Talk:Trip hammer

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Something is missing in this article and that is how a trip hammer works. It must incorporate some kind of trip or trigger or sear? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:184:C501:DEB0:602F:4BDD:F7CF:B105 (talk) 04:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

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I have added some further detail. This is largely historical. While I am certain what I have said is right, I am not wholly certain where some of the information has come from. Peterkingiron 13:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

while i'll accept that this is all largely historical, i'd be interested in a few more details on why. what replaced trip hammers, and what made that replacement better? 68.74.133.59 15:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I recently added Chinese and European history...--PericlesofAthens 03:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I am concerend at the use of Needham (a work now 50 years old and concerned with China) as a source for European technology. While the statements about pictures may well remain correct, I suspect that some of the other contnet may be misleading or even incorrect. I will look into the possibility of revising this. Peterkingiron 22:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frohnauer_Hammer

Blooms

Some one linked blooms in relation to a finery forge to bloomery. This is erroneous. The word bloom refers both to the product of a bloomery (where a mass of iron was made direct form the ore) and the product of a finery in a finery forge. A finery forge does not have a bloomery or work on its products. In the late medieval period, water-powered hammers were used to draw out the blooms made in bloomeries, but these hammer mills were not finery forges. "Hammer mill" should also not be linked because the article with that title is about something else. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Helve hammer

The tail helve hammer is not limited to 50kg, some where built up to a wight of 350kg (7 Zentner) already in late 18th century. (Peter Tunner, Stabeisen und Stahlbereitung 1846 P60.)

The belly helve hammer was not limited to a quarter of a ton. One of about 750kg is still to be found at Olofsfors Bruk in Sweden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Watarinotori (talk • contribs) 08:59, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet

"The nose helve hammer ... was lifted beyond the head. Surviving nosehelves" and the reference "For example at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet" is dubious. The website for the Hamlet only mentions tilt hammers and all the pictures are of tilt hammers. It's about 45 years since I last visited it, but I remember the tilt hammers to the left of the main water wheels and having a guide explain the advantages of a tilt hammer over a lift (nose helve) hammer. I can't recall seeing and lift hammers anywhere. Can someone with a bit more up to date knowledge check this out please. Thanks, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:01, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Roman trip hammers at Dolaucothi and elsewhere

This article quotes from Pliny as if there is scholarly consensus that Pliny was talking about water powered trip hammers rather than simple watermills. The word "mola" is commonly thought to mean millstone or mill, yet Andrew Wilson (who got the idea from Lewis) translated it as "trip hammer".

From the book "Scientists in the Early Roman Empire" by Richard Carrier: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 18.23.93: maior pars Italiae nudo utitur pilo rotis etiam quas aqua verset obiter et mola. Because this passage is obscure and believed to be corrupt, it has been creatively interpreted to mean everything from horizontal watermills to mechanical trip-hammer mills (see Reynolds 1983: 355 n. 51), despite the fact that vertical watermills are far more plausible (e.g. when Pliny wrote there was a vertical watermill in operation just outside Pompeii, not far from where Pliny lived: Reynolds 1983: 36

Alternative Translations from Bennet and Elton: In the greater part of Italy is used a roughened pestle, and wheels also that the water turns round as if flows along; and so they mill.

ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 21:30, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Here is justification for the changes regarding the Carreg Pumsaint stone.

Dolaucothi-Pumsaint: Survey and Excavations at a Roman Goldmining Complex, 1987-1999, pg 328

The case for a water-driven mill in the immediate vicinity, associated with a mortar stone represented by the Carreg Pumsaint (Burnham 1997; see section 4.8.2 above), remains controversial and unproven, despite recent advances in our understanding of the use of water in the Classical era (Lewis 1997; Sim and Ridge, 2002, 132-36). This is unsurprising for a number of reasons:

(i) the prevailing theories on the invention of cam-operated or trip-hammer devices, which generally do not favour a Hellenistic-Roman origin;

(ii) the absence, so far, of clearly-defined parallels in the rest of the Roman world, not least in mining contexts, and the absence of any documentary record in key sources like Pliny who seems otherwise to have been well-versed in the Spanish operations; and

(iii) the absence of any actual excavation or sampling of the mill site itself.

There also remains the possibility that the Carreg Pumsaint has been moved from a site further away - perhaps from higher up the hillside in the Ogofau Pit - which would remove the argument of association while still leaving open the possibility of later mining elsewhere. It is enough to conclude that the argument for a Roman date is based on a series of interlinked probabilities, any of which could unravel and seriously jeopardise the conclusions drawn here; if accepted, however, the result would be a significant addition to our understanding not just of the site itself but of Roman mining in general, not least because of its association with other well-preserved aspects of processing in the immediate vicinity.

ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 15:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Your source, "Scientists in the Early Roman Empire", is, as the title says, concerned with science. The author is clearly out of his depth when talking about ancient technology as those historians of technology and archaeologists I cited. His arguments against the Roman identification of the Dolaucothi-Pumsaint are of a generic type that do little more than offering an exercise of intellectual doubt. He has no archaeological or other hard evidence to back up his view. Hence I do not see why he should be included at all. Another thing is when he cites Reynolds 1983. Reynolds is an expert in the field, albeit of an older date. Therefore Reynolds's conflicting view could be added, but certainly not by removing newer views that have come to a different conclusion. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The quote I shared that actually spoke about the Dolaucothi-Pumsaint stone is NOT from ""Scientists in the Early Roman Empire" as you are saying. You say you want sourcing from archaeologists. OK, the quote I shared that actually spoke about the Dolaucothi-Pumsaint stone was written by an archaeologist (Burnham) and it's called: "Dolaucothi-Pumsaint: Survey and Excavations at a Roman Goldmining Complex". Once again, I did not remove any viewpoints, I only added alternative viewpoints that says that the evidence we have now is not enough to say for sure that these point to Roman trip hammers. What I quoted from "Scientists in the Early Roman Empire" is not talking about "Doclaucothi-Pumsaint", but about quotes from Pliny that has been creatively interpreted to mean all sorts of things (trip hammers amont them), despite the passage being possibly corrupt. Now, I did not remove the viewpoint that came to a different conclusion about the quote, I merely added that it was not the ONLY interpretation. What's as of far speculative should not be treated as fact.ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

ArchimedesTheInventor, are you sure you have cited Burnham and Burnham 2004 faithfully and in full? Because I have now identified three (!) different scholarly sources that refer to this excavation report and interpret it as positive evidence for the existence of a trip-hammer at Dolaucothi:

1. Andrew Wilson (2006): " Reviewed Work: Dolaucothi-Pumsaint: Survey and Excavations at a Roman Gold-Mining Complex 1987-1999", Britannia, Vol. 37, p. 498:

This chapter provides more detailed support for the argument, already advanced by B. Burnham in Britannia 28 (1997), that the Carreg Pumsaint is the anvil stone from a Roman ore-crushing stamp-mill, whose wheelpit lies adjacent to the artificial dump of crushed quartz and slimes... Certainly it looks difficult to fit the Carreg Pumsaint into an early modern context; nor is there any evidence for any medieval operation at the site. A Roman date for the Carreg Pumsaint and associated water-powered ore-crushing activities therefore seems the only likely one. The implications of this are considerable, as Burnham’s 1997 article already emphasised; it shows that by the late first century A.D. the Romans were able to convert continuous rotary motion into reciprocating linear motion to use waterpower to drive ore-stamps. The existence of similar stones at Roman mining sites in north-west Spain suggests that this technology was not confined to Britain.

2. Martin Millett, Louise Revell, Alison Jane Moore (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain, p. 534:

The crushing appears to have made use of water power and trip hammers, and the scale of the Roman gold-working is attested by the discovery that the apparent medieval motte is actually a spoil heap compromising both coarseand fine waste rock (Burnham and Burham 2004).

3. BRUN, Jean-Pierre ; LEGUILLOUX, Martine. Les installations artisanales romaines de Saepinum : Tannerie et moulin hydraulique. Nouvelle édition. Naples : Publications du Centre Jean Bérard, 2014, chapter 9, p. 162:

On a longtemps nié que de telles machines actionnées par un arbre à cames aient été utilisées dans l’Antiquité. Les fouilles de la mine d’or romaine de Dolocauthi, dans le Pays de Galles, ont toutefois montré que la pierre localement connue sous le nom de « Carreg Pumsaint », est une enclume de bocard qui comporte quatre dépressions carrées causées par un martelage répété (Burnham 1997 ; 2004). Des enclumes analogues ont été signalées dans les mines romaines d’Espagne (Bachicón de Fresnedo) et du Portugal (Forno dos Mouros et Tres Minas : Lewis 1997 ; Sánchez-Palencia Ramos 1984-1985 ; Wilson 2002, p. 21-25 ; Domergue 2008, p. 143-145).

