Makers › Inventor
Ding Huan
Western Han craftsman of Chang'an who, according to the Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital, made a self-levelling censer for bedding and a seven-wheel fan
In a workshop, a craftsman at a wooden vat lifts a bamboo-framed sheet from the pulp beside stacks of white paper and a tub of pulp, while others hang sheets to dry and work at a long table of carved printing blocks, and a water wheel turns outside the window.
Also known as Changan Qiaojiang
- Roles
- Inventor
Ding Huan was a craftsman in Western Han Chang'an known only from the Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital (Xijing zaji); the official histories do not mention him. The book says he made an ever-full lamp decorated with seven dragons, five phoenixes and lotus motifs. He also made a censer for use among bedclothes, a device said to go back to a man named Fang Feng and long forgotten until Ding rebuilt it: the burner hung inside a set of pivoting rings so that it stayed level however it was turned. His nine-tier Boshan censer was carved with strange birds and beasts that moved of their own accord, and his seven-wheel fan linked seven wheels each ten feet across, so that one man turning it chilled a whole hall. The book is traditionally ascribed to Liu Xin and edited by Ge Hong, but its date is disputed and its stories cannot all be trusted.
Life and times
- UnknownBorn
HanWestern Han - UnknownDied