boiled in vessels of tin, by moderate heat; while thus boiling the liquor is skimmed from time to time. About the tenth day the whole contents of the cauldron are in a liquid state; but until the color satisfies the liquor is still kept on the boil. The tint that inclines to red is looked upon as inferior to that which is of a blackish hue.
          The wool is left to lie in soak for five hours, and then, after carding it, it is thrown in again, until it has fully imbibed the color. The proper proportions for mixing are, for fifty pounds of wool, two hundred pounds of the juice of the buccinum and one hundred and eleven of the juice of the pelagiæ. From this combination is produced the admirable tint known as amethyst color. To produce the Tyrian hue the wool is soaked in the juice of the pelagiæ while the mixture is in an uncooked and raw state; after which its tint is changed by being dipped in the juice of the buccinum. It is considered of the best quality when it has exactly the color of clotted blood, and is of a blackish hue to the sight, but of a shining appearance when held up to the light; hence it is that we find Homer speaking of purple blood. (Iliad, E. 83; P, 360 )

          “Cornelius Nepos, who died in the reign of the late emperor Augustus, has left us the following remarks: ‘In the days of my youth the violet purple was in favor, a pound of which used to sell at 100 denarii; and not long after the Tarentine red was all the fashion. This last was succeeded by the Tyrian dibapha ( double dyed ) which could not be bought for even 1000 denarii per pound. Nowadays who is there who does not have purple hangings and coverings to his banqueting couches even?’ ” Schoff (1912), pp. 156-157.

Hirth notes (1885), p. 74, n. 1, that this cloth is:

“Called Fei-ch’ih-chu-pu (緋持竹布) in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.”

GR Vol. II, p. 89 gives for chu-pu (zhubu): “竹布 chu² pu⁴ (Text.) 1. (anc.) Material of bamboo fibre, woven in 廣州 Kuang-chou (Guangzhou) or Canton. 2. (pres.) Cloth of light blue or white cotton.

12.12 (43) falu bu 發陸布 [ fa-lu pu] – falu cloth. Hirth (1885), p. 74, n. 1, records that it is given as: “Fa-lung-pu (發隆)” in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.”

12.12 (44) fei chiqu bu 緋持渠布 [fei ch’ih-ch’ü pu] – purple chiqu cloth. See note 12.12 (42).

12.12 (45) huohuan bu 火浣布 [huo-huan pu] – asbestos cloth.

“The wonderful quality of asbestos was familiar to both Romans and Chinese from about the beginning of the Christian era. The men of Han regarded it as a Roman product, quite properly since this mineral fiber was very well known to the Romans, who also understood that it came from a rock. Here is Apollonius Dyscolus [2^nd century CE] on asbestos napkins:

When these napkins are soiled, their cleansing is performed not by means of washing in water, but brush-wood is burn, the napkin in question is placed over this fire, and the squalor flows off; while the cloth itself comes forth from the fire brilliant and pure.

This natural but somewhat ostentatious display is said to have had its counterpart in China in the second century, when a man purposely soiled his asbestos robe, and hurled it into a fire with simulated anger, only to bring it out fresh and clean. These anecdotes make the Chinese name for the mineral fabric understandable – it was “fire-washed linen.” But asbestos was also called “fire hair,” which illustrates another (and false) theory of the origin of the stuff. In the Hellenistic Orient it was sometimes thought to be of vegetable origin, like cotton, but among the Chinese, until the sixth century, and after that among the Arabs, the most popular theory was that it was the fur of the salamander-rat (but sometimes the phoenix) which was cleansed and renewed by fire.” Schafer (1963), p. 199.

12.12 (46) eluode bu 阿羅得布 [e-lo-te pu] – fine silk gauze cloth. One of the definitions of the character 阿 (a, e, or he) under GR 3, is: “ [f] E¹ . . . 10. Delicate silk.” GR 7232 gives for lo [Pinyin – luo] 羅: “1. Bird net. To net. 2. silk gauze; silk chiffon . . .”

          The character 得 te [de] can have the meaning of ‘excellent’ or ‘special’ – see GR 10573; Williams, p. 766.

From this one gets the picture of a very fine silk cloth – perhaps some of the Chinese silks that were unplucked and rewoven into a transparent material that had become so popular in the Roman Empire (and attracted much criticism by various writers. See note 12.6 for the accounts of Chinese silks being unravelled and rewoven in the Roman Empire, especially to produce see-through garments.