Note that two of them (Wilson 2006 and Brun 2014) directly identify the Carreg Pumsaint as a stone anvil, and both point out that these stones can also be found at other Roman mining sites. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:59, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Burnham only states that the Carreg Pumsaint COULD have been used by a trip hammer. Or it may could have not. Burham both showed arguments for the Roman use of the trip hammer, but later on pg 328 he showed the arguments against it. So if your sources talked as if Burnham was 100% for it, then either you aren't showing the full quotation of your source, or your source is misrepresenting Burnham. I already gave the full quote from Burnham showing why nothing can be definitely concluded as of yet, if you can find a quote from Burnham saying otherwise after the page number I've given (pg 328), then you should quote that. Now, on the other hand, when you deleted the passage about Ottoman arquebus in your spat with Qiushufang, you deleted the entire passage on the basis that the author stated that the Ottomans COULD have started using matchlock guns at X date. Even though the wiki article repeats that it was something that COULD have happened, you deleted the entire thing on the basis that the source said it "PROBABLY" could have happened, not definitely happened. So when it came to non-Western inventions, you don't allow mentions of even the possibility, you only allow it into the article when it's a definite fact. Why is it when it comes to the trip hammer you insist on deleting Burnham's statement that the Roman use of the trip hammer is a possibility, not definite proof? Now since you imply I'm lying about Burnham by not citing him "faithfully and in full", I'll add both what's immediately before the section I cited, and what's immediately after the section I cited, from Burnham:

Dolaucothi-Pumsaint: Survey and Excavations at a Roman Goldmining Complex, 1987-1999, pg 328

The presence of in-situ wastes, together with an associated fragment of quernstone (itself one of several known from the immediate vicinity), also raises interesting questions about the spatial aspects of processing. The probability that several different activities were going on in the immediate vicinity can now be postulated. There seems good reason to believe that 'dead material' was being dumped not just inside the mines, but also on the nearby conical spoil heap ('motte'), close to where ore-bearing material was being crushed, washed and possibly roasted, perhaps with the aid of mechanicaly-driven technologies. Materials at various stages of processing, including possible roasting, has been recovered, while the presence of material in the outwash area of the flood-plain indicates just how extensive the whole operation must have been. Though the excavations were limited, there is enough evidence to indicate an organised system managing and limiting the processing aspects. The case for a water-driven mill in the immediate vicinity, associated with a mortar stone represented by the Carreg Pumsaint (Burnham 1997; see section 4.8.2 above), remains controversial and unproven, despite recent advances in our understanding of the use of water in the Classical era (Lewis 1997; Sim and Ridge, 2002, 132-36). This is unsurprising for a number of reasons:

(i) the prevailing theories on the invention of cam-operated or trip-hammer devices, which generally do not favour a Hellenistic-Roman origin;

(ii) the absence, so far, of clearly-defined parallels in the rest of the Roman world, not least in mining contexts, and the absence of any documentary record in key sources like Pliny who seems otherwise to have been well-versed in the Spanish operations; and

(iii) the absence of any actual excavation or sampling of the mill site itself.

There also remains the possibility that the Carreg Pumsaint has been moved from a site further away - perhaps from higher up the hillside in the Ogofau Pit - which would remove the argument of association while still leaving open the possibility of later mining elsewhere. It is enough to conclude that the argument for a Roman date is based on a series of interlinked probabilities, any of which could unravel and seriously jeopardise the conclusions drawn here; if accepted, however, the result would be a significant addition to our understanding not just of the site itself but of Roman mining in general, not least because of its association with other well-preserved aspects of processing in the immediate vicinity. Even allowing for a more pessimistic view, the wastes in themselves represent a significant addition to our knowledge of Dolaucothi. Any opportunity to assess further sequences should be sought in the future. Even more significant, perhaps, but somewhat incidental to the original aims of the 1991-93 research, was the recovery of a pre-existing landscape beneath the processing wastes, which everywhere overlay extensive dumps of material, including the deposits at the base

Now I've quoted what's immediately after and before the quote I gave from Burnham to show that I wasn't misrepresenting him. SO if your sourcing says otherwise about what Burnham said, that's their decision. It's not going to change the fact that Burnham presented not just evidence for the claims, but afterwards counterarguments as well. And this is important, Burnham was presenting counterarguments regarding Roman usage of the trip hammer AFTER he presented the arguments for it. So he's making it very clear that the evidence as of far isn't enough to make a definite conclusion. It appears your sources only foccused on Burnham's arguments for it, but none of his arguments against it. ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 20:48, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

And if that's not good enough for you, here's a video with Burnham talking about the Pumsaint stone itself, at 1:10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8K-V06c7WM

It's a spoil heap made up of waste from the mines, but in the base we found processing waste material which came from the processing of gold bearing ores, perhaps related to the stone, we don't know for certain. But what was interesting was that at the base of the waste we found a small amount of charcoal which we were able to date by scientific methods, and that came out with a date sometime in the late 1st to early 2nd century AD, and that strongly suggests that the wastes here belonged with the Roman activity on this site and perhaps raises the question (pats the Pumsaint stone) if the technology for this stone is Roman as well.

