Chinese Science 12 (1995): 18-40
A Measure of Man in Early China: In Search of the Neolithic Inch
David N. Keightley
AUTHOR 's NOTE: A version of this article was presented at the symposium, "Chinese 'Identities, '" held at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 25-26 February 1994.
[David N. Keightley is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1969. He is the author of Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (1978), and editor of The Origins of Chinese Civilization (1983). One of the editors and founders of the journal Early China, he has published a variety of articles on the religion and history of the Chinese Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Professor Keightley is currently at work on a book called Divination and Kingship in Late Shang China}
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ost characterizations of early Chinese civilization, as represented by M the material culture and written records of the Shang and Zhou periods, acknowledge the significant religious and social role of ritual (see, e.g., Zhang Guangzhi 1960). The scrupulous attention to mortuary ritual in the Neolithic as well as the Bronze Age periods, together with the concern for correct social deportment and the precise observance of hierarchical distinctions reported in the canonical texts, suggest, on the part of early Chinese elites, a strong concern for defining and maintaining good order (Keightley 1978, 1985, 1990: 22-31). A similar concern with the regular ordering of experience can be seen in the technological skills of the Shang and Zhou bronze casters, whose ceramic piece molds had to be designed and fitted together with remarkable precision (Bagley 1987: 17-18, 37-44). Such concern with correct placement, order, and fit existed, presumably, in other areas of early Chinese life (as I have argued in Keightley 1987: 108-17, 1989: 39-40, 46-52). In what follows, I attempt to show how one early manifestation of this concern, involving mensuration, can be detected in the Neolithic cultures of southeast China in the
18
Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure ofMan in Early China 19 third millennium B.C. That significant links existed between the cultures of the east coast, broadly conceived, and the Bronze Age cultures of the Xia and Shang that followed them has long been acknowledged (see, e.g., Rawson 1980: 35-40, 78-79; Fang Hui 1987; Keightley 1987: 116-17, 119, n. 16; Huber 1988: 58- 63). One of those links, I now argue, involved the units of standardized measurement by which certain early artifacts were cmstructed.
The Neolithic Inch
Large numbers of elegantly carved jade cong ~tubes have been found in Liangzhu ~ 1fj culture graves (ca. 2900-1900 B.C.) in the area to the east and south of Lake Tai in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. I Whatever the religious and symbolic function of these Neolithic ritual artifacts may have been,2 the regularity in the size of the registers (jie n ) on any particular cong is striking (see, e.g., Figure 1). As I have already noted, the multi-registered cong from Sidun =ff $, in Jiangsu ''which resemble rulers in appearance ... represent the essence of prescriptive, standardized, design, each register being identical to the rest. . . . Such results could only have been achieved by the most persistent attention to precise measurement."3 My preliminary attempts to establish the existence of an actual Neolithic inch were inadequate,4 but the Sidun jade carvers' commitment to registers that were frequently some 23 mm in height (see Table 1) did at least suggest that they were attempting to replicate an agreed-upon, if variable, standard of measurement. I would note in particular that all the registers on the two-register cong M3:29 and the three-register cong M3:13 measured 23 mm precisely (Table 1).s
1Color photographs ofLiangzhu cong are reproduced at Zhejiang 1990: 7-47. I take the dates from Huang 1992: 10, 27; An Zhimin (1988: 756) gives ca. 3300--2200 B.C. For maps of Liangzhu sites, see Zhejiang 1990, facing p. 1; Huang 1992: 16--17. For the relation between east coast Neolithic and Shang jades, see Wu Hung 1985; Li 1992; Rui and Shen 1992; Sun Zhixin 1993: 31-40. 2For recent explorations of the how cong may have been used, see, e.g., Hayashi 1988; Zhang Guangzhi 1987; Teng 1991; Huo and Li 1992; Zang 1993. 3Keightley 1987: 111; referring in particular to the jade cong from Sidun reported at Kaogu 1984: 118-19. 4Keightley 1987: 124, n. 74. I had not realized that the height of the Sidun registers, which I had estimated in that note, were given with more precision in the body of the Kaogu report; I now reproduce those heights in Table 1. SThe intense, almost "inhuman" regularity of these registers is clearly evident in the color photographs; see Kaogu 1984: pl. 4.2, for M3:13; see too Zhejiang 1990, no. 51, for M3:1, a four-register cong, each register measuring 21 mm.
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4 111:1!. M3 l!J±.3i?i! l.M3:72 2.M3:15 3.M3:35 ~.M3:71 5.M3!25 6.M3:36 7.M3:26 8.M.1:16 9.M3:22
Figure 1. Nine jade cong from M3. Si dun (Kaogu 1984.2: 119, fig. 9).
It will be objected that most of the registers from this burial did not measure 23 mm (see Table 1). Registers on one cong alone might frequently vary in size; the registers on M3:71, for example, ranged from 23 to 27 mm, those on M3 :36 ranged from 22 to 26 mm, and so on. And the average height of the registers on each multi-registered cong (I exclude those with only one register) also varied, ranging from 18.9 mm on the thirteen-register M3 :22 to 25.9 mm on the six register M3:30 (Table 2). Given such variations, how can one speak of a unit of measurement, of a "Neolithic inch"?
Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access Table 1. Height of the Registers (in cm) on the Jade Cong from Sidun M3 (after Kaogu 1984.2: 126-27) Mf! iHli fLf! P Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 22 Chinese Science I 2 (1995) Table 2. Average Register Height on the Multi-Register Jade Cong from Sidun M3 (Averages calculated from measurements given at Kaogu 1984.2: 126-27) Average height of Cong Number of registers registers in mm. $ WP (Wfi~) M3:29 2 23 M3:13 3 23 M3:1 4 21 M3:72 5 25 M3:35 6 22.2 M3:31 6 24.1 M3:12 6 23.1 M3:15 6 25.2 M3:17 6 24.3 M3:36 6 23.9 M3:30 6 25.9 M3:33 7 20.7 M3:25 7 21.1 M3:28 7 22.1 M3:24 7 21.6 M3:18 7 23.6 M3:20 7 25.5 M3:71 7 27.5 M3:14 8 24.2 M3:27 8 25.7 M3:23 9 19.5 M3:32 9 22.2 M3:34 9 22.4 M3:11 11 24.8 M3:21 12 20.6 M3:19 12 22.5 M3:22 13 18.9 M3:26 13 22.3 M3:16 15 19.1 Total height of average registers/cong: 663.2mm Total number of cong. 29 Average height/register: 22.9mm I do not propose that the Liangzhu jade workers made their cong by laying a standard inch ruler against the jade block and marking off precise one-inch registers. Indeed, if as I suppose (see below) the unit of measurement was based upon a body part such as the hand or finger, then it would inevitably have varied slightly in each application, depending upon the size of the individual making the measurement. I believe, therefore, that we can discern the presence of a "mean" Neolithic unit in the evidence before us. The size of particular cong registers varied about that mean, but the mean itself represented an intentional if Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure of Man in Early China 23 personal standard. That the Neolithic jade workers were attempting to observe some kind of unit is indicated by two pieces of Liangzhu evidence. First, despite the variations noted above, the average size of all the registers on the twenty nine multi-registered cong found in Sidun M3 was 22.9 mm (Table 2). It is this figure-which is supported by measurements of cong in other collections (Table 3}--that leads me to conclude that the "ideal" unit was ca. 23 mm long. That the Eastern Zhou and Han inch was approximately 23 mm long (see below) adds support to these conclusions. 6 Second, it is suggestive that in a number of cases it was the last register (on the top?) that appears to have varied most from the average height of the previous registers on a cong.7 This suggests that the workers attempted to use an equal unit for most of the registers and that they only moved away from that "ideal" unit as they approached the end of the jade block and had to adjust their final measurements accordingly. 8 Such an argument, implies, of course, that the worker did not mark out the entire cong into equal registers before he started work. On the contrary, for a four-register cong, he would have started by replicating the "Neolithic inch," as, for example, in the first three registers of 6If others have discovered the "Neolithic inch" before, I apologize for my ignorance and for needlessly repeating their work. The literature on metrology in early China is extensive (see my References), but it generally does not address the situation prior to the Bronze Age. The few exceptions include: (1) Wang Ningsheng (1987), who employs comparative ethnography to explore the situation in the Chinese Neolithic. He calls attention, in part, to the likelihood that the carpenters who built the stilt-houses at Hemudu filJ!llij?!Jl (stratum 4, ca. 5000 B.C.) would have employed measurements (cf. Keightley 1987: 111 ); in re-examining the Hemudu evidence, I am struck by the fact that the rows of piles were frequently ca. 2.36-6 or 1.2-3 m apart (Zhejiang 1978: 43), i.e., approximately the full or half "Neolitihic foot" of ca. 2.3 m implied by the proposed "Neolithic inch" of 23mm. (2) Robert Poor ( 1990-92; see too Puer 1991 ), who proposes that Neolithic potters in various areas of China used mathematical modules. (3) Zhao Jianlang ( 1992), who identifies a set of volume measures at the Dadiwan :*::!:filat site in Gansu (4th millennium B.c.). 7See, e.g., the figures in Table 1 for M3:36, M3:30, M3:24, M3:34. The authors of the Kaogu 1984 report did not indicate whether the register heights recorded in Table 1 were listed from the top down or the bottom up. I believe, on the basis of comparing pl. 4.5 of the report with the Table I figures for M3:36 that the authors reported their measurements from the bottom up, but this requires confirmation. 8consider, for example, the case of the seven-register cong, M3:24. The first three registers are the size of the putat'ive "Neolithic inch": 23 mm, 23 mm, and 21-23 mm. (depending on the side measured). I assume that at this point the jade worker began to realize that, if he maintained the unit, he might run out of space; he accordingly reduced the size of the next three registers, which measure 21-22 mm, 21-22 mm, and 21 mm. These reductions in the size of the unit, however, were not sufficient, and the last register measured only 19-20 mm. Similar conclusions could be drawn from 50.521 in the Art Institute of Chicago; the four registers measure 22, 23, 23, and IO mm (see Table 3). Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 24 Chinese Science 12 (199 5) 50.521 (see Footnote 8), and would then have found that, because of a lack of space, he could not maintain his adherence to the ideal unit in the last register. Table 3. Height of Cong Registers in Various Collections Identification Height of individual registers in Average Museum or number of mm (from bottom) height of publication cong registers British Museum 1937.4-16.102 18-18.5 18.25 1937.4-16.183 24-26; 23 22 1937.4-16.188 21.0-23.0; 20.0-21.0; 20.0-21.0; 21.29 20.0-22.0; 20.0-22.0; 21.0-22.0; 21.0-22.0; 20.0-21.0; 20.0-22.0; 21.0-22.0; 22.0; 21.0-22.0; 22.0- 23.0; 21.0; 21.0-22.0; 21.0-22.0; 20.0-22.0; 21.0-22.0; 20.0-22.0; 21.0 1945.10· 20.0-22.0; 19.0-20.0; 19.0-20.0; 19.94 17.157 20.0; 19.0-20.0; 19.0-20.0; 19.0- 20.0; 20.0-22.0 OA+110 18.0-19.0; 19.5-20.0; 18.0-20.0; 19.12 18.0-20.0; 18.0-19.0; 19.0-21.0 Los Angeles M70.76.3 20.0-22.0; 21.5; 21.0-22.0; 21.5; 22.35 County 22.5; 22.0; 22.0-22.5; 23.0; 23.0- Museum of Art 23.5; 24.5-25.5 Shoudu 2.895 0.731 30.3; 19.1; 20.3; 21.3; 20.9; 20.0; 20.92• Bowuguan 21.0; 21.1; 20.3; 19.7; 21.9; 22.0; (Beijing) 22.3; 19.4; 20.6; 20.6; 21.0; 21.8; 23.8 2.4338 22.2; 19.3; 21.4; 20.5; 21.0; 20.0; 20.75' 20.0; 20.0; 20.1; 22.1; 20.2; 21.3 20.3; 21.0; 21.9 Notes: a) The registers on cong 2.895 0.731 were taller at the center channel than they were at the comers (the measurements given above). When measured at the center channel, the register dimensions were: 21.1; 20.1; 21.2; 22.3; 21.7; 22.0; 22.2; 22.2;21.2; 20.9; 22.1; 22.2; 23.1; 20.0; 21.1; 21.5; 21.5; 22.5; 24.0-for an average register height of 21. 