          “It has been supposed that the Greeks learned of silk through Alexander’s expedition, but it probably reached them previously through Persia. Aristotle ( Hist. Anim., V, xix, 11) gives a reasonably correct account: “It is a great worm which has horns and so differs from others. At its first metamorphosis it produces a caterpillar, then a bombylius, and lastly a chrysalis – all these changes taking place within six months. From this animal women separate and reel off the cocoons and afterwards spin them. It is said that this was first spun in the island of Cos by Pamphile, daughter of Plates.” This indicates a steady importation of raw silk on bobbins before Aristotle’s time [384-322 BCE]. The fabric he mentions was the famous Cos vestis, or transparent gauze ( woven also at Tyre and elsewhere in Syria ), which came into favor in the time of Cæsar and Augustus. Pliny mentions Pamphile of Cos, “who discovered the art of unwinding the silk” ( from the bobbins, not from the cocoons ) “and spinning a tissue therefrom: indeed, she ought not to be deprived of the glory of having discovered the art of making garments which, while they cover a woman, at the same time reveal her naked charms.” ( XI, 26 ). He refers to the same fabric in VI, 20, where he speaks of “the Seres, so famous for the wool that is found in their forests. After steeping it in water, they comb off a soft down that adheres to the leaves; and then to the females of our part of the world they give the twofold task of unraveling their textures, and of weaving the threads afresh. So manifold is this labor, and so distant are the regions which are thus ransacked to supply a dress through which our ladies may in public display their charms.” Compare Lucan, Pharsalia, X, 141, who describes Cleopatra, “her white breasts resplendent through the Sidonian fabric, which, wrought in close texture by the skill of the Seres, the needle of the workman of the Nile has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out the web.” Schoff (1912), pp. 264-265.  

The characters luode are used (at least in modern times) to transcribe foreign rhode as in Rhode Island, Cecil Rhodes, and Rhodesia. Luode could have been a transcription for the Aegean island of Rhodes.

12.12 (47) ‘clinging cloth’ or ‘cloth with swirling patterns’ – baze bu 巴則布 [pa-tse pu].

ba 巴 – a large mythical serpent capable of eating an elephant; to cling, stick. GR 8377.

ze 則 – ‘imitate,’ ‘do,’ ‘make,’ ‘rule,’ ‘model.’ See GR 11308.

It is impossible to know what this term really meant here, but there are several possibilities. One is that it refers to the shimmering colours and clinging qualities of shot silk, alternatively the name baze might be a phonetic representation of a placename, presumably of the place of origin:

ba 巴 – K. 39a *på / pa; EMC paɨ / pεː

ze 則 – K. 906a * tsək / tsək; EMC tsək

The character ba is frequently used to represent foreign ba sounds, as in some representations of the name Bactria, Bactra – see Ts’en (1981), p. 574. Moreover, ze is sometimes used for foreign se.

12.12 (48) dudaibu 度代布 [tu-tai pu] cloth. Hirth (1885), p. 74, n. 1, records that it is given as: “Lu-tai-pu (鹿代) in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.” It is possible that this is a matter of a scribal error here as the characters lu 鹿 and du 度 are quite similar in appearance.

12.12 (49) wense bu 溫色布 [wen-se pu] – cotton-wool cloth?

          Wen 溫 means: ‘warm,’ ‘mild,’ ‘tepid,’ ‘sweet.’ Wense 溫色 [wen-se] is translated in GR 12241, p. 598 as “sweet manner” or “affable.” As se means ‘colour,’ it could also mean ‘warm coloured cloth.’
          Hirth (1885), p. 74, n. 1, records that the name of this cloth is given as: “Wên-su-pu (温 宿) in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.” Now, this wen 温 (GR No. 12240) is merely an alternate form of the character wen 溫 examined above. The su 宿 means ‘resting-spot,’ ‘night,’ or old.
          I suspect that wense 溫色 [wen-se] may represent a faulty early form of wenxu 縕絮 [wen-hsü], literally: ‘brown or orangey-yellow silk or cotton waste,’ which Pelliot (1959), p. 460, translates as ‘cotton-wool.’ I base this solely on the obviously close phonetic connections between the various characters and it should not, therefore, be taken as a definite identification:

wen 溫 : K. 426c *·wən / ·uən; EMC ?wən

wen 温 : [Not listed in Karlgren or Pulleyblank but presumably identical to above character]

wen 縕 : K. 426f *·i̯wən / ·i̯uən; EMC ?wən

se 色 : K. 927a *ṣi̯ək / ṣi̯ək; EMC ßic

su 宿 : K. 1029a *si̯ôk / si̯uk; EMC suwk

xu 絮 : K. 94u *sni̯o / si̯wo; EMC sɨə̆

12.12 (50) multicoloured tao [t’ao] cloth 五色桃布.

