The Trail of Time

About this book

This work is a fascinating compendium of information about a neglected aspect of East Asian culture and of the history of timekeeping. Incense timekeeping devices played important roles in early Chinese and Japanese social and technological history in addition to their use for measuring time. They served in rituals in Buddhist temples, as replacements for community water clocks in times of drought, as regulators of the flow of water to farmers for irrigation in agricultural regions, and in palaces and government offices for establishing time schedules. In China they became a favored feature of the studios of poets and scholars, a practice that continued to recent times, while in Japan they were also adapted for use in geisha houses. . This book will not only appeal to students of Chinese and Japanese history, but will also prove useful to museum curators and particularly to the fast growing body of collectors of these exotic devices in the Western world and in East Asia. Excellent illustrations range from early East Asian forms of timekeeping to a large variety of incense time-measurers, with their intriguing functional designs, and beautifully executed decoration, demonstrating the highest quality of workmanship. The appendices include a catalogue of examples which have appeared in sales rooms in recent years.