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Applications include ornamental decorations, climate control, cooling system, refreshing air, personal wind-generation (e.g., an electric table fan), ventilation (e.g., an exhaust fan), winnowing (e.g., separating chaff of grain), removing dust (e.g., sucking as in a vacuum cleaner), cuttings, and to provide draft for a fire.
Fan history stretches back thousands of years. Since antiquity, fans have possessed a dual function, one as a status symbol and the other as useful ornament. In the course of their development, fans have been made of a variety of materials and have included decorative artwork. The simplest kinds are leaves or flat objects, waved to produce a cooler atmosphere. These rigid or folding hand-held devices has been used for cooling, air circulation, ceremonial device, and a sartorial accessory throughout the world from ancient times. They are still used.
The earliest known fans are called 'screen fans' or 'fixed leaf fans'. These were manipulated by hand to cool the body, to produced a breeze, and ward off insects. Such early fans usually took the form of palm leaves. Some of the earliest known fans have came from Egyptian tombs. Early Assyria and Egypt employed slaves and servants to manipulate the fan. In Egyptian reliefs, fans were of the rigid type. Tutankhamum's tomb possessed gold fans with ostrich feathers, matching depictions on tomb walls. Long-handled, disk-shaped fans were carried by attendants in ancient times and were associated with regal and religious ceremonies. They had handles or sticks attached to a rigid leaf or to feathers. Plumage of birds were used in fans, such as the Egyptians and Native American Indians, that had both practical and ceremonial uses.
In the ancient AmericasThe Americas (sometimes referred to as America is the area including the land mass located between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, generally divided into North America and South America. The term also usually includes the Caribbean, the islands, the AztecThe word "Aztec" is usually used as a historical term, although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers would consider themselves Aztecs. This article deals with the historical Aztec civilization, not with modern-day Nahuatl speakers. The Aztecs were a Mesoame, MayaThis article is about the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. See Maya people for a discussion of the modern Maya. The Maya are a people of southern Mexico and northern Central America with some 3,000 years of rich history. The Maya were part of the Mesoamer, and South AmericaSouth America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. South America is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It became attached to North America only recently, geologically speaking, win cultures used bird featherA feather is one of the epidermal growths that forms the distinctive outer covering, or plumage on a bird. They are the outstanding character that distinguishes the Class Aves from all others. Animal origins Feathers are the most complicated integumentarys in their fans. This had a religious connotation. In India, the Hindi term for a fan is 'pankha' (a derivative of "a feather" or "a bird's wing"). Pictorial evidence records that the GreekAncient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It refers not only to the territory of the present Greek state, but also to those areas settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Turkey (then knos, the EtruscanThe Etruscan civilization existed in Etruria and the Po valley in the northern part of what is now Italy, prior to the formation of the Roman Republic. The Etruscans were a non- Indo-European people who inhabited northern and central Italy before 800 BC.s, and RomanRoman or Romans has several meanings, primarily related to the Roman citizens but also applicable to typography math and a commune''. Roman The noun Roman means a citizen of Rome. The adjective Roman means pertaining or related to Rome. The name Romans ins used fans as cooling and ceremonial devices. In Greece, linen was stretched over leaf-shaped frames. In Rome, gilded and painted wooden fans were used. Roman ladies throughout the empire used circular fans. Chinese sources link the fan with mythical and historical characters.