devoted to a single craft , sometimes taking up an entire area
of a town or city. By the 200s b.c.e. craft speople were settling
outside cities in entire villages devoted to one particular craft.
Craft speople oft en formed guilds that protected their mem-
bers and collected money for public works, as well as setting
the standards of workmanship that craft speople had to meet.
Th e leaders of the guilds usually became the leaders of those
villages that were devoted to one craft.
Indian carpenters employed foresters to fi nd trees to use
as lumber. Before the foresters would cut down any tree, the
carpenters would apologize to the god who lived in the tree
and ask for forgiveness. Carpenters helped construct build-
ings, and they also made furniture, primarily beds. Few Indi-
an homes had much furniture, because people sat on the fl oor
most of the time, but they did have beds. Homes oft en had
small cabinets made of wicker, which were the work of basket
weavers. Basket weavers made bowls and baskets from grass,
fl exible branches, or bamboo. Basket weavers were usually
women, and they oft en worked alone, at home. Sometimes
they worked for a big manufacturer, bringing their fi nished
work to a warehouse to be paid. When women of the three
higher castes had to work for such manufacturers because
they needed to earn money, the master of the warehouse was
forbidden to look at them or speak of anything other than
work, or he would be fi ned.
Blacksmiths made household goods such as water ves-
sels, as well as weapons. It has yet to be established when
Indian blacksmiths learned to make steel, but they made
very durable steel weapons. Whereas blacksmiths pounded
their goods into desired shapes, metal casters used molds.
They were responsible not only for practical goods, such
as plain cups and serving dishes, but also for decorative
bronzes cast with images of gods and goddesses, plants,
and animals.
Garland making was the work of both men and women
who shaped and wove garlands out of fl owers and stems. A
wealthy person had to have a fresh garland every day, so gar-
land makers tended to live near cities, where the rich were
likely to be. Th ey had homes with small plots of land on which
they grew the exotic fl owers they used. It took three years for
a new garden to begin producing fl owers that could be made
into garlands and sold.
In ancient China most of what can be learned about
craft speople comes from archaeological research. Th e prod-
ucts of metalworkers are the best known because of the dura-
bility of metal. Working with copper probably began before
2100 b.c.e. Bronze came into use for toys, burial images, and
vessels in the Yellow River region in the 1600s b.c.e. and was
an important medium for artistic expression at the begin-
ning of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1500–ca. 1045 b.c.e.). Dur-
ing the Shang Dynasty, bronze was used for water vessels, for
grave goods such as decorated bowls to honor ancestors, and
for works of art. Th e Shang typically cast bronze by pouring
molten metal into molds that were cut in halves, so that they
could be separated to be used again. Th is usually left visible
seams on the sides of bronze objects, but by the last century
of the dynasty the Shang became so skilled that the seams
could not be seen.
Ironworking came into prominence in the 500s b.c.e.,
when metalworkers learned how to build kilns that could
heat to 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Iron was more brittle than
bronze, but it was easier to make than bronze, which required
hard-to-fi nd tin. Chinese nobles preferred to use bronze
weapons and shields, leaving iron ones for the peasants in
their armies. But the primary use of iron was for agricultural
instruments such as plows.
Little wooden furniture survives from the Shang Dynas-
ty, but examples survive from the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256
b.c.e.). Peasants could not aff ord furniture. Th e rich owned
wooden chests, tables, and couches decorated with lacquer
paintings. Th e makers of furniture tended to cluster in cit-
ies near where the wealthy buyers of their work lived. Little
is known of their lives, but they probably were independent
workmen, whereas metalworkers oft en worked in large fac-
tories, manufacturing tens of thousands of ordinary objects.
During the second half of the Han Dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220
c.e.) even peasants commonly owned metal objects, such as
cooking pots and frying pans.Bird head made of stone, thought to be from the fi rst millennium
b.c.e., Papua, New Guinea; the image may represent the head of the
cassowary, an ostrichlike bird regarded as a supernaturally power-
ful animal endowed with magic powers. (Copyright the Metropolitan
Museum of Art)
290 crafts: Asia and the Pacific