Remember, when authors spoke of non-Western technology using words akin to "Maybe", "Perhaps", "Probably", it wasn't good enough for you and even when the article admits that it's unproven you deleted the theory wholesale anyways, despite the article only presented it as a theory. Yet in this article you're describing controversial interpretations regarding the Pumsaint Stone as if it's definite proof of Roman trip hammers. I edited the article to present them as a theory because Burnham used words such as "controversial" and "perhaps" and "unproven", I'm not deleting it wholesale. You're presenting controversial statements as a fact, however. ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 22:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I deleted these references at the other article because the WP editor quite obviously deliberately cut away half of the quote, thereby completely misrepresenting it. The author he cited actually immediately added that the evidence was "disputable" (and this opinion is in fact shared by most scholars since the Turkish term in question, tüfek, is an ambiguous term that can mean very different weapons in its early usage).

But could we please focus here on the Romans. This is the locus classicus from Burnham 1997, already long referenced in the article (Barry C. Burnham: "Roman Mining at Dolaucothi: The Implications of the 1991-3 Excavations near the Carreg Pumsaint", Britannia, Vol. 28 (1997), pp. 325-336 (333-335)):

Our knowledge of this technology has been considerably helped by the recent publication of a volume specifically devoted to the origins of water power, in which Lewis makes a convincing case for believing that the trip hammer and the cam were both known to the Romans, even if their use may not have been widespread. This is not the place to repeat his arguments in detail, merely to note his suggestion that: (i) both basic types of water mill (horizontal and vertical), mechanical water-lifting in all its forms, and probably the industrial mill (i.e. camoperated) can all be traced back to the mid-third century B.C., to a phase of significant technological advance focused around Alexandria and other centres; (ii) water-powered fulling stocks very probably existed at Antioch in A.D. 73/4; (iii) a water-powered grain pounder is probably recorded in c. A.D. 70 by Pliny; and (iv) the cam-operated ore stamp, powered by water, probably existed by at least the early first century A.D. in Spain and Portugal, and almost certainly by the later first century at Dolaucothi. This latter suggestion, of course, was heavily dependent upon the radiocarbon dates from the 1991-3 site and the support they provided for assigning the Carreg Pumsaint and the associated mill complex to the Roman period.

There would seem to be little doubt now that such blocks functioned as mortar stones or anvils in connection with ore crushing. More importantly, Lewis has made a convincing case for believing that the regularity and spacing of the depressions ought to indicate a mechanically-driven device, most likely involving a set of cam-operated trip hammers much like their medieval and early modern counterparts in the tin industry and elsewhere. In this he is supported by Wahl, who explicitly juxtaposes his illustration of the stone from Forno dos Mouros beside a representation of a dry-stamping mill drawn from Agricola. As yet, however, none of the examples from Spain or Portugal can be convincingly associated with a mill site, though most mines certainly had convenient water sources and associated leat systems, the power of which could easily have been harnessed. Clearly the identification of the remains of such mill structures must remain a matter of high priority in the context of future archaeological research work.

So, he says that trip hammers "almost certainly existed by the later first century at Dolaucothi". What is he rather cautious about is the question whether they were powered by water (and not human- or animal driven). In this respect Wilson has indeed been more optimistic than others. Also note that Burnham too basically agrees that Roman trip hammers existed ("convincing case", "most likely", "supported by Wahl" [the late main excavator of the Roman mine at Tres Minas]). This was in 1997 and it has become the standard view in the meantime because these stones abound at Roman mining sites and their deformations are so regular that they cannot have been produced by hand. Differences of opinion only continue to exist on the identification of individual sites. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

First of all, the editor did NOT leave out the part where the source said it was disputable, and he told you this over and over and over. You ignored it and deleted the entire thing even though the article already said it was disputable. Which is missing the point anyways, because disputable or not, Burnham here also says Roman usage for the trip hammer is disputable but you're not treating it by the same standard you used before.

As for your quote from Burnham, you only gave the passage in which Burnham was quoting from Lewis, in which Lewis stated that trip hammers "almost certainly existed by the later first century at Dolaucothi". That's just Burnham showing Lewis' argument on a point by point basis, just because he showed Lewis' argument/opinion does not mean he agreed with all of them word for word. Plus, what you quoted came came from page 282. As I said, Burnham did give arguments for Roman usage of the trip hammer, and THEN in page 328 he gave arguments against it. I asked you if he ever gave any arguments for Roman usage of the trip hammer post page 328, but so far you only provided something from before that page. So if you cant' do it, then we can conclude that Burnham ended the controversial subject with arguments AGAINST Roman use of the Trip Hammer. If he was so certain the Pumsaint stone was caused by a Roman trip hammer, he wouldn't have ended with what he said in page 328. Even in post 282, I can't help but notice you quoted:

As yet, however, none of the examples from Spain or Portugal can be convincingly associated with a mill site, though most mines certainly had convenient water sources and associated leat systems, the power of which could easily have been harnessed.

