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1 results

  • Attaining Accuracy and Precision of Measuring Containers During the Qin Dynasty

  • Kin Sum (Sammy) Li
  • Journal:
    Journal of Chinese History / Volume 6 / Issue 1 / January 2022
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    23 December 2020, pp. 1-22

  • This article explores how Qin Dynasty bureaucrats attained accuracy and precision in producing and designing measuring containers. One of the salient achievements of the Qin empire was the so-called unification of measurement systems. Yet measurement systems and the technological methods employed to achieve accuracy and precision in ancient China have scarcely been explored in English-language scholarship. I will examine the material features of the containers and reconstruct the production methods with which the clay models, molds, and cores of the containers were prepared before casting. I also investigate the inscriptions on the containers to determine whether they were cast or engraved. In so doing, I supply the field of Qin history with additional solid evidence about how accuracy and precision were defined in the Qin empire.