73 mm. b) The registers on cong 2.4338 were taller at the center channel than they were at the comers (the measurements given above). When measured at the center channel, the register dimensions were: 24.9; 22.0; 23.3; 22.7; 23.0; 22.2; 22.7; 22.1; 23.1; 23.8; 22.9; 23.2; 23.0; 23.0; 23.4-for an average register height of 23.02 mm. I am grateful to the following people for the assistance they provided on the dates indicated: British Museum: Jessica Harrison-Hall, 29 June 1992. Los Angeles County Museum: George Kuwayama, 25 June 1992. Shoudu bowuguan (Beijing): Xue Ti ffjd!, Wang Zhimin .3:.~-. and Liu Junqi JIJ1~r;l't. 10 Oct. 1988. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure ofMan in Early China 25 The Inch and the Hand Ancient China was no exception to the generalization that "all ancient civilisations used parts of the human body for many of their shorter measurements" (Dilke I 987: 23; Wang Ningsheng I 987: 306-08, 3 I 8, 320). As Shuowenjiezi ~)Cf§lf:f:tells us in its definition of chi R, "foot": "In the Zhou system," all the linear measurements "were modelled on the human body."9 The question then becomes: what body part might the Liangzhu jade workers have been using as their unit of measurement? I had early observed that the size of many of the cong registers matched the transverse width of my thumb joint (which happens to be 23 mm). It had seemed to me that the Neolithic jade workers might well have laid their thumbs against the uncarved jade as a rough way of measuring out equal-sized units "by rule of thumb."10 No later text, however, indicates that the thumb was used in this way. 11 9shirakawa 1969-73, 8: 138. See too the entries for cun >j" and chi R. in Kato J6ken 1970: 579-80. 101 had been guided by Karlgren's claim ( 1923, no. 1113; 1957, no. 431) that >j" cun meant "thumb." He evidently based his interpretation on the belief that the ancient graph for cun shows "a >Z hand with the thumb marked by a stroke" (for Xu Kai's f& 1t/i different "shape-shows-the-meaning" explanation of the graph, see below). He may also have been misled by the ambiguity of Wieger's definition (1932: 125) of cun as "mesure de un pouce," "measure of one inch" (which also, given the ambiguity of the word pouce, might be understood as "measure of one thumb"). Karlgren cited Gongyang zhuan 0$1$ to support his reading of "thumb," but I find this doubtful. I assume he was referring to a puzzling passage in Gongyang, Xi m31, appended to the Chunqiu ff: fk record: 3'tt .=_ ~ , "The sacrifice to the Three Distant [spirits] was yet performed" (Malmqvist 1971: 170). To the Gongyang passage-MH:::i ffij /±l, •-t ffij .g--He Xiu fiiJ 1* (A.O. 129-182) commented: QIJ-¥ B ,., ;t;t rn B -t "For the fingers side-by-side, one says Ju; for the finger pressed down, one says cun" (other commentary support at Zhang Qiyun 1962--68, no. 12119 [fu f..k ] definition 12). As Malmqvist notes.Ju f..k is used for Ju ,. "in a number of quotations of this Gongyang passage" (see the discussion of Ju f..k below). According to Malmqvist (1971: 174; here and below I consistently convert authors' romanizations to pinyin, unless they occur in the title of a work), "the interpretation of the first part of He Xiu's comment ... is uncertain," but "it is clear that he takes Ju,. (Arch. pliwo) as a measure." He Xiu continues: 1ll'i ~ •-t ffij ~ .g-, which Malmqvist renders as "There is not a gap as large as the breadth of four fingers or an inch [in the carpet of the clouds]." Karlgren, who did not actually translate the Gong yang passage (nor did he translate He Xiu's commentary), presumably would have taken it to mean ''There is not a gap as large as the breadth of four fingers or a thumb." Malmqvist, in fact (p. 175), prefers to take ,. as a loan for 1' or I!: and tentatively proposes that the second four characters of the Gongyang passage meant: "Spreading over every inch [of land] [the clouds] are joined together." llserruys (1984: 676, no. 89) translates the cun kou >j" D of the Shuowen IDt )( definition (given below) as "thumb's opening," but because that definition is concerned Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 26 Chinese Science I 2 (1995) Since the transverse width of the second, lower joint of my middle finger also measures approximately 23 mm, one might imagine that the Liangzhu artisans might have laid that joint against the jade. In this case, classical documents support such a hypothesis and encourage me, for reasons given below, to refer to the Neolithic unit as an "inch" or cun -t, the word used in Zhou and Han texts.12 It may be noted, first, that cun -t , "inch," and cun tt , "to measure," belonged to the same word family. 13 As William Baxter has suggested, cun -t, "inch," was "probably a nominal derivative of the verb cun3 'tt .... Cun4 -t would fit into the widespread pattern of putting a word in qusheng .:t;; §to make it a noun" (William Baxter, e-mail communication of 29 June 1992). Second, there was a strong Han tradition that defined the "inch" on the basis of the fingers and that, I believe, transmitted Neolithic practice: 14 ( l) Shuowen defined cun -t as follows: + )]- tQ. . A-¥ ~D - -t, I}] H*, ~ Z. -t r:J. f.:£ Y... W-15 "[An inch] is ten fen. Moving back one inch from a man's hand [one comes to] the pulsing vein. One calls [that pulse] 'inch mouth.' [The graph] is composed with you Y... [the right hand] and yi - ["one," to indicate the 'one-inch' distance below the wrist (?)]." 16 The Shuowen definition of chi R., "foot," matches this: +-tt11. A-'F~D+-t, '3.JH*~ -t O. +-t ~R. ... "[A foot] is ten cun. Moving back ten fen from a man's hand, the pulsing vein is the 'inch mouth.' Ten cun make a chi ..." Shuowen also defines another Zhou measure, the zhi ~ , "the eight-inch [as opposed to ten-inch] foot"-which appears in Zuozhuan ti..