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Yepp! Never read Guns,Germs&Steel, but premodern China never really had decentralized steelworking. a cursory google shows that the mongolian words for steel an

Yepp! Never read Guns,Germs&Steel, but premodern China never really had decentralized steelworking. a cursory google shows that the mongolian words for steel and iron are similar to the ones in Chinese, my conjecture is that the chinese words are actually loaned from a barbarian culture not the other way round.. (genghis khan probably came from a smithy family btw) Maybe this is why the post roman west has always been quicker to adopt bottom-uppitism instead of elitism. it runs in the families..

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> premodern China never really had decentralized steelworking There was formally a state monopoly on iron that would have made local smithing illegal, but there were not enough state smithies to serve that purpose, so the general assumption is that illegal smithies were common. > genghis khan probably came from a smithy family btw I have not heard of this and it is facially implausible; the Mongols were not a metalworking people.
- gradschoolfail 5y ago
  From wikipedia: “ Paul Pelliot saw that the tradition according to which Genghis was a blacksmith was unfounded though well established by the middle of the 13th century.[27]” It seems at least the concept of blacksmiths was familiar to the Mongols before or around the time they went into china. Thats why I explicitly stated “steelworking” instead of “ironworking”. Although they couldnt do it in large quantities the common European smith could use it to enhance his iron products[1] Whereas even the quality of the steel used by the experts in China (even by the 1600s) is questionable. [2] [1] https://the-orb.arlima.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html https://the-orb.arlima.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_ste... [2] https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa_2_2.html https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa...
  - BadInformatics 5y ago
    Bronson and Pigott were a nice read, but it's unclear where Föll is getting most of his conjecture from because they certainly don't talk about it. Frankly, the whole piece smacks of the same Diamond-esque "they made fireworks, we made guns" trope that has been thoroughly torn apart since. Now to his credit, he does claim ignorance at the top of the page, but that seems to be quickly forgotten given how much hyperbole is spewed later on. [1] is a better lay overview of medieval-era steel-making. And for a great breakdown of forces behind European success in the modern era, see Brett Devereaux's series on EU4 [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5djVkOgu8vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5djVkOgu8vs [2] https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/ https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-e...
    - gradschoolfail 5y ago
      It reads like Foell was mostly citing Wagner, not B or P. Did you read those?
oefrha 5y ago
> a cursory google shows that the mongolian words for steel and iron are similar to the ones in Chinese, my conjecture is that the chinese words are actually loaned from a barbarian culture not the other way round.. (genghis khan probably came from a smithy family btw) Your conjecture about etymology makes no sense as the Chinese character 鐵 for iron dates back at least to small seal script[1] from a cursory search[2], and small seal script predates Genghis Khan by about 1400 years. Bronze metallurgy was in China for even longer,[3] pretty sure that was way before there was any meaningful contact with "barbarians". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script [2] http://xh.5156edu.com/hzyb/a20196b17789c99815d.html http://xh.5156edu.com/hzyb/a20196b17789c99815d.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metallurgy_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metallurgy_in_China Edit: I misread [2]. The character dates back at least to large seal script which is older.
- gradschoolfail 5y ago
  Etymology is almost always speculative but phonetic loans have to be considered separately from typographic history. There are at least 2 different chinese characters for iron, and the one in common use, the one you mention, has a different old chinese pronunciation (from the turko-mongolic word). The radical for the popular version clues one in to the original non barbarian pronunciation. (Maybe it referred to something else.) The radical for the other one means “barbarian” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/銕#Chinese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/銕#Chinese It is not uncommon for chinese characters to be written the same but pronounced differently (and meaning something else) throughout the ages. And for the meaning and pronunciations of different characters to mix or merge Indeed according to historian David Wagner, “ The evidence presented thus far suggests that iron-smelting techniques developed in the West had by the eighth century BC been brought by nomadic peoples of Central Asia all the way to the Pacific coast, and that these techniques diffused to the smiths of the Chinese states by way of various non-Chinese peoples of the northwest, in what is now Xinjiang. ” http://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html http://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html
  - oefrha 5y ago
    Thanks for the link to the paper. 8th century BCE is earlier than long before the earliest meaningful contact between China and Central Asia previously known to me, in the form of the Silk Road. And that's two millennia before the Mongols started having written history!