Hirth (1885), p. 74, n. 1, records that it is given as: “Five colours Chên-pu (枕 布) in a quotation of the corresponding passage in the Yüan-chien-lei-han, ch. 366, p. 7.”

Tao 桃 means ‘peach’ or the colour of it’s flowers, ‘rose’ (GR 10548) – which seems unlikely here as it is clearly qualified as: ‘five-coloured’ or ‘multicoloured.’

Zhen 枕 [chên] which means [GR 568] ‘pillow,’ ‘cushion,’ ‘cross-bar,’ or ‘bolster,’ seems hardly more informative unless a cloth for making cushions is intended.

I suspect that tao 桃 = ‘peach’ was mistaken for the similarly-pronounced tao 絛 = ‘(silk) cord or ribbon.’ The reconstructed pronunciations = tao 桃 – K. 1145u *d’og / d’âu; EMC daw; and tao 絛 (which is not in Karlgren); EMC t^haw.
          The word could have been easily confused when transcribed or copied. If correct, this item should be read as ‘multicoloured (silk) cords or ribbons.’

12.12 (51) jiang dijin zhizhang 絳地金織帳 [chiang ti chin chih chang] – crimson curtains woven with gold.

12.12 (52) wuse douzhang 五色斗帳 [wu-se tou-chang] – multicoloured ‘spiral curtains’?

12.12 (53) yiwei 一 溦 [i-wei]. Unidentified name of an incense or perfume. Probably a transcription of a foreign term.

一 yi: – K.394a * ·i̯ĕt / ·i̯ĕt; EMC jit?

溦 wei or mei: – K. 584d *mi̯wər / mjwe̯i; EMC muj

12.12 (54) muer 木二 [mu-erh] – myrrh. I have made this tentative identification purely on the phonetic resemblance of the words and its place in the list along with other fragrances.

木 mu – K. 1212a *muk / muk; EMC məwk. This character was also used to represent foreign mu sounds.

二 er – K. 564a *ni̯ər / ńźi; EMC ŋi^h (but notice that Pulleyblank’s Late Middle Chinese reconstruction for this character is: ri` – I suspect it may well have had an earlier ‘r’ or ‘rh’ value as well as the ones given here.

“Myrrh: ME myrre, mirre (influenced by OF mirre) : L myrrha : Gr murrha : of Sem origin ; cf H mör, myrrh, and mōr, bitter, and also Ar murr, Aram mūrā, bitter. Perh cf Eg kher, myrrh.” Partridge (1983), p. 423.

“In China, as contrasted with usage elsewhere, some aromatic imports, such as myrrh, were regarded more as medicines than as incenses and perfumes. See Yamada (1957), 25.” Schafer (1963), p. 315, n. 25.

Mesny (1905), p. 106, refers to myrrh as “Mu Yao” – a “gum resin with a duty of Tls. 0.4.5.0 per picul, while Yang Mu Yao 洋沒藥 or “Foreign Myrrh,” which also attracted a duty of Tls. 0.4.5.0 per picul.
          The modern term, moyao 沒藥, is probably not, however, like the name in the Weilue, an attempt to reconstruct the sound of a foreign term. Rather, it is descriptive and translates as something like, ‘coveted medicinal plant.’

“沒 藥 mo⁴yao⁴ (Chin. pharm.) Myrrh from Commiphora myrrha Engl. and Balsamodendron ehrenbergianum Berg. It reduces swelling, regenerates tissues and stops pain.” Translated from GR No. 7674, vol. IV, p. 370.

“On myrrh in the ancient world, see A. Steier, RE s. v.myrrha (1935). The Egyptians used it in embalming, the Greeks and the Romans as incense and deodorant and spice, in pomades and perfumes, and in medicines (Steier 1142–45; for the evidence of the Greek papyri, see I. Andorlini in Atti e memorie dell’Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere 46 [1981]: 61-65). As a medicine it was particularly used for treating wounds (modern experiments confirm its effectiveness; see G. Majno, The Healing Hand [Cambridge, Mass., 1975], 215-19) and as an ingredient in prescriptions for eye trouble (Andorlini 64). According to Pliny (12.70), on the Roman market myrrh cost between 11 and 16½ denarii a Roman pound; this makes it expensive–over twice the price of the finest frankincense (6 denarii; see under 27:9.8–9) and four times that of bdellium (3 denarii; see under 37:12.20)–but far less expensive than the aromatics imported from India, such as cinnamon (see Casson 1984.230), nard (see under 39:13.10b), or malabathron (see under 65:21.21–22.6). Myrrh comes from Commiphora myrrha Nees, a scraggly, thorny tree found in Somalia and South Arabia. In Somalia it grows in the northwestern parts (see R. Drake-Brockman, British Somaliland [London, 1912], 302–5; G. Van Beck, “Frankincense and Myrrh in Ancient South Arabia,” JAOS 78 [1958]: 141-52 at 143-44 [both of these writers use the older name for the tree, Balsamodendron myrrha]; N. Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh [London, 1981], 118-19) and has remained an important export right up to this century (see R. Pankhurst, “The Trade of the Gulf of Aden Ports of Africa in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 3.1 [1965]: 36-81 at 40-41 [Zeila], 45, 51, 56 [Berbera]). Since Avalitês was on the western edge of where the myrrh trees grew (Map 6), it handled only a “minimal amount”; cf. under 10:4.13. The ancients considered “Trogodytic myrrh,” i.e., the myrrh from this area (cf. under 2:1.7-10), the very best (Pliny 12.69, Diosc. 1.64.1); this may explain why Arabia, which produced myrrh of its own (cf. 24:8.9-10), also imported from Somalia.” Casson (1989), pp. 118, 120.