-1$ and Guoyu ~ m with respect to the hand: qi MU A -¥ , ~ J\ -t , ~ Z. ~ , fflJ R. tQ. "The hand of an average woman is eight cun inches long; one calls this a zhi-foot; it was the chi-foot of Zhou" (Shirakawa 1969-73, 8: 139). It is unclear if the Zhou used such a system,17 but if we with distance, and does not otherwise mention the thumb, I believe that "inch mouth" is correct. 12Cun was used in the sense of"inch" in, e.g., Zuozhuan;5:'1$ (Zhao 26, para. 2; Ai 2, para. 7) and Mengzi ~T (2.B.7.2; 4.B.7; 6.A.14.1; 6.B.1.5; 6.B.2.2). 13Many commentators (e.g., Shirakawa 1969-73, 3: 181) have noted, for example, that the line, 7 't;f I!!'. Z., "I can (measure =) understand them (the thoughts of others)," in Shi ~, Mao. no. 198, was sometimes written 7-t/J'.Z.. The root meaning may have been "to measure by the finger" (see below). 14Another Han tradition of metrology defined the inch on the basis of grains (see below). 15The graph for mo DJi1 in this passage is sometimes written with the Itll rather than the ~element. I 6shirakawa 1969-73, 3: 181. The view that the "one" represented the one-inch distance comes from the Shuowen jizhuan IDt )(,, 1' of Xu Kai of the Southern Tang: - ~ ~C. -¥Mi! r - -t , Jlt rn $ -ti! . Shirakawa doubts the validity of this particular etymology. 17Zeng Wuxiu ( 1964: 166) has suggested that two kinds of chi R. were in use in the Warring States period. In one system, ten chi made a zhang j:, ten zhang made a yin 51. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure of Man in Early China 27 assume, as suggested above, that the cun was the width of the digit, then it would have made excellent sense to fonn a chi span of eight rather than ten digits because it is easy and even natural to lay eight digits side-by-side, with four from the left hand laid next to four from the right. The "span" of the eight digits alone-if one takes the "digit" to be 23 mm as suggested above-would have been (8 x 23 =) 184 mm, thus 80 percent of the 230 mm chi. (This is an entirely theoretical measurement; the actual span of my eight digits laid side-by side, measuring the distance from the top joint of my left little finger to the top joint of my right little finger is only ca. 165 mm.) It seems less natural to employ ten digits since the thumb, presumably, either does not qualify as a "digit" or is hard to lay flat in such a configuration. I would note, however, that when I lay my two palms side-by-side, including the thumbs in the span, measuring the distance from the top joint of my left little finger to the top joint of my right little finger, the span is, in fact, approximately 23 cm, precisely the span of the Han chi R.. The way in which the 23 mm or 23 cm finger or hand measurements keep reappearing suggests once again that the cun and fen of early China were indeed based upon these body parts. (2) In the "Zhuyan" ± ~ section of the Da dai liji *Ale :fl ~C. , Confucius says of his ideal world of the past: ?&f&1Prn~-t, 1P-¥~R., Sfij;J~~' +~®*· "Afterwards, by spreading the fingers one knew the cun-inch measure, by spreading the hand one knew the chi-foot measure, by stretching out the elbow one knew the xin ~eight-foot measure; ten xin made the suo * measure." 18 I would note that the distance between the bottom joint of the In the other system, the basic unit was the zhi f8 (see the Shuowen definition quoted above). One zhi was equivalent to 0.8 chi; ten zhi made a xin ~ , and one xin was equivalent to 0.8 zhang. Zeng finds support in other Han texts like Lunheng ~ !tr "Zhengshuo" ..iE IDl , which says: ml )..::) J\ i" ~ R "The Zhou took eight cun to be the chi." Zeng proposes that the unit of this second system be called the xiaochi 1J' R , "small foot," but he concludes that we do not yet have firm archaeological evidence that the Zhou actually used such a system. Sekino ( 1953: 3-14) had reached similar conclusions, arguing for the contemporary existence of a longer and shorter measure in Zhou, Qin, and Han, and concluding that in the Warring States and Qin periods, "the longer measure" (225 mm) was employed in architecture, engineering and wood working, and the "shorter measure" (180 mm) in metal and jade. The short measure would thus have been 81 percent of the size of the long measure. Zeng ( 1964: 166), however, was unable to find archaeological evidence that supported Sekino's figures. 18Wang Pinzhen 1983: 5. The same account of the cun and chi appears in Kongzi jiayu fL-1-~m. "Shiyanjie" ± ~ M(Zhang Qiyun 1962--68, 3: 1083, no. 8975.101). I do not know the size of the suo measure; it is not referred to in the entry for suo in Zhang Qiyun (1962--68, 11017). Reifler (1970--71: 420--21) translated the first part of this passage quite differently: "the middle joint of a finger is a cun 'f, and the hand span is a chi R." His translation (which accords with the interpretation of Ferguson 1941: 364) does violence to the Chinese. Zhang Qiyun ( 1962--68, 3: 1083, no. 8975.101) specifically explains the phrase f(fj nJ as "to spread the fingers," /K.:f. t~ -ti! . Grynpas' Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 28 Chinese Science 12 (1995) second and third fingers of my hand, when my fingers are spread, is approximately 23 mm. Confucius, however, as represented in this Han account, was remarkably vague about how the system worked. One can only note this passage as further evidence of a tradition linking fingers and the inch. (3) More evidence of an early tradition relating the inch to the breadth (?) of a finger (rather than the distance between two fingers) appears in the commentary to the passage, IJ~tj:l.li.~. "The (pitchpot) tallies, when one plays in the middle room, were five Ju ~ long [?]," in the "Tou hu" 19:~ (Pitchpot) chapter of Liji m~c. The Han scholar Zheng Xuan ~:Q,: (127-200) defined the Ju ~ measure as follows: "Four fingers spread out [side by side?] are called a Ju (~[gm EI~) ; one finger pressed down is an inch. The [Gongyang] commentary to Chunqiu says ... [and here we come to the problematic passage, •-t@-g-, referred to in footnote I 0 above]." 