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> premodern China never really had decentralized steelworking There was formally a state monopoly on iron that would have made local smithing illegal, but there were not enough state smithies to serve that purpose, so the general assumption is that illegal smithies were common. > genghis khan probably came from a smithy family btw I have not heard of this and it is facially implausible; the Mongols were not a metalworking people.

gradschoolfail 5y ago
From wikipedia: “ Paul Pelliot saw that the tradition according to which Genghis was a blacksmith was unfounded though well established by the middle of the 13th century.[27]” It seems at least the concept of blacksmiths was familiar to the Mongols before or around the time they went into china. Thats why I explicitly stated “steelworking” instead of “ironworking”. Although they couldnt do it in large quantities the common European smith could use it to enhance his iron products[1] Whereas even the quality of the steel used by the experts in China (even by the 1600s) is questionable. [2] [1] https://the-orb.arlima.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html https://the-orb.arlima.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_ste... [2] https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa_2_2.html https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa...
- BadInformatics 5y ago
  Bronson and Pigott were a nice read, but it's unclear where Föll is getting most of his conjecture from because they certainly don't talk about it. Frankly, the whole piece smacks of the same Diamond-esque "they made fireworks, we made guns" trope that has been thoroughly torn apart since. Now to his credit, he does claim ignorance at the top of the page, but that seems to be quickly forgotten given how much hyperbole is spewed later on. [1] is a better lay overview of medieval-era steel-making. And for a great breakdown of forces behind European success in the modern era, see Brett Devereaux's series on EU4 [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5djVkOgu8vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5djVkOgu8vs [2] https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/ https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-e...
  - gradschoolfail 5y ago
    It reads like Foell was mostly citing Wagner, not B or P. Did you read those?

oefrha 5y ago

> a cursory google shows that the mongolian words for steel and iron are similar to the ones in Chinese, my conjecture is that the chinese words are actually loaned from a barbarian culture not the other way round.. (genghis khan probably came from a smithy family btw) Your conjecture about etymology makes no sense as the Chinese character 鐵 for iron dates back at least to small seal script[1] from a cursory search[2], and small seal script predates Genghis Khan by about 1400 years. Bronze metallurgy was in China for even longer,[3] pretty sure that was way before there was any meaningful contact with "barbarians". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script [2] http://xh.5156edu.com/hzyb/a20196b17789c99815d.html http://xh.5156edu.com/hzyb/a20196b17789c99815d.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metallurgy_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_metallurgy_in_China Edit: I misread [2]. The character dates back at least to large seal script which is older.

gradschoolfail 5y ago
Etymology is almost always speculative but phonetic loans have to be considered separately from typographic history. There are at least 2 different chinese characters for iron, and the one in common use, the one you mention, has a different old chinese pronunciation (from the turko-mongolic word). The radical for the popular version clues one in to the original non barbarian pronunciation. (Maybe it referred to something else.) The radical for the other one means “barbarian” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/銕#Chinese https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/銕#Chinese It is not uncommon for chinese characters to be written the same but pronounced differently (and meaning something else) throughout the ages. And for the meaning and pronunciations of different characters to mix or merge Indeed according to historian David Wagner, “ The evidence presented thus far suggests that iron-smelting techniques developed in the West had by the eighth century BC been brought by nomadic peoples of Central Asia all the way to the Pacific coast, and that these techniques diffused to the smiths of the Chinese states by way of various non-Chinese peoples of the northwest, in what is now Xinjiang. ” http://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html http://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html
- oefrha 5y ago
  Thanks for the link to the paper. 8th century BCE is earlier than long before the earliest meaningful contact between China and Central Asia previously known to me, in the form of the Silk Road. And that's two millennia before the Mongols started having written history!