That's something I put into the article, but you reverted that part out. Your quote from page 282 of Burnham cannot take away the fact that Burnham ended with the following statements afterwards in page 328:

Though the excavations were limited, there is enough evidence to indicate an organised system managing and limiting the processing aspects. The case for a water-driven mill in the immediate vicinity, associated with a mortar stone represented by the Carreg Pumsaint (Burnham 1997; see section 4.8.2 above), remains controversial and unproven, despite recent advances in our understanding of the use of water in the Classical era (Lewis 1997; Sim and Ridge, 2002, 132-36). This is unsurprising for a number of reasons:

(i) the prevailing theories on the invention of cam-operated or trip-hammer devices, which generally do not favour a Hellenistic-Roman origin;

(ii) the absence, so far, of clearly-defined parallels in the rest of the Roman world, not least in mining contexts, and the absence of any documentary record in key sources like Pliny who seems otherwise to have been well-versed in the Spanish operations; and

(iii) the absence of any actual excavation or sampling of the mill site itself.

There also remains the possibility that the Carreg Pumsaint has been moved from a site further away - perhaps from higher up the hillside in the Ogofau Pit - which would remove the argument of association while still leaving open the possibility of later mining elsewhere.

So until you find something AFTER pg 328 showing him saying otherwise, then it remains controversial at least for Burnham. Remember how in your quote from pg 282 it says the following about Lewis' evidence for the Pumsaint stone? Burnham stated that such evidence presented by Lewis was, and I quote:

heavily dependent upon the radiocarbon dates from the 1991-3 site and the support they provided for assigning the Carreg Pumsaint and the associated mill complex to the Roman period.

Now from page 382 we see Burnham explaining why such dependance could cause a faulty conclusion. As I already stated, Burnham first gave the arguments for and then against the Roman trip hammer usage of Carreg Pumsaint. You quoted Burnham's for argument, which don't take away that he made an 'against' argument afterwards. Also, if Burnham is arguing for a non-water driven trip hammer usage for Carreg Pumsaint then I would like to see him directly saying it, so far every historian I've read seem to automatically assume that the Roman trip hammer would be water driven for some reason.

ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Dude, it does not help clarity that you repost the same quotes in bold. I can read that Burnham is not 100% clear about his identification, swaying a bit back and forth. I agree that this needs to be reflected in the wording in the WP article though not by as much as you may believe since, as been shown, there are many other classical archaeologists who do support the identification of the Carreg Pumsaint as trip hammer. To move forward I suggest the following:

• Rephrase Burnham to the above effect
• Add Fullo as minority view but only in the footnotes because this
• Add Lucas/Rynne, again in the footnotes since Reynolds already provided the answer to their reservations
• Not include Carrier because of this

I am reaching out here for consensus with you. Does that give enough prominence to your sources? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

What I've quoted from Burnham bears repeating considering you quoted things from Burnham that Burnham later counter-argued himself. I already addressed what you stated about Fullo and Burnham and Carrier, but you haven't responded. Now you want to put them as footnotes because of issues you've raised, but you haven't responded to the rebuttal for those issues. You also haven't responded to how the "more recent research" you've mentioned in the article is not more recent at all compared to the sourcing I've provided. As long as you ignore the counterarguments, then how is that reaching out for a consensus? Likewise, you haven't responded to the archaeological evidence for Chinese trip hammers using waterwheels, beyond personal speculation which certainly isn't good enough.:ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 12:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

So apparently it doesn't. Too bad your bazaar mentality. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Are you saying by ignoring these rebuttals, they don't exist?:

Rebuttal on Fullo: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Trip_hammer&diff=949669208&oldid=949669085

Rebuttal on Carrier: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Trip_hammer&diff=949528612&oldid=949519650

Rebuttal on Lucas/Terry Reynolds: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Trip_hammer&diff=949602521&oldid=949594540

You've given a list of reasonings, those reasonings are debunked. You ignore the counterargument and proposed a "consensus", which is a consensus in which the final counterarguments against your case are ignored, which means it's not a consensus Too bad indeed.ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 12:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

We are turning in cycles. It is about the weight that sources have. But maybe these crackpot nationalists come to your aid, after all. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, weight that sources have. says "Age Matters", old sourcing should take second place to new sourcing with additional discoveries that old sourcing didn't have. That's not something you did with Reynold's interpretation of early Chinese water power being waterscoops, when we now have early Chinese pottery showing that it's waterwheels powering trip hammers. Plus you described your sources in the article as "new research" when they are in fact old research compared to those research shared with you. As for the link crackpot nationalists come to your aid, I didn't start that link, I don't even have a reddit account. But if you think you are this "white nationalist historian" that " has been going around Wikipedia articles rearranging chronology of history so that it appears that the subject of the article was invested in the west first" that they are describing, that's no fault of my own. Perhaps your own past actions made you think that, I did nothing to make you think that, as I said I don't even have a reddit account. ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 13:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Dating of sources for the Roman trip hammer