“The myrrh of Arabia comes from the same tree as the Somalian (see under 7:3.20), Commiphora myrrha Nees, although Arabia has other myrrh-bearing trees as well (cf. Van Beek [op. cit. under 7:3.20] 143, Groom [op. cit. under 7:3.20] 118-20, Schwartz [op. cit. under 8:3.31a] 128-29). They all grow only in Yemen and the westernmost part of the Hadramaut, in other words, west of the area that produces frankincense (Map 6). Pliny (12.69) states that Minaean myrrh, i.e. from northeastern Yemen (see under 24:8.10a) is inferior to Trogodytic, i.e., the myrrh of northwestern Somalia (see under 2:1.7–10, 7:3.20). This is strikingly confirmed by a schedule of tariffs found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (WChrest 273, 2d–3d century A.D.; cf. ESAR ii 607), which lists Minaean “unguent” at one-third the tariff for Trogodytic; the “unguent” must be myrrh, the only plant common to both regions that produced an unguent worth exporting (cf. W. Wilcken in Archiv für Papyrusforschung 3 [1906]: 187-88).” Casson (1989), pp. 154-155.

“Myrrh, – a gum exuded from the bark of a small tree, native in South Arabia, and to some extent in Oman, and the Somali coast of Africa; classified as Balsamodendron Myrrha (Nees), or Commiphora Abyssinica (Engl.), order Burseraceæ. It forms the underwood of forests of acacia, moringa, and euphorbia. From earliest times it has been, together with frankincense, a constituent of incense, perfumes, and ointments. It was an ingredient of the Hebrew anointing oil (Exod. XXX), and was also one of the numerous components of the celebrated kyphi of the Egyptians, a preparation used in fumigations, medicine, and embalming. It was the object of numerous trading expeditions of the Egyptian kings to the “Land of Punt.” A monument of Sahure, 28^th century B. C., records receipts of 80,000 measures of myrrh from Punt. The expedition of Hatshepsut (15^th century B. C.) again records myrrh as the most important cargo; its list of the “marvels of the country of Punt” was as follows: All goodly fragrant woods of God’s Land, heaps of myrrh-resin, fresh myrrh trees, ebony, pure ivory, green gold of Emu, cinnamon wood, khesyt wood, ihmut incense, sonter incense, eye cosmetic, apes, monkeys, dogs, skins of southern panther, natives and their children. The inscription adds: “Never was brought the like of this, for any king who has been since the beginning.” (Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, II, 109; Flücker and Hanbury, op. cit., 140-6.)

          “. . . . And he [Pliny (XII, 35)] continues: “They give no tithes of myrrh to the god, because it is the produce of other countries as well; but the growers pay the fourth part of it to the king of the Gebanitæ. Myrrh is brought up indiscriminately by the common people and then packed into bags; but our perfumers separate it without any difficulty, the principal tests of its goodness being its unctuousness and its aromatic smell.
          There are several kinds of myrrh: the first among the wild myrrhs is the Troglodytic; and the next are the Minæan, which includes the aromatic, and that of the Ausaritis, in the kingdom of the Gebanitæ. A third kind is the Dianitic, and a fourth is the mixed myrrh, or colatoria . . . a fifth again is the Sambracenian, which is brought from a city in the kingdom of the Sabæi, near the sea; and a sixth is known by the name of Ausaritic. There is a white myrrh also which is produced in only one spot, and is carried for sale to the city of Messalum.” (This is the same as the port of Masala or Muza. See Glaser, Skizze, 138.)
          The name myrrh is from Hebrew and Arabic mur, meaning “bitter.” The ancient Egyptian word was bala or bal, and the Sanscrit was vola. The modern Persian and Indian call it bol or bola.” Schoff (1912), pp. 112-114.