19 (4) That the hand was involved in early mensuration is also suggested by etymological considerations. On the basis of other words written with the cun -t element, Boltz has argued that the graph for cun itself "must have been polyphonic, and read also *hrjagwx>shou, probably as an allograph of =F *hrjagwx 'hand"' (Boltz 1994: 120, correcting the direction of his arrows). This suggests that H·(cun) may have meant "measure by the hand" and that ""t (cun) may have meant "measurement made by the hand." (5) Such a conclusion would be well supported by comparison with other early cultures. In ancient Egypt, for example, four digits (4 x 18.7 mm) equaled one palm (approximately 75 mm). In ancient Sumeria, thirty digits (16.5 mm long) equaled one cubit (49.5 cm). In classical Greece, four dakty/oi (finger's breadths) equaled one palaste (palm) and three palastai formed one spithame (span between thumb and little finger). Similarly, for the Romans, the unit was the finger's-breadth (digitus); "as in Greece and elsewhere, four of these finger's-breadths formed a palm" (Dilke 1987: 23, 25, 26). Just as four finger's breadths formed a palm in the West, so did four finger's-breadths, according to Wang Pingzhen's Liji commentary form a Ju ~ (or ,.) in China (1983: 5). These comparisons provide no support for determining the absolute size of the Chinese units, but they do suggest that, following the definitions discussed above that linked it to the fingers, the early Chinese cun should probably be translation (1972: 33) is also distant from the text: "Par la suite, on etablit la longueur du pouce en prenant comme mesure le doigt et d'apres la longueur de la paume de la main, la mesure du pied." However, as I have noted above, the lower joint of my middle finger does indeed measure 23 mm across. l9Legge (1879, 28: 400) gives an entirely different reading of the Liji passage; he treats fu as the collective noun for a "set" of the arrows used in the game of pitch pot and thus translates, "[If the game be in] the chamber, there are five sets of these [arrows]." Couvreur (1899, 2: 597) and Takeuchi (1979: 894), however, adopt the reading l have given above; I find no dictionary support for Legge's interpretation. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure of Man in Early China 29 rendered "finger's-breadth" or digitus; the chi, "foot," should thus be considered equivalent to the "palm" (or "span") of other systems.20 A second Han tradition explained the origins of units of length not on basis of the fingers and the hand but on the basis of cereal grains and pitch pipes. According to the Hanshu t1f~. "Lilli zhi" tfM~: The basis of the five sounds is born in the pitch-measure of the Yellow Bell. (A pipe] nine cun-inches long makes the kong note (fL-Tm'§) ... .(Hanshu, "Liili zhi": 958) In measuring, there are the cun -;j", chi R., zhang :J:::, and yin 51; with them one measures length. They are based on the length of the Yellow Bell [pitch-pipe). Using grains of black millet that are of average size, [using] the breadth of one grain of millet, one measures ninety fen :St of them, [which makes] the length of the Yellow Bell. One [grain] makes one/en, ten fen make a cun, ten cun make a chi, ten chi make a zhang, ten zhang make an yin. (Hanshu, "Liili zhi": 966)21 This tradition seems to smack of the scholar's lamp rather than historical experience;22 it is more plausible that working craftsmen would have used their hands rather than try to line up ten grains of millet to make a measurement. Tantalizingly for our discussion of jade cong, however, the Song dynasty Sanli tu =fl Ill of Nie Chongyi :a~li illustrates both this "millet-seed foot," shuchi ~R.. and a slightly shorter "finger foot," zhichi f~R.. 23 Nie, in fact, suggested-though without referring to any historical period or documentary evidence-that the rn-tzR "finger-inch foot" should be used for the measurement of jade ceremonial objects and that the ~-12.R. "millet-seed inch foot" should be used to measure ceremonial vessels and objects made of wood (Nie 1985: j. 11, la-b). Ferguson, who discussed the Sanli tu passage, 20cr. Chalmers 1880: 335 where, on the basis of the Da dai /iji passage quoted above, Chalmers concluded that the chi "was really a 'span."' Wang Ningsheng 1987: 305 reaches the same conclusion on the basis of the Neolithic evidence. 21 The nature of the correspondences provided both in this Hanshu chapter and in Guoyu fl!lrJlffi, "Zhou yu" m]lffi, 3, has been summarized by Needham, Ling and Robinson 1962: 199-202, and by DeWoskin 1982: 64. The "Zhouyu" passage on music is translated by Hart 1973: 387-40 I. 220ther "academic" theories of mensuration, based on body parts, can also be found in Shuowen; e.g., "ten hairs/a~ make a cheng ~.one cheng makes a fen :St, ten fen make a cun-inch -;j"" (Duan 1965: 7 __t: 52b ); other versions of the definition make the cheng the 1/IOOth or I/12th of the cun, rather than the I/10th part indicated here. Shirakawa ( 1969-73) does not include these definitions in his modern edition of the Shuowen. 23Nie 1985: Jiyu tu ~:Ell!, j. 11, I a-b. Nie, it may be noted, was a specialist in the Gongyang 0 $ tradition (Zhang Qiyun 1962-68, 7: 946, no. 29829.30). From the illustrations Nie provided in the Sanli tu, I estimate that the length of the "finger foot" was 94 percent that of the "grain foot." Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 30 Chinese Science 12 (1995) found no confinnation that jades were measured in this way, but the tradition testifies once again to a link between jade objects and the kind of hand-based system of mensuration that I am proposing for the Liangzhu cong. (Coming as it does from a Song source, of course, the testimony must be tenuous. Stronger Zhou and Han evidence for such a link will be provided below.) Ferguson suggested that-presumably in the classical period-"the 'grain foot' was the official standard and that the 'finger foot' was in common use in the same way as in the English language we speak of the height ofa horse as so many 'hands' or a distance as so many 'paces"' (Ferguson 1941: 364). The discussion to this point suggests that, whatever units of mensuration existed in the Neolithic, they would have been rough-and-ready, based upon craft needs and local traditions, liable to some degree of variation, and based upon body parts, probably the fingers and the hands, rather than upon impersonal and universal standards. Jades and Mensuration When we look for further links between the Liangzhu cong and mensuration, we find that in the Zhou/i system of politics and craftsmanship, jades were indeed explicitly related to mensuration. In the "Yuren" .:fi.A (Jade Workers) section of the Kaogongji ~ I~c. we are told: The jade bi !!;f disk and cong fffe tube are of nine cun-inches; the various Lords use them to offer to the Son of Heaven .... The zhuan fj, gui ~. and zhang ~jade tablets are of eight cun-inches; the jade bi disk and jade cong tube are of eight cun-inches; one uses them [as gifts] in attending audiences and in making visits of enquiry. The indented zhang !f~ and the middle-sized zhang ~~ are of seven cun inches, have projections of two cun-inches, and are one cun-inch thick; they are used to raise troops and to control garrisons. The silk-corded cong Ufffetube is of five cun-inches; the honored queen uses it as a balance-weight. The great cong tube is of twelve cun-inches; its projections are four cun-inches; it is one cun inch thick; it is called the Neizhen !*JM; the honored queen guards it. The silk-corded cong tube is of seven cun-inches, with a knob <•»24 of one and a half cun-inches; the Son of Heaven uses it as a balance-weight. ... The zhuan tablet and cong tube are of eight cun-inches; the various Lords use them to offer 24 Biot (1851, 2: 528) gives trou, "hole," for a.bi; here I follow the argument of Sun Yirang (1966: 80, 11 b) that the cord for hanging the cong was passed through a pierced knob. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure of Man in Early China 31 to the consorts [of the rulers they visit]. (Sun Yirang 1966, 80: 7b--12a; Biot 1851, 2: 524-29) It is evident that, in the Zhouli system, precise dimensions were intimately related to prestige. The sumptuary stipulations presume that the jades including various sizes of cong-were to be measured in cun. To exactly what dimensions on the jade objects these cun measurements referred is not certain. If the larger dimensions refer to the total height of the tube, and if the cun-inch was indeed 23 mm long, then the tallest cong, the great cong tube of 12 cun, would have been some 27.6 cm high, as imposing as most of the Liangzhu cong from Sidun, only a few of which measured over 30 cm (Table 1). The link between jade ritual objects and mensuration was also maintained in the Zhouli discussion of the jade biyan ~~, "oval bi disk." The "Yuren" section of Kaogong ji explains: !Jl~/!tR., H= -T f)JIS/!t "The oval bi-disk measures the chi-foot, the empty space in the center is three cun-inches (in diameter) and serves as a measure" (Sun Yirang 1966, 80: 7a, my italics). In this passage, significantly, there is some sense that the jade was actually to serve as a standard for mensuration, but it is hard to tell if this vision of the disks was more than utopian. Although one occasionally encounters a Neolithic jade bi disk in which the central hole is indeed approximately 3 "Neolithic inches" in diameter,25 there is no consistent evidence to suggest that Neolithic practice generally observed the regulations eventually laid down in the Kaogong ji. However, the existence of a tradition that linked jades to mensuration-and even to standardization ("the oval bi disk measures the chi-foot, the empty space in the center ... serves as a measure"}--buttresses the hypothesis that links the Neolithic Liangzhu culture, known for the wealth of bi and cong that its artisans produced, to an emerging "Neolithic inch." Shang Evidence Some Shang evidence is also suggestive; it indicates the existence of two units of mensuration. Luo Fuyi (1957: I) reproduces a bone chi ruler, reputedly found at Anyang, that is 16.95 cm long. The unit marks traverse the surface of the ruler, but of the ten units so marked, only the four starred with an asterisk below are of identical size on both the right and left edges, and, even excluding 25 Loehr (1975: 87) documents ajade bi (1943.50.525) whose exterior diameter of 169 mm-assuming a Neolithic inch of23.5 mm (see below}-would have been roughly equivalent to 7 cun (23.5 x 7 = 164.5 mm) and whose hole of 72 mm would have been close to 3 cun (23.5 x 3 = 70.5), as the Kaogong Ji stipulates. I have not, however, been able to find many cases of this sort. Most bi do not appear to have been made with Eastern Zhou or Han cun-inch dimensions in mind; see, e.g., the dimensions for twenty four Liangzhu bi excavated at Sidun given at Kaogu 1984: 125. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 32 Chinese Science 12 (1995) the last "short" unit of 1.45 cm, many of the other units are unequal, ranging from 1.5 to 1.9 cm long: R-L: 1.75-1.6; 1.5-1.7; *1.65-1.65; 1.7-1.8; 1.9-1.8; 1.8-1.85; *1.75-1.75; 1.6-1.65; *l.75-1.75; *1.45-1.45 cm. This suggests that units of mensuration were still rough and ready. Guojia jiliang zongju (1981: pis 9.1-2) also reproduces two ivory chi rulers, traditionally thought to be Shang, with each measure divided into ten units, and each unit further divided into ten subunits. Assuming that the photographs reproduce the original size of the objects, the units on the second chi (the first is too worn to be useful) are all 1.6 cm long, with the exception of the unit "l ," on the top, which is 1.5-1.6, and unit "3," which I make to be 1.55 cm. Wang Ningsheng (1987: 305, 306) has related the 15 cm width of the posts used in building the Neolithic houses at Ban po ¥-:l:ffi to the human span (yi zha -t'F); since the span of my four fingers, spread wide, is some 17 cm, and since, as we have seen above, the span of my eight fingers, side by side, is (165 mm=) 16.5 cm, one may suppose that the length of this Shang bone ruler might have been based upon such natural and ancient units. Robert Poor's conclusion that one of the modules employed by both Liangzhu jade workers and Shang bronze makers was 15-16 mm long lends further support to this possibility ( 1990-92: 4, 9, 12, 15). At the same time, there is evidence that the Shang continued to employ the ca. 2.3 cm "inch" I am positing for the Neolithic. That the