Gun Powder Ma, why did you edit the article as if we reached a consensus? You edited the article to say: "While some scholars have viewed this passage to mean a watermill, recent scholarship argues that mola must refer to water-powered trip hammers which were used for the pounding and hulling of grain". The "recent scholarship" you used to say this are Lewis and Wilson, published in 1997 and 2002 respectively. The source I shared "Scientists in the Early Roman Empire" by Richard Carrier, is published in 2017, it's way more recent. And that more recent scholarship says:

Because this passage is obscure and believed to be corrupt, it has been creatively interpreted to mean everything from horizontal watermills to mechanical trip-hammer mills (see Reynolds 1983: 355 n. 51), despite the fact that vertical watermills are far more plausible (e.g. when Pliny wrote there was a vertical watermill in operation just outside Pompeii, not far from where Pliny lived: Reynolds 1983: 36

Ergo using the four sources we have now, the sentence should be "While some scholars have viewed this passage to mean trip hammers, recent scholarship pointed out that the passage was fragmentary and possibly corrupt, and argues that mola more likely refers to a mill" As for the source from Reynolds, which from the sounds of it is one of those old scholarship who "creatively interprets" the possibly corrupt passage from Pliny, but you used him as if he supports Carrier. You also deleted out how the passage from Pliny was possibly corrupt. Furthermore, the part you added for Roman fulling should also be toned down to a more neutral tone, rather than hinting that it's true when that's not the case: The World of the Fullo: Work, Economy and Society in Roman Italy by Miko Flohr, published by Oxford University Press, 2013, pg 102

It is important to point out that the evidence we have suggests that the first phase of the fulling process in Roman Italy was generally done in a traditional manner. For the Roman period, there is no evidence suggesting the existence of water-powered fulling, even though there is no doubt that Romans made substantial use of water power in several other production processes. The issue has been discussed briefly by Lewis in his book on the origins of water power. While Lewis admits that the evidence is inconclusive, he points to two texts that might suggest mechanized fulling. One is a fragment of Pomponius’ Asina in which is referred to a molam fullonis. The translation of molam is the key: Lewis believes the word might refer to a mechanized fulling mill. Mola commonly is thought to mean millstone or mill, which makes Lewis assume that the term in this specific case refers to a mechanical, water powered trip hammer. However, this may be reading too much into this very fragmentarily preserved text, particularly because it predates all explicit literary attestations of water power by almost a century. Though the passage is puzzling, it cannot be taken to refer to water-powered fulling. The other text discussed by Lewis is the inscription referring to the construction of ‘a fullers’ canal in Antioch in 73-77 CE. Lewis argues that this canal ran parallel to the river Orontes and functioned as a millstream for mechanized fulling mills. His argument, basically, is that the canal would have provided much more water than fullers may have needed for rinsing, so that the only reasonable explanation for the size of the canal would be that it powered one or several fulling mills [Lewis makes an unwarranted assumption about the gradient of the canal that strongly influences its capacity. The Orontes has a gradient of 1:50.000 east of the bridge at Antioch, and a gradient of 1:333 afterwards. Lewis assumes that the canal continued on both sides of the bridge, for 2/3 of its length north of it and for 1/3 south of it. From this he reconstructs an average gradient of 1:1000. Yet it is much more likely that the canal actually was entirely situated east of the bridge and thus had a gradient of 1:50.000 over its entire length]. This is a highly speculative way of reasoning, of course, and while the possibility of true fulling mills at Antioch does not need to be discarded, it is also possible that the water was used simply for rinsing. There is, thus, no convincing evidence for mechanized fulling in the Roman world.