“. . . the Japanese word for “mummy” is MIIRA – a transcription of “myrrh.” It was one of the ingredients used in the recipe for preserving mummies in the Near East, and this lore (well, at least the fact that myrrh was one of the ingredients) was transmitted to East Asia along with ground up mummies which were used for medicinal purposes.” Email from Professor Victor Mair, 27 February 2004.

12.12 (55) suhe 蘇合 [su-he] – storax.

“The classical storax [Storax officinalis] imported to China long ago from Rome and Parthia had been dark purple in color, and some said it was lion’s dung – a fearful drug. This scented resin was, it seems, popular and well-known in pre-T’ang times. . . .
          The place of this Western resin in China can be compared with that of another, myrrh, but unlike it, myrrh was the least noted of the exotic resins.” Schafer (1963), pp. 168-169.

“Storax is made by mixing and boiling the juice of various fragrant trees; it is not a natural product. It is further said that the inhabitants of Ta-ts’in gather the storax [plant, or parts of it], squeeze its juice out, and thus make a balsam [hsiang-kao]; they then sell its dregs to the traders of other countries; it thus goes through many hands before it reaches China, and, when arriving here is not so very fragrant.” From the Liang-shu, “written about A.D. 629, and comprising the period A.D. 502-556, ch. 54: the account of Chung T’ien-chu,” translation by Hirth (1885), pp. 46-47.

12.12 (56) diti 狄提 [ti-t’i]. Probably a transcription of staktê [Greek: στακτή, fem. of στακός distilling in drops; Latin: stacta, stactae] – the oil of myrrh, which was vastly more expensive than myrrh itself, and is listed as a separate product in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

狄 di [ti]. K. 856a: *d’iek / d’iek; EMC dεjk. Ti barbarians; barbarian.           

Although I have not been able to find di used to transcribe ancient Sanskrit terms, Chinese does not have an st sound and the character would have been about as close a transcription as one could have made to represent the sound stac in stacte in Han period Chinese. It is used to transcribe foreign di, de, te, the (as in Theodore) in modern Chinese. GR Vol V, No. 10651, p. 938.

提 – tí [t’i]. K. 866n: *d’ieg / d’iei; EMC dεj – lift, raise, propose. Also – dī – EMC tεj – dam, dike; dĭ – EMC tεj’ throw, hit with a stone; and shí – EMC dʑiə̆ / dʑi – shíshí in a flock (of birds); at ease, calmly. Commonly used as a transliteration of Sanskrit d; dê; dhri; di or ti – see, for example, Eitel (1888), pp. 42-43, 48, 50, 55. 

“Stactê is oil of myrrh produced by crushing and pressing (Theophrastus, de Odor. 29, Diosc. 1.60, 1.64.1) which is rich and thick enough to serve as an unguent by itself (Diosc. 1.60, Pliny 13.17). It was a very choice form (Pliny 12.68) and costly (Diosc. 1.60); on the Roman market its price ranged from 13 to 40 denarii a Roman pound as against 11 to 16 for all other types (Pliny 12.70). Pliny (12.68) wrongly took stactê to be the natural exudation from the tree as against the exudation caused by gashing the bark; see Steier (op. cit. under 7:3.20) 1136.” Casson (1989), p. 155.

“Stacte, he [Pliny (XII, 35)] says, sold as high as 40 denarii the pound; cultivated myrrh, at a maximum of 11 denarii; Erythræan at 16, and odoraria at 14.” Schoff (1912), p. 113.

12.12 (57) mimi 迷迷 [mi-mi] – an error for 迷迭 midie = Rosemary – Rosemarinus officianalis L. or its perfume. See, for example, GR IV, p. 424. No. 7812.

“This paragraph of the Fayuanzhulin permits the interpretation of a passage of the Weilue on Da Qin quoted in the Sanguozhi and studied by Mr. Hirth (China and the Roman Orient, p. 74): Mr. Hirth speaks of a perfume 狄提迷迷兜納; but the edition of the Sanguozhi published by the library of Tushujicheng writes 迷迭 midie and not mimi; this reading is confirmed by the Fayuanzhulin and as the Fayuanzhulin gives some independent citations on the perfumes midie and douna, we also see that the six words should be cut two by two. Douna is perhaps Sanskrit dhūnaka; cf, also Watters, Essays, p. 442.” Translated from Pelliot (1904), p. 173, n. 3. 