average gauge of eight Late Shang chariots found in the Yinxu area was 228 cm, with the gauges of five of those eight ranging between 223 and 227 cm (Yang Baocheng 1984: 554), implies a "Shang inch" of ca. 2.28 cm, close to the Neolithic value, with the chariot gauges being 10 "inches" long. The Inch of Zhou and Han Final support for this hypothesis may be found in the fact that the cun-inch of late Zhou and Western Han was approximately 23 mm long.26 A significant 26 See, e.g., the following scholarship for the size of the Zhou and Han chi R. which measured 10 cun. (I have converted all metric measurements, as necessary, into centimeters. In the case of Yang Kuan 1955 and Wan 1958 I am relying upon the digests provided by Piel van der Loon and E. H. Schafer in Revue bibliographique de Sinologie 1 [1955] and 4 [1958] respectively; I have not seen the original works and cannot provide pagination.) Ferguson 1941: 360-61 (Zhou: 23.1 cm, Han: 23.809 cm); Yang Kuan 1955 (for more than 500 years after 344 B.C., the official foot was 23 cm; cf. Yang Kuan 1980: 227-28); Sekino 1956: 402 (Warring States, Qin, Eastern Han: 22.5 cm; Eastern Han: 23.5 cm); Wan 1958 (Qin-Han: 23.l cm); Zeng 1964: 164--66, 167--69 (Zhou: ca. 22.5; Han: 23.1 cm); Ho 1966: 57-58 (Han: 23.1 cm); Loewe 1967: 161 (Han: 23.l cm); Reifler 1970-71: 420; Tian Shi 1975: 79-80 (Eastern Han and Wang Mang: 22.7-22.81343 cm [this is a calculated figure, taken from Wu Chengluo 1957: 51 ]); Twitchett and Loewe 1986: xxxviii (Han: 23.1 cm); Gansu Juyan kaogudui 1978 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure ofMan in Early China 33 number of "foot-rules" or "yardsticks," associated with Eastern Zhou and Han sites, attest to this.27 The agreement between the ca. 23 mm linear unit that I have posited for the Liangzhu jades and the ca. 23 mm Eastern Zhou and Han inch is unlikely to be coincidental. It indicates, I believe, the continuity of a tradition of mensuration that endured for at least three thousand years. That Zhou and Han measures were not uniform-even, in the Han, for objects found in the same grave-encourages me to think that minor variations in Neolithic practice would not have been inconsistent with the existence of stipulated units.28 Conclusions The Neolithic chiefdoms represented by the Liangzhu sites had not, I believe, yet instituted a standard Neolithic inch. It was only with the growth of a centralized, bureaucratic state, committed to imposing uniform standards of behavior, that we can reasonably expect the appearance of uniform units of mensuration.29 The archaeological evidence suggests, however, that the (Han: ca. 23 cm); Hsu 1980: 321 (early Western Han: 23.5; late Western Han: 23.5/23.75; Wang Mang: 23.I cm); Hulsewe 1985: 19 (Han: 22.38-23.75 cm). 27 Luo Fuyi ( 1957) reproduces a Zhou bronze chi of 22. 7 cm; for the Warring States he reproduces: one bronze chi of 22. 7 cm, three bronze chi of 23 cm, two bronze chi of 23. I cm; for the Han he reproduces five bronze chi of 23.3 cm. Liu Dongrui ( 1979: 238) discusses a Chu carpenter's square that measured 23.2 cm on each side. Guojia jiliang zongju ( 1981) reproduces a Warring States bronze chi 23. I cm long, reputedly found near Luoyang ml!lh in 1931 (also discussed in Zeng 1964: 164--65); a wooden ruler of the Western Han 23 cm long (notable, however, for the irregularity of its inch markings), excavated in 1976 in Guixian :ft'*-, Guangxi; a gold and iron ruler of the Western Han 23.2 cm long (excavated at Mancheng l'Pfj:l}£); and other Western Han measures of 23.5, 23.6, 23.2 cm. 28 Wen Renjun (1983: 64) concludes that the Zhanguo state of Qi had its own "small chi," whose average length was 19.7 cm; this differed from the "large cht' of Zhou, which was 23.10 cm long; see too Sekino 1956: 377-90. Tian Shi (1975: 80) cites the dimensions of four stoves found in the Han tomb at Mancheng: on MI :4115, the chi-foot measured 23 cm; on MI :4114, 4116, and 4118 it measured 22.5 cm. The chi on a stove dated 52 B.C. was 23.75 cm (Qin 1973: 28). Such variations in the units of measurement were common in Europe, even in relatively modern times. In fifteenth-century Italy, for example, "the 'foot,' thepiede, had a value of 17.134 inches in Milan, 14.07 inches in Padua, but 11. 73 inches in Rome" (Hart, 1962: 170). And in France, at the time of the French Revolution, there were "700 or 800 differently named measures and untold units of the same name but different sizes" (Heilbron 1992: 245). 29 Given the similarity in units of length found in different parts of Warring States China, Zeng Wuxiu (1964: 166) argues that measurements had generally been unified prior to China's political unification in 221 B.C. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 34 Chinese Science 12 (1995) Liangzhu workers were already beginning to adopt rough-and-ready units of measurement in designing their jade cong. One of these units, as I have suggested above, may have been based upon the width of a finger joint, approximately 23 mm. This "Neolithic inch" or "digit" was evidently so widely used that it became the basis for the inch of Eastern Zhou and Han, also approximately 23 mm. Whether or not the concern with mensuration was developed first by the Neolithic populations of the east coast I am not yet prepared to say.30 I would note, however, that Zuozhuan, Zhao 17 (entry for 525 B.C.) attributes to the Dong Yi -~. who were thought to have lived in the region of Shandong and northern Jiangsu,31 a significant concern with mensuration. The legendary bird ministers who were supposed to have administered part of Shandong at the time of Shao Hao Zhi -1/'P!t! included "the five Pheasant [officers] who presided over the five classes of artisans; they saw to the provision of implements and utensils, and to the correctness of the measures of length and capacity, keeping things equal among the people" (if.jj'.;1:, ~_B;;f3"{fz) (Zuozhuan, Zhao 17; trans. based on Legge 1872: 667, my italics).32 Eastern concern with mensuration can also be seen in a story about Confucius found in Guoyu, in which the arrows that the Sushen shi :mAtaa people had sent as tribute at the time of the Zhou conquest of Shang were said to have measured one chi plus one zhi. According to the