Influence and Evolution: The Development of the Batten Lug Sail
Timothy Joseph Kane
Thesis: August 2006
Chair: Castro
With its ease of reefing, subtle control, and unmatched ability to generate
thrust effectively in both severe and minimal weather, the Chinese batten lug is
perhaps one of the most sophisticated sails in history. However, its development
remains unclear, as its relatively sudden appearance in the iconographic record
as a mature technology, and its seeming lack of affinity to other Chinese sails,
gives no indication of a regional evolution.
An analysis of the batten lug
suggests that it likely descended from some simpler sail. As it is separated
from the most rudimentary square rig by several key features, the batten lug's
development probably occurred in an incremental, or stepwise, fashion. But, no
intermediate form representing such progression of the batten lug has yet been
discovered in China, or even in the greater Pacific basin. An examination of
iconographic evidence from India and the western reaches of the Roman Empire,
however, suggests that sails bearing battens or possessing lug morphology
existed in these regions prior to the emergence of the batten lug in China. The
question therefore arises whether it is possible that these sails were ancestral
to, or in some way influenced the development of, the more sophisticated Chinese
sail.
In an attempt to answer this question, this thesis considers the
significance of diffusion as a mechanism for the dispersal of ideas, both today
and in antiquity. It also presents a review of the numerous artifacts and
textual accounts that suggest commercial and cultural exchange occurred between
the Roman Empire, India and China during the Imperial and early Medieval
periods. As a result of these evaluations, it seems possible, and even probable,
that the technologies of these regions influenced each other. Considering this
possibility, the likely evolution of the batten lug, and the distribution of
potentially ancestral forms, this thesis concludes that the development of the
batten lug in China may indeed have been influenced or inspired by the sails of
India and the western Roman Empire.