The Guangzhi, a work by Guo Yigong, considered to be of the 4^th or 5^th century, along with several later works, also gives the variant, midie 迷迭 [mi-tieh]:

“7.⁶⁵ Mi-tieh fragrance comes out of the Western Sea. (TPYL 982, IWC81)”

⁶⁵ Ma, B, p. 12a, TYPL 982, p. 4481, IWLC 81, p. 12b, PTKM 14, p. 52, citing Ch’en Ts’ang-ch’i, pen-ts’ao shih-i.

Leslie and Gardiner (1996), pp. 91, 92 and n. 65; see also p. 204, n. 26.

“rosemary, (Rosemarinus officinalis), small perennial evergreen shrub of the mint family (Laminaceae, or Labiatae) whose leaves are used to flavour foods. Rosemary leaves have a pleasant, tealike fragrance, and a pungent, slightly bitter taste. They are most pleasing used sparingly, dried or fresh, to season foods. . . .
          In ancient times rosemary was supposed to strengthen the memory. In literature and folklore it is an emblem of remembrance and fidelity. Rosemary is slightly stimulating; the ancients valued its aromatic qualities and used it as a medicinal tonic. Native to the Mediterranean regions it has been naturalized throughout Europe and North America. . . .
          In modern time rosemary is valued for its perfume; the essential oil content is from 0.3 to 2.0 percent, and it is obtained by distillation. Its principal component is borneol. . . .” NEB VIII, p. 673.

12.12 (58) douna 兠 (or 兜) 納 [tou-na] – probably from Sanskrit dhūna – an incense made from the resin of the Sal tree.

According to Couvreur, p. 68, the character 兠 can be substituted by 兜, and it is the reconstructions for the latter character that I give here:  

dou – K. 117a *tu / tǝ̯u; EMC tǝw

na – K. 695h * nǝp / nâp; EMC nǝp/nap

In the quote in note (57) above, Pelliot indicates that douna may be related to Sanskrit dhūnaka, which can represent all types of resin. However, the word seems even more closely related to the Sanskrit word, dhūṇa which, according to Monier-Williams, p. 518, refers specifically to the resin of Shorea robusta L.
          This is an important and widespread Indian timber tree, usually known in India as ‘Sal.’ The resin or incense is known as dhuna in modern Bengali.
          Probably the earliest other mention of this resin being used as an incense is in the Mahābhārata, Aṅṹsasana Parva Section XCVIII:

“. . . . Dhupas [= incenses] made of the exudation of the Shorea robusta and the Pinus deodara, mixed with various spirits of strong scent are, O king, ordained for human beings. Such Dhupas are said to immediately gratify the deities, the Danavas, and spirits.” Downloaded from: http://www.hinduism.co.za/flowers-.htm on 26 Oct. 2003.

“Sal tree when tapped, yields white opaline resin which is burnt as incense in Hindu homes during religious ceremonies. It is also used for caulking boats and ships.” Downloaded from: http://www.haryana-online.com/Flora/sal.htm on 26 Oct. 2003.

“An oleoresin called Sal dammar (Ral, Guggal, Laldhuna), obtained on tapping the trunk, is used in paints, varnishes and as an incense. It also finds use as plastering medium for walls and roofs and as cementing material for plywood and asbestos sheets. It possess [sic] valuable medicinal properties also. Sal leaves are reported to be used for bidi-making [cigarette wrappings] and for preparing platters and cup like articles for serving food. Sladammar on distillation gives ‘Chua Oil’, that is employed in perfumery and for flavouring chewing and smoking tobacco.” From: “Is there any possibility to save the Sal-borer infested forests of Chhattisgarh, India?” by Pankaj Oudia ©2001, 2002, 2003. Downloaded 26 Oct. 2003 from: http://www.botanical.com/site/column_poudhia/213_saveforest.html

“Shorea robusta: sal, sala, asvakarna (Skt.); sakhu, sal (H.); sal, taloora; (resin) : ral, dhuna (B.); sal (M.); jalari-chettu (Te.); taloora, kungiliyam (Ta.); karimaruthu (Ma.); bile-bovu, bile-bhogimara (Ka.); habitat: common in the sub-Himalayan regions and the forests of Western Bengal. Bark yields on boiling with water, an extract similar to catechu . . . Resin (gum) which exudes from incisions made in the bark is a mild astringent, aphrodisiac and stimulant . . . The resin is burnt as an incense in sick-rooms for its fragrant smoke. (Indian Materia Medica, pp. 1132-1133).” Downloaded on 17^th May, 2004, from: http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/Indian%20Lexicon/shorea.htm      

  [Douna] – “A perfume, kind of incense, drives out evil, not poisonous. [From the] Pei Wen Yun Fu p. 4163.” Personal communication from Dr. Ryden.