commentary, the Sushen belonged to the Bei Yi ~t~ and were associated with the state of Yan~ in the Northeast (Guoyu, "Luyu xia" ~~r 5: I lb). In these cases, the Zhou legends support the conclusions suggested by the Neolithic artifacts. The research introduced here is meant to be suggestive rather than conclusive. Robert Poor has discerned evidence for the extensive use of mathematical rules in the construction of Neolithic Chinese pots and Shang 30 Poor ( 1990-92; see too Puer 1991 ), for example, gives priority to the Yangshao potters of the Northwest. I have argued elsewhere (Keightley 1987: 111-12; cf. Poor 1990-92: 17 nn. 29, 30) for the importance of mensuration in the wood, jade, and ceramic crafts of the cultures of the East. 3 l Fu Sinian ( 1952: 90) locates the Yi in the area between the Huai $ and Ji ?j!f rivers. As he argues (p. 62), there was more than one kind of people in this area, but they were all, including the descendants of Tai Hao :t:J!l and Shao Hao ".:);-J!l, called Yi. See too, Han and Pan 1984: 252. Ledyard ( 1974: 7) notes that "the region of the Huai and Si Rivers, in southern Shandong and northern and central Jiangsu, was Yi territory right down to the time of Qin Shi Huang when, as Fan Ye ffilll put it, the Yi 'all dispersed and became ordinary people."' 32 The Zuozhuan use of the graph yi ~ in the sense of "equalize" raises the possibility that the peoples of this area derived their name from their concern with equality of measurement. Although the first occurrence of this meaning, in the "Li yun" ti~ section of Liji (Couvreur 1890: 192; Karlgren 1957: no. 551 ), is relatively late, the related meanings of "simple," "easy," and "regular" were also found in Zhou texts (in addition to Karlgren, 1957, see Zhang Qiyun 1962--68: no. 5977). Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access David N. Keightley: A Measure of Man in Early China 35 bronzes (Poor 1988, 1990-92; Puer 1991 ). His conclusions have depended primarily on the way in which the manufacturers of these artifacts maintained regular proportions between particular vessel parts. I believe that we can go further, by arguing not just for attention to relative measurement but also for increasing attention to absolute units of measurement. This is largely a matter of belief because the published archaeological reports generally-and quite understandably-do not provide the measurements of vessel parts; to do so would be impossibly cumbersome. It is my hope, however, that archaeologists with access to the jades, pots, and other artifacts of the Chinese Neolithic will test the hypothesis I have raised above and will thus tell us whether the inhabitants of China in the fourth and third millennia B.C. were already beginning to demonstrate that concern with standards of metrology that we associate with the development of impersonal standards of behavior, with the rationalization and specialization of craft activities, and with the development of high culture itself.33 We will then be in a better position to tell if the unification of units of weight, length, and volume carried out by the modernizing states of the late Eastern Zhou and by the Qin after the unification of 221 B.C.-with their indubitable "Chinese identity"-had its roots in Neolithic practices that had appeared at least three thousand years or more earlier. Addendum On 7 April 1995 Robert J. Poor and I measured a variety of jades in the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. We discovered numerous cases in which the distances between design elements were based on units of either 16 or 23-23.5 mm. For example: (1) Liangzhu headdress (16.511): From top of nose-bridge to top of headdress design: 16 mm; from center of mask to outside edges of face: 16 mm; distance between the outer edges of the two eyes: 32 mm [ 16 x 2]. (2) Fat Liangzhu, two-registered cong (16.499): Distance between eye centers: 32 mm [16 x 2]. Height of registers: 23.5 mm. Height of cong: 94 mm [23.5 x 4] at the mask; 92 mm at the central trough. Total height of registers on each face: 64.5 mm (16x4); 63 mm; 63.5 mm; 64 mm (i.e., the grinding varied). (3) Hongshan ornamental pendant (1991.52): 16 mm and 23 mm units between the teeth tips and between the eyes. (4) Shangjade scepter (17.34): top zone: 32 mm square; from center of drill hole to edge: 16 mm; height of horizontal stripe 33 The componential con~truction employed by the Neolithic potters of the east coast would have required considerable attention to the sizing of matching vessel parts such as legs, spouts and handles (Keightley 1987: 111-12). Poor (1990-92: 14; see too Puer 1991: 178-79) has made a similar argument, concluding that the products of Y angshao, Banchang, and Machang potters of the Northwest "reveal a modular underpinning which governs the vessels' shape and decoration" (1990-92: 14). For the impact that such craft practices may have had on the rhetoric of later political culture, see Keightley 1989. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 08:31:44PM via free access 36 Chinese Science 12 (1995) motif: 16 mm. (5) Small scepter (Shang?) with petal pattern (39.31). From bottom of petal cleavage to bottom of next petal cleavage: 16 mm. Top zone: 16 mm broad and 16 mm tall; next zone down: 16 mm tall. Maker's guide-mark evident above the first leaf. Length of scepter: 166 mm from the bottom cut to top of the pendant; 160 mm [16 x 10] from bottom cut to top of first petal. (6) Ornamental carving (marble?), Shang, 12th-11th century (48.23). Eyeball center to eyeball-center: 22.7 mm; eye-ball center to bottom of field: 16 mm. Hom: 16 mm top to bottom. Whole field of relief mask: 47 mm long [almost 3x 16], 32 mm wide [16 x 2]. On some items, such as the black jade cong (17.95) the measurements might be less regular, but we came away convinced that the 16 mm and 23 mm units were real to the craftsmen of the Liangzhu, Hongshan, and Shang. I expect that Robert Poor, whose latest contribution, "The Circle and the Square: Measure and Ritual in Ancient China," will appear in Monumenta Serica 1995, will eventually comment further on our findings. References An Zhimin. 1988. "Archaeological research on Neolithic China." 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