Permanent Exhibition of Nanke Archaeological Artifacts - Installation Art "Stone Roller" (南科考古文物常設展-裝置藝術「石硨」)

The stone roller (石硨), also known as a sugarcane car, was an early Taiwanese sugarcane press. It used two gear-shaped granite stones pulled by cattle. Sugarcane was inserted between the two stones, which interlocked and rotated to squeeze out the juice. The juice flowed into a base tray, and the bagasse was pressed two or three more times to extract all the juice. A bamboo pipe connected the base tray to the sugar boiling room, where the juice was boiled in boilers. Workers skimmed off the scum. When the syrup became sticky to the touch, lime was added for purification, and it was then poured into barrels to cool. During cooling, workers stirred with wooden sticks to ensure uniformity. The resulting crystals are raw sugar grains, also known as brown sugar. Once packed into wooden boxes or bamboo baskets, the process was complete.