Kao gong ji : the world's oldest encyclopaedia of technologies / translated and commented by Guan Zengjian, Konrad Herrmann.

"Revised and updated translation from the Chinese edition: [Chinese characters] (ISBN: 978-7-313-12133-2) by Guan Zengjian, © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2014. Published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press."--Title page verso.
""This edition is jointly published with Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press"--Title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-215) and indexes.
English, German and Chinese; commentary in English.

"In Kao Gong Ji: The World's Oldest Encyclopaedia of Technologies, Guan Zengjian and Konrad Herrmann offer an English translation and commentary of the first technological encyclopaedia in China. This work came into being around the 5th century C.E. and contains descriptions of thirty technologies used at the time. Most prominent are bronze casting, the manufacture of carriages and weapons, a metrological standard, the making of musical instruments, and the planning of cities. The technologies, including the manufacturing process and quality assurance, are based on standardization and modularization. In several commentaries, the editors show to which degree the descriptions of Kao Gong Ji correspond to archaeological findings"-- Provided by publisher.

Local access dig.pdf. [Kao Gong Ji.pdf]