Now so far there's two authors provided which disagrees with Lewis and Wilson's interpretation of corrupted/fragmentary passages of Pliny/Pomponius in regards to Roman trip hammers. These two authors shows their disagreement against historians such as Lewis in their respective books published in 2013 and 2017. Lewis and Wilson published their book in 1997 and 2002. Ergo it's incorrect to use these authors to say that "more recent scholarship" interpreted Pliny's statement as referring to trip hammers, when in fact the scholarship that I've given you which questions this interpretation was published in 2017, 20 years after Lewis and 15 years after Wilson. Now I've provided you another one published in 2013, which also states that Lewis could have stretched Pliny's passage too far. It also states that Pomponius's passage was highly fragmentary and questions Lewis' creative interpretations/assumptions to suggest the existence of Roman fulling mills at such an early date. Secondly, Wilson used Lewis as a source and was basically rephrasing what he said, whereas Carrier and Miko arrived at the same conclusion independently. ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 01:22, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Miko Flohr's argument against the identification of the fragment in Pomponius rests basically only on his notion that water power as such was unknown at Pomponius's time who flourished 100-85 BC ("However, this may be reading too much into this very fragmentarily preserved text, particularly because it predates all explicit literary attestations of water power by almost a century."). However, Flohr is very wrong about that. The oldest reference to a water 'mill has been dated to 70 BC, in Strabon, XII, 3, 30 C 556 (Wikander, Örjan (2000a), "The Water-Mill", in Wikander, Örjan (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 396, ISBN 90-04-11123-9) and water wheels are even decades to centuries older. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:50, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I missed this reply but I will respond to it now. I thought it apparent that "Miko Flohr" was talking about Roman literature describing Roman water power given the beginning sentence of the paragraph already provided above. Strabo's (Strabon's) writing really do predates Pomponius by nearly a century, although it's talking about a mill around Pomponius' time. Either way, Strabo was speaking of a Pontic mill in the palace of Mithradates, not a Roman one. ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 03:38, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not an issue of nationality or ethnicity. The section is widely defined as "Greco-Roman" and Mithridrates was a Hellenized king of a Hellenized kingdom. Modern historiography routinely treats his reign as part of the Hellenistic Age. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:03, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

You are being misleading because Strabo isn't saying that Mithradates had a water powered trip hammer, Hellenized or not. Point is Pomponius's fragmentary statement didn't say anything to confirm that the Romans had a water powered trip hammer.ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 10:03, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

He seems to do this a lot. See History of gunpowder and Talk:History of gunpowder where Gun Powder Ma repeatedly ignores calls to justify his edits. When confronted, he either ignores, continues with his edits, or moves on to attack in another direction.Qiushufang (talk) 06:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

You undid wholesale my edits without any proper explanation. All my additions were well sourced by authorities in the field that wrote widely cited monographs on the subject at hand. If you want to be part of the discussion, engage in discussion here. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 06:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I was preventing, well, what you might call as edit warring. Once you have User:ArchimedesTheInventor, have reached consensus, then proceed to edit. That is what happens on wikipedia yes? As Archimedes has said, w"did you edit the article as if we reached a consensus?" Qiushufang (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Reaching consensus does not mean that my additions to the article are dependent on the grace of ArchimedesTheInventor. I added material that cited three of the foremost scholars in the field, Reynolds, Lewis and Wilson, fully complying to WP:reliable. What is it exactly you object to? I can provide the wording of all sources. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 07:04, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Give me a break. You engage in disruptive editing of articles where you misrepresent sources and then wholesale delete content, such as Agoston. Why should anyone believe you given your history? You report others for "edit warring" yet you yourself won't take your own medicine and "reach consensus" first in talk before continuing. This is the height of hypocrisy.Qiushufang (talk) 07:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Qiushufang. Also, as for the statement Gun Powder Ma made about Terry Reynolds assuming that early Chinese water-power were based on water-levers, this is outdated information.

Wind, Water, Work: Ancient And Medieval Milling Technology By Adam Lucas, 2006, pg 55

The speculation by Terry Reynolds that the earliest water-powered bellows recorded by Needham were powered by tilt-hammers, or water-levers, rather than vertical-wheeled watermills, See Reynolds (1983), p. 26. Colin Rynne, however, has pointed out that water-levers cannot move at the speed required to operate bellows (personal communication, May 2002)

Also, Gun Powder Ma, the issue isn't that you haven't used sources. The issue right now is that you were presented with sourcing dating to 2017 and now 2013, yet you make it sound as if the sources you provided (published in 1997, 2002, and 2002) were "more recent scholarship" and made them take precedence based on these "more recent scholarship". That's built on a false premise as they are NOT "more recent scholarship", and it's also no call to delete information that these old scholarship did not mention at all.ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 02:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Terry Reynolds addressed already the possibility that water levers were unsuitable for operating bellows (pp. 26f.):

Needham has claimed that the water lever has neither the force, rhythmn, nor speed of action requited for operating metallurgical bellows. Although they were probably not as efficient as desired, water levers could conceivably have worked the blowing engines of small furnaces and Needham himself published an illustration of a European water lever from the eighteenth century which was designed to power blowers for furnace and forge.

