Page 482 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China
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The principle of its construction, similar to that
                                                                       of a ship's compass, was first described  in the west
                                                                       by the  Italian philosopher  and mathematician
                                                                       Hieronymus Cardanus (1501-1576) in De Subtilitate
                                                                       (1550)  but  had been  known in China since the
                                                                                                      4
                                                                       Western Han dynasty (206 BCE - 24 CE).  RW
                                                                       1  Famensi 1988,13, fig. 13, item 12.
                                                                       2  Lu and Han 1985, pis. 26 -  27, 28 - 29.
                                                                       3  Excavated in 1987 (FD5: 081); reported: Shaanxi 19883,16,
                                                                         17  fig.  17.
                                                                       4  Brinker and  Goepper  1981, 341.































































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