Editing Zoetrope (section)

==Earlier rotating devices with images==
[[File:1635 John Bate - The Mysteries of Nature and Art p.29.jpg|thumb|Device described in John Bate's ''The Mysteries of Nature and Art'' (1635)]]

An earthenware bowl from [[History of Iranian animation|Iran]], over 5000 years old, could be considered a predecessor of the zoetrope. This bowl is decorated in a series of images portraying a goat jumping toward a tree and eating its leaves.<ref>[https://www.animationmagazine.net/2008/03/oldest-animation-discovered-in-iran/ Oldest Animation Discovered In Iran]. ''Animation Magazine''. March 12, 2008.</ref> Though the images are sequential and seem evenly distributed around the bowl, to have the images appear as an animation the bowl would have to rotate quite fast and steadily while a stroboscopic effect would somehow have to be generated. As such, it remains very uncertain if the artist who created the bowl actually intended to create an animation.

According to a 4th-century Chinese historical text, the 1st-century BC Chinese mechanical engineer and craftsman [[Ding Huan]] created a lamp with a circular band with images of birds and animals that moved "quite naturally" when the heat of the lamp caused the band to rotate. However, it is unclear whether this really created the illusion of motion or whether the account was an interpretation of the spatial movement of the pictures of animals.<ref name="Rojas">{{cite book|last=Rojas|first=Carlos|title=The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8F1pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA5|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-998844-0|page=5}}</ref> Possibly the same device was referred to as "umbrella lamp" and mentioned as "a variety of zoetrope" which "may well have originated in China" by historian of Chinese technology Joseph Needham. It had pictures painted on thin panes of paper or mica on the sides of a light cylindrical canopy bearing vanes at the top. When placed over a lamp it would give an impression of movement of animals or men. Needham mentions several other descriptions of figures moving after the lighting of a candle or lamp, but some of these have a semi-fabulous context or can be compared to heat operated carousel toys.<ref name="NeedhamIV-1">Needham, Joseph (1962). ''Science and Civilization in China'', vol. IV, part 1: ''Physics and Physical Technology''. Cambridge University Press. p. 123–124.</ref> It is possible that all these early Chinese examples were actually the same as, or very similar to, the "trotting horse lamp" [走馬燈] known in China since before 1000 AD. This is a lantern which on the inside has cut-out silhouettes or painted figures attached to a shaft with a paper vane impeller on top, rotated by heated air rising from a lamp. The moving silhouettes are projected on the thin paper sides of the lantern.<ref name="Yongxiang Lu 308–310">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Js_lBAAAQBAJ&q=%22trotting+horse%22+lamp&pg=PA308|title=A History of Chinese Science and Technology, Volume 3|author=Yongxiang Lu|date=October 20, 2014|pages=308–310|publisher=Springer |isbn=9783662441633}}</ref> Some versions added extra motion with jointed heads, feet or hands of figures triggered by a transversely connected iron wire.<ref name="Yongxiang Lu 308–310"/> None of these lamps are known to have featured sequential substitution of images depicting motion and thus don't display animation in the way that the zoetrope does.

[[File:Livingpicturesth00hopw 0052R.jpg|thumb|Four phase animation device as depicted in Hopwood's ''Living Pictures'' (1899)]]
John Bate described a simple device in his 1634 book "The Mysteries of Nature and Art". It consisted of  "a light Card, with severall images set upon it", fastened on the four spokes of a wheel, which was turned around by heat inside a glass or horn cylinder, "ſo that you would think the immages to bee living creatures by their motion".<ref>{{cite book|url=http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/rarebooks_1600-1800/TC160B371654.pdf|year=1654|title=The Mysteries of Nature and Art|last=Bate|first=John|page=29|access-date=October 8, 2016|archive-date=February 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170226215437/https://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/rarebooks_1600-1800/TC160B371654.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> The description seems rather close to a simple four-phase animation device depicted and described in Henry V. Hopwood's 1899 book ''Living Pictures'' (see picture). Hopwood gave no name, date or any additional information for this toy that rotated when blown upon.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/livingpicturesth00hopw#page/34/mode/2up|title=Living Pictures|last=Hopwood|first=Henry V.|year=1899}}</ref> A similar device inside a small zoetrope drum with four slits, was marketed around 1900 by a Parisian company as ''L'Animateur'' (or ''The Animator'').<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dickbalzer.com/Zoetropes.610.0.html|title=Dick Balzer's Website: Zoetropes|first=Richard|last=Balzer|website=www.dickbalzer.com}}</ref> However, Bate's device as it is seen in the accompanying illustration seems not to have actually animated the images, but rather to have moved the images around spatially.