Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (3.1976/1979)

THE EVOLUTION OF
THE MOULDBOARD PLOUGH
IN CHINA

By
Francesca Bray

The early development of the plough in China
was until recently veiled in obscurity. It was
generally assumed by most eminent scholars
that no form of animal-drawn plough was
known at all in China until the 5th century
B. C., when cast-iron ploughshares first occur
(Amano 1962, 707), and that the mouldboard
was not developed until the 4th century A.D.
(Amano 1962, 758). Yet the intervening pe-
riod and in particular the Han dynasty (206
B.C. - 220 A.D.) provide not only a wealth of
archaeological and philological evidence
(Hayashi 1977, 261 ff), but also a number of
pictures and models depicting square-framed
ploughs (fig. 2), a form commonly associated
with the mouldboard plough rather than the
ard. They also show the adjustable sheath for
regulating the depth of ploughing, still found
in Chinese ploughs today (fig. 1). These pic-
tures alone are enough to show that the Han
plough was a sophisticated form, and on the
basis of this, together with more circumstan-
tial evidence for earlier periods, I have argued
that the plough must have been in use in China
much earlier than the 5th century B.C. (Bray
1978; forthcoming). But although it was
known that Han ploughs had iron shares,
square frames and adjustable sheaths, until
recently no archaeological remains of mould-
boards had been found that antedated the
Sung dynasty (960-1280 A.D.); it was on
literary evidence alone that their existence

could be put as early as the 4th century A.D.
and even then it was assumed that the mould-
board plough had not become common in
China until the T’ang dynasty (618-906 A.D.)
(Amano 1962,767). But the exciting discovery
of several large hoards of cast-iron mould-
boards from the early Han period (Anon.
1966, 19 ff) proves that the mouldboard
plough was a much earlier development in
China than had hitherto been believed, and its
characteristics provide an interesting compar-
ison with the development of the mouldboard
plough in the West.
The fact that at least four different types of
mouldboard have been found at early Han
sites (fig. 3), some symmetrical and some
asymmetrical, indicates that the first simple
■ mouldboard was developed some time before
the Han. The symmetrical Han mouldboard
(fig. 3a-d) threw up a ridge of soil to either side
of the plough, while the asymmetrical forms
turned up a furrow to one side only; in both
cases the shares were symmetrical. The sym-
metrical mouldboards fitted onto a nick in the
centre of the share (fig. 3d), while the upper
part rested, presumably, against the front
edge of the sheath. The asymmetrical mould-
boards required more careful anchoring and
were tied to the sole and the sheath by cords
passed through 3 or 4 iron lugs on their ob-
verse (fig. 3 f). Han mouldboards were slightly
dished, and so designed that they married