So while you have only Colin Rynne's theoretical opinion to show for, Reynolds actually provides hard, pictorial evidence that water levers could indeed operate bellows. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I could go on to show that Han dynasty furnaces were not "small" or any other number of reasonings. But instead I think I'll show that contemporary Han dynasty Mingqi pottery do show trip hammers operated by vertical waterwheels and not water-levers, and this article is about the trip hammer: https://www.academia.edu/39332041/The_Hydraulic_Tilt_Hammer_in_Ancient_China_in_English_

I'd say in terms of discussing how the Han dynasty hydraulic trip hammer was powered, I'd say Han dynasty art for their hydraulic trip hammers takes precedence over European 18th century art about a forge furnace ArchimedesTheInventor (talk) 08:03, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I am still sceptical. The disk that is meant to represent the vertical water wheel in the model is at a very different position at the outside of the house than the horizontal bar inside it that the author means to be its powering axle. In any case, I do not object to adding Adam Lucas/Colin Rynne to the article as a counterpoint. They are serious mill researchers (unlike your Richard Carrier who is out of his depth). What I object to is how you have been purposefully ambushing well-sourced contents on the Roman use. Despite disagreements on individual archaeological finds, the scholarly majority view if not consensus is that deformed anvil stones found at numerous Roman mining sites are proof for the use of mechanical trip hammers. I will provide more sources that make this clear. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:03, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't matter that you are still skeptical, wikipedia isn't about whether you are skeptical, it's about whether published sources are skeptical. Nor do I see how the disk at the outside is at a different position than its axis inside the house as you are claiming. Sounds like you are confusing a horizontal door bar with the axis of the wheel, they're two separate things at two separate places. I already showed you Burnham who did NOT consider that the deformed anvil stones of Roman mining sites were definite proof. You criticized my Dolaucauthi source for being from a non-archaeologist, when I told you that he's actually an archaeologist you deleted his statement from the article anyway. Likewise I only used Carrier to show that the text some historians used Pliny's possibly corrupt text to try and prove the existence of Roman powered trip hammers, but the text don't have to mean that. If he's not a "dedicated mill historian", so what? This isn't about excavating Mill sites, this is simply a matter of reading Pliny's text. Even without Carrier, Miko, a dedicated FULLING historian, also says Lewis was trying to read too much into his "evidence". My edits don't delete the old interpretations, it only says that the debate is up in the air, whereas you make the article sound as if there's a scholarly consensus reached by "more recent research" which is not the case. So do you have a valid reason to put into the article that although Pliny's text wasn't identified as pointing to a water powered trip hammer by historians as recent as 2017, "recent scholarship" (published in the 1997 and 2002) says otherwise? That is an entirely misleading statement making it sound as if there's a consensus after 1997-2002 when there's not. Why is that "ambushing well sourced content"? There are more criteria than content being "well-sourced". If the "well-sourced content" is not saying something that had reached an academic consensus, why are you deleting the "well-sourced content" that shows another academic perspective? You've been deleting well-sourced content about non-Western achievements wholesale. Whereas even when I believed old content was proven 100% wrong with more updated "well-sourced content", I agreed for old content to remain as long as the more updated "well-sourced content" was also presented in the article, but you deleted those updated "well-sourced content" or don't allow them to be presented. Lastly, please don't rely on Original Research or your own opinions. (talk) 06:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Hold your breath, red link. There is no axis to be seen in the model. So, yes, there is reason to be sceptical about the WP:reliability of your source. Re Flohr here. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

First you say the axis is in a different position than the vertical wheel, now you say you can't see the axis in the model, so how do you know it's in a different position than the vertical wheel. Which one is it? Also, it doesn't matter if you can't see the axis in the model, is that so surprising because it's way deep in the model where no light gets through? You talk as if the picture shows the axis isn't there, when in fact it's just the lighting prevents you from seeing it. Furthermore, the author says about the model: "The horizontal axis of the water wheel is directly connected to the inside". If you require a picture for everything the author says as proof of reliability, then your own sources for the past few days so far certainly don't match up as many of them don't show any pictures at all for the relevant parts they're saying. Also, please stop calling me "red link", this is your second time calling me that so far. (talk) 03:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

That's because Gun Powder Ma has no intention of engaging in honest discussion about the sources involved. His agenda is to prove that x thing was invented in Europe. When confronted with counterarguments, he disappears only to return with non sequiturs, and attacks you in other ways. He simply ignores that which does not agree with him. When previously notified that his single word quotation as reason for deletion of content in History of gunpowder, and that the original content he deleted had already covered his concern, he repeatedly ignored it and continued to delete content and modify according to his own bias. He reported me for "edit warring" and told me to the talk page to prove myself, but then ignored what I wrote and attacked me over claims I never made. This is essentially his modus operandi.Qiushufang (talk) 07:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Martinet

The link to the martinet article is incorrect. That article is about a device used in corporal punishment, with one sentence saying that "martinet" is also the French word for a type of hammer. This does not help the reader to understand what sort of hammer the martinet is. Having the word, and link, in the sentence does not clarify what sort of "forge hammer" the Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus by Olaus Magnus depicts. If you know what a martinet is, and if you also think it is important to the reader to know this, then please find an illustration (perhaps from Gentibus Septentrionalibus?) that will inform the reader. Nick Beeson (talk) 15:59, 24 February 2021 (UTC)