The Bencaogangmu [Pen-ts’ao kang-mu (PTKM)] by Li Shizhen [Li Shih-chen] (1596), 14, cites the 4^th or 5^th century Guangji [Kuang-chi] by Ma Guohan [Ma Kuo-han]:

“Tou-na fragrance comes from the various mountains of the robber countries of the Western Sea.” From: Leslie and Gardiner (1996), p. 94 and n. 68.

12.12 (59) baifuzi 白附子 [pai fu-tzu] – literally: “white aconite.”

Bai Fuzi is used in Chinese medicine as the name for the roots two separate plants: Aconitum coreanum (Lévl.) Raipaics, known as Korean Monkshood; literally, “white monkshood or aconite,” and, also, Typhonium giganeum.
          The GR Vol. IV, No. 8437, p. 767, gives for pai² fu⁴ tzu³ [Pinyin – bai fuzi]: “(Bot. – anc.) aconite : Aconitum coreanum (Lévl.) Raipaics.” In English it is known as Korean Monkshood.
This information was kindly confirmed and expanded in an email on 3rd Nov., 2003, by the editorial staff of Shen-Nong – Integrated Chinese Medicine Holdings Ltd. (www.icm.com.hk).

“. . . . BAI FUZI, according to Chinese Medicine (by Dr. Lui Zai Quan, Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers), BaiFuzi recorded in most of the ancient Chinese Medicine literature should be Aconitum coreanum (Lévi.) Raipaics as you mentioned. In Chinese, it is known as Guanbaifu.

Nowadays, Guanbaifu is seldom used in clinical practice, most of Baifuzi used in the prescription is Yubaifu (Typhonium giganteum) and it is now considered as the official species for Baifuzi.

In Chinese Medicine, both species of baifuzi have similar functions in expelling wind phlegm and relieving spasm. But Yubaifu (Typhonium giganteum) has less toxicity and can help disperse “knotted” stagnation and help relieve toxic materials. Guanbaifu (Aconitum coreanum), on the other hand, has greater toxicity and its functions are more specialized in dispersing cold dampness and relieving pain.

According to Dictionary of Chinese Materia Medica (Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers), Guanbaifu (Aconitum coreanum)(Baifuzi in ancient term) was recorded in herbal medicine literature in Tang Dynasty to be originated from Gaoli (former name of Korea). It is pungent and sweet, hot and with toxicity. It enters liver and stomach meridian. Active ingredients identified include Hypaconitine, etc. . . . ”

 The good people from Shen-Nong wrote again on 13 November 2003, after I sent them a copy of the Chinese text from Hirth (1885), p. 113:

“In Chinese, the word, xiang as appeared at the end of iii [i.e. at the very end of this list of products, as referred to in Hirth (1885), pp. 74 and 113] does not necessarily refer to aromatic materials. It also refers to materials that confer xiang aromatic properties though most of them are aromatic. The understanding of aromatic properties in Chinese is usually the promotion of qi circulation. That means xiang botanicals are usually able to “run” the stagnant qi in the body and hence has some kind of analgesic properties. Therefore we feel that the grouping of the last three botanicals [i.e. Bai fuzi, xunlu, and yüjin] is likely to be based on their analgesic properties.

Although Guanbaifu (Aconitum coreanum) is not aromatic, according to the properties of the herbs around. . . Bai fu zi [in Hirth’s work], we think that Bai fu zi is likely to be Guanbaifu. For more concrete confirmation, more historical cross reference might be needed.”

There are over 300 species of the Aconitum genus of the buttercup family. They all contain aconite, a powerful poison. It has been used since ancient times to reduce fever and as a poison on arrowheads. It was also used as a medicine and poison in the Roman Empire:

“Who could show sufficient respect for the diligent research of men of former times? It is agreed that aconite takes effect more quickly than all other poisons. If the sexual parts of a female are touched by the aconite, death comes on the same day. . . .

          But men have turned this plant to the advantage of their health, having found by experiment that when given in warm wine it counteracts scorpion-stings. Its nature is to kill a human being unless it finds something else in him to destroy.” Pliny the Elder, NH (bk. XXVII, chaps. 4, 5), p. 248.” 

