The origin and development of folk paper-cutting tools
“If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools.” So here I first want to talk about the tools for paper cutting. Marx said that the change and development of production always start from the change and development of productive forces, first of all, from the change and development of production tools.
In the early days of primitive society, the tools people used were very simple stone tools. As peoples understanding of the natural world continued to deepen, and the application technology of some materials in nature continued to improve, pottery and metal smelting technology appeared successively. Before talking about paper-cutting tools, I would like to first talk about the development of metal smelting technology in China, which is the material for making paper-cutting tools. As we all know, metals mainly exist in the form of ores in nature, among which iron ore is one of the main components of the earths crust. Iron is widely distributed in nature, but the discovery and utilization of iron by humans is much slower than gold and Copper is later. What is the reason? First of all, it is because natural pure iron is almost impossible to find on the earth, and it is not as easy to find as natural gold and natural copper. Moreover, iron is easy to oxidize and rust. Only iron mixed with nickel can be durable and rust-free, but natural iron containing nickel is extremely rare.
Because it is difficult to find natural iron on the earth, the earliest iron discovered by humans was meteorites falling from the sky. Meteorites are a mixture of iron, nickel, chromium and other metals. The percentage of iron contained in them is very high. The number of meteorites falling from the sky is very small. Therefore, when meteorites are used to make iron tools, iron must be very precious.
Humanity began to use meteorites to make iron tools very early, but due to the scarcity of meteorite sources, iron became a rare precious metal in ancient times. Of course, it could not play any role in production, but the use of meteorite iron at this time, after all, It made people get to know iron for the first time.
When iron smelting was invented in the early days, the iron-making furnace was very small and the structure was very simple. The furnace body is generally made of stone and mud and is shaped like a cone. There is a small hole on the side of the lower body of the furnace to feed air. During the smelting, the ore and charcoal were added layer by layer on top of the furnace, a fire was lit, and one or two leather bellows were used to inflate the air from the small holes on the side of the furnace. Go into the stove. Some don’t even use laborBlow the air and let it burn slowly on its own. In this early iron-making furnace, because the furnace was small, the air bag was not big, and the wind blown by human power was not strong enough, so the temperature of the charcoal fire was not high enough, and the reduced (that is, oxygen-depleted) iron was When it sinks to the bottom of the furnace, it cannot keep the molten state (liquid) flowing out of the furnace. Every time iron is smelted, the iron block must be taken out after the furnace has cooled down. The iron nuggets smelted from the furnace in this way are soft, sea brocade-like wrought iron. The furnace temperature of such a small iron-making furnace is generally around 800°C. Engels once pointed out: "Initial iron is often softer than bronze." Only with the advancement of iron smelting can the hardness of iron be increased, making iron far stronger and sharper than bronze. The melting point of iron is about 1500 degrees Celsius, while the melting point of bronze is between 800 and 1000 degrees Celsius. Therefore, in ancient times, it was difficult for iron to be melted into a liquid state, and the increase in irons hardness mainly came from the "iron-carbon alloy" formed after the iron was melted. That is to say, liquid iron can only be used after being dissolved into carbon elements. It becomes hard and can form wrought iron (i.e. soft iron), steel, pig iron (i.e. cast iron), etc., depending on the proportion of carbon content.
According to data, Europe did not master this iron-making technology until the 14th century. Of course China is earlier than them. Because among the information collected about scissors, only one was carved from jade and appeared as an ornament. The other five actual scissors were all made of metal. Four of them are made of iron and one is made of lead. Judging from the production time of the scissors, it spans about 1,200 years from the Western Han Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty. But it can be said that the shape of the scissors has not changed. They are all what archaeological experts call cross-crotch scissors. It is impossible to cut gold, silk or paper with these scissors. As I mentioned above, the iron produced by the iron smelting technology at that time could not reach this hardness. So what is the purpose or significance of this kind of scissors designed by the ancients? As we all know, there were no electric lights in ancient times, and the only tools used for lighting were candles (it remains to be seen when candles were invented), soybean oil lamps, lard lamps, etc. During the burning process of combustibles, over time, some granular carbon scale will be formed on the lamp wick and adhere to the lamp wick. At this time, the flame will jump and "flare" due to the carbon scale. Because my hometown is located in a remote area, electricity was not connected until 1976. When I was a child, my mother often did some needlework at night (because she had to work in the production team during the day). Whenever the oil lamp "gleamed", she would pick up the paper cutting to cut off the carbon scale on the wick. We also had I gave it a nice name called "Jian Denghua".
In addition, most of the tombs unearthed with scissors are from womens tombs. Based on this analysis, it is believed that the scissors invented in ancient China were probably a special tool for women - used to cut lanterns and flowers. In fact, scissors specially used for cutting lanterns are also available abroad. In the "Zhengda Variety Show" column of CCTV①,In the program "Guess It", we introduced a pair of scissors specially used by the Egyptian royal family to cut lanterns. The design is very beautiful, and the surface of the scissors is also covered with gold.
Since from the information currently available, it is impossible for ancient Chinese "paper-cut" works to be cut with scissors, then how were they made? There is only one answer: that is, they were carved with a carving knife.
As we all know, in the Stone Age, our ancestors used the hammering method to make stone knives for cutting. Later, they also made ground stone knives, bone knives, etc. After the invention of metallurgical technology, people made Among metal tools, knives have the largest number and types, and their quality is the best when compared with other utensils. With the continuous refinement of social division of labor, the degree of specialization of cutting tools is becoming more and more detailed. This can be supported by evidence from archaeological excavations.
I have been collecting information in this area since 2003, but from now on
