Normally in all types of traditional grain mills the lower bed stone is fixed and the top runner stone turns. A special feature of Tibetan mills (or ‘under-runners’) is the‘resting stone, which is hung as a top stone attached to the ceiling beams of the mill. The lower stone turns as an under-runner beneath the top stone, and for this purpose is fixed onto the wheel shaft.

The drawings were prepared to illustrate an article by Eugen Wehrli printed in the June 2019 TIMS journal no 98 and based on photographs taken in 1989 in the mills just outside the vast Monastery of Labrang, in the Amdo region in Tibet.