          “ARIDEAE:– Pa-fu-tzu 白附子. An uncertain species of Aroid plant, brought from Fêng-t’ien Fu in Shing-king, is correctly referred to this order by Tatarinov. It is called “white futsze” to distinguish it from the root of the aconite. The tuberous, oval, elongated roots sold by this name, vary a good deal in size, as from an inch to two inches in length. The epsdormi is of a brown colour, mottled, withered and reticulated. The interior is pure white, starchy, but firm in texture. It is said to have been originally imported from Korea and Sin-lo. The plant grows in sandy soil, and is evidently deleterious, although but a very slight degree of acridity seems to exist in the drug. It is said to be useful in apoplexy, aphonia, wry-neck, paraplegia, choreic affections, heat apoplexy, and similar diseases. It is principally used at the present time as a face-powder, to remove pock-marks, stains and pigmentary deposits. The powder is used as a desiccant in scabious and other eruptions. Many of the drugs in former use having undoubted effects in internal diseases, are now seldom used by the faculty, save as external remedies, from utter ignorance of their own pharma-cological literature.” Mesny (1896), p. 100.

“Typhonium refers to the rotund roots of Typhonium giganteum. . . . The Chinese name is baifuzi, which refers to the light color of the root material (bai = white) and its similarity in appearance to aconite (fuzi). In fact, a substitute herb for baifuzi is Aconitum koreanum, which is processed the same way as fuzi to yield a non-toxic herb material. Typhonium is not a commonly used herb, but it is well known by Chinese herbalists. The herb is used for a condition of wind-phlegm, which produces stiffness or convulsions. Commonly, it is administered for post-stroke syndromes, characterized by tongue and facial paralysis, or difficulty with speech. . . .
          Little is known about the active constituents of typhonium or its pharmacology. In addition to its applications for neurological disorders, typhonium has been utilized for pain and swellings, though the substitute aconite species may be the ones used for that purpose. According to the book Sichuan Chinese Pharmacological History, typhonium is “very warm in nature and has an acrid-sweet taste, it contains toxins, and cures gastric pain and joint pain that is due to a blood disorder.” In Origin of Materia Medica, it is stated that typhonium “penetrates stomach yin to reach the yang, leads the effect of medicine upwards to activate the heart and the lung, clears away heat accumulated as the result of cold stagnation due to yang deficiency; it is used with herbs that expel pathogenic wind but does not itself function to overcome pathogenic wind.” Other Chinese texts point to the use of typhonium for lymphatic swellings (8).” Dharmananda (2001).

12.12 (60) xunlu 熏陸 [hsün-lu] = frankincense.

“(Xun lu) matches part of the old name of Olibanum (Resin from the bark of Boswellia carterii Birdw). And according to Dictionary of Chinese Materia Medica (Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers), xun lu xiang is one of the other names for Olibanum recorded in the Transactions of Famous Physicians at the end of the Han Dynasty. The additional word xiang means “aromatic” smell. In some case, this word may make a difference and mean different part of the same botanical. Since olibanum itself is aromatic, our view is that… (Xun lu) as listed is likely to be Olibanum (Resin from the bark of Boswellia carterii Birdw). Unlike the use in Europe, Olibanum is not often used as incense, it is used internally and externally for relieving pain and relaxing the tendons and meridians.” From an email sent by the Editorial staff of Shen-Nong in Hong Kong on 13 November 2003.

“Frankincense, or olibanum, is a gum resin produced by a south Arabian tree and by a related tree in Somaliland. The gum was known to the Chinese under two names, one going back to the third century B.C. and transcribing Sanskrit kunduruka, “frankincense,” and the other a descriptive phrase, ju hsiang, “teat aromatic,” given to mamillary pieces, of the kind described by Pliny: “The incense, however, that is most esteemed of all is that which is mammose, or breast-shaped, and is produced when one drop has stopped short, and another, following close upon it, has adhered, and united with it.” The cabalistic name, “Floating Lard from the Holy Flower” was probably only used by alchemists.” Schafer (1963), p. 170. See also: ibid, 318, n. 146, 378; Laufer (1918), p. 30. [The name given by Schafer here: hsün-lu, 薰陸 – ancient pronunciation: *ki̯uən-li̯uk, has a different, though closely related, first character to the one used in the Weilue.]

“Next would have come cinnamon, if this were not an appropriate point to mention the riches of Arabia and the reasons that have given it the names ‘Happy’ and ‘Blessed’. The principal products of Arabia are frankincense and myrrh; it shares myrrh with the country of the Cave-dwellers, but Arabia is the sole producer of frankincense – and even then, not the whole of Arabia. . . .
          It is said that not more than 3,000 families retain as a hereditary privilege the right to trade in frankincense; and so the members of these families are called sacred and not allowed to be defiled by meeting women or funeral parties when they are tapping the trees to obtain frankincense. In this way the price is inflated through religious scruples. Some authorities state that frankincense in the forests is available for all people without distinction, but others say it is shared out each year between different people.
          There is no agreement about the appearance of the tree itself. We have conducted