Ancient Chinese Inventions I have always said our ancient ancestors were not stupid they were at least as smart as we are today and some of them smarter than most of us. Some might think that is easy to say because they have been long gone and there is no way to prove what I said. They would be wrong. Over the course of centuries and millennia they invented objects and devices some of which we are still using today. If they were ignorant as some think, how could they have created things which were so useful we couldn’t replace them with better devices which do the same thing? If we look at some of these ancient inventions, we might realize given the resources they had, it was incredible they were able to invent most of this stuff. Did you ever have to write things down? Perhaps you didn’t realize all those reports you turned in to school were based on a very ancient invention. Paper is an ancient Chinese invention. Much of our society is based on paper. It is used for communication, wrapping, eating off of as in paper plates and cups, just to name a few uses. Some believe paper is one of the most important inventions in the world. It was invented somewhere around 25 to 220 A.D. As people and countries began to realize its importance it began to spread everywhere and the truth is, we couldn’t function without it. Just look in your wallet at the paper bills. Do you enjoy a cup of tea once in a while or more? There is a legend about how the Chinese discovered tea. It is said a Chinese emperor in 2737 B.C. was drinking a cup of hot water when leaves from a Camellia bush fell into his cup. He tried it and enjoyed it and thus tea drinking was born almost 5,000 years ago and still goes on today. War was bad enough with the next invention, but the discovery of gun powder just made it worse. Some think not, because they feel being chopped to ribbons by swords is worse than being shot. I don’t think either method of execution is very nice, to put it mildly. The idea of gun powder was not for war when it was invented, but for things like fireworks to be used in celebrations. The discovery is believed to have been made around the first century A.D. It was a while before the Chinese realized how dangerous this stuff was and it could be used to kill. I imagine there must have been injuries in the beginning from the fire works which made the Chinese realize the potential of their invention if used for war as an explosive or to propel a projectile at people. One of the most important inventions in all of history were books. Where would we have been without them. Books were invented so long ago they were not made of paper but were scrolls and often on papyrus in Egypt. Some consider the ancient clay tablets which were found to be books. I guess if we consider that to be true, we have to start calling a lot of other objects books such as text saved to USB devices and such. To me a book is something with pages which are bound together in some way. The first printed books came from China. China was printing books hundreds of years before the invention of the Gutenberg bible. They used wooden blocks with characters carved into them to print with. Before cell phones with software which make it easy to get your location, people used to use compasses. The compass was invented in China between the 2nd and 1st century B.C. At first a load stone was used which is a magnetic stone. After a while the Chinese realized a magnetized needle would work as well, if not better. The idea was to suspend the loadstone and it would eventually always point to the magnetic pole. It was a while before anyone realized you could use a compass on a ship to chart your course. A piece of pottery was found in China. The pottery was dated at 9,000 years old. What was remarkable about it, was it had traces of alcohol on it. This meant it was the oldest alcohol ever found in the world. Previously, it was thought alcohol had come from the Arabian peninsula. This sample was at least 1,000 years older which meant the Chinese probably invented alcohol. One of the most common place things we have are clocks. While not as popular as they once were due to digital devices displaying the time, they are still quite common. The first mechanical clock is credited to Yi Xing a Buddhist monk who invented it in 725 A.D. It was powered by water. The water would drip down on a wheel. The wheel was calibrated so it would make a complete turn in 24 hours. It was quite ingenus. The discovery of silk was an important one. The material was extremely strong. The proof of this is in the manufacture of parachutes. But it has many other uses. It turned out to be the strongest natural fiber ever found. It is also used in body armor and helmets because spider silk is more elastic than Kevlar. It is said about 4,000 to 3,000 B.C. a silk cocoon was found in a province in China. Someone cut it open and the next is history. China became the place where silk was manufactured. The crossbow is seen in many movies about war in the middle ages in Europe, but the truth is the Chinese invented it. Chinese archaeologists think it was invented about 2,000 B.C. in China. They came to this conclusion because they believe they found crossbow triggers dating back that far. It is said the first crossbow with a bronze trigger dates back to 600 B.C. The Chinese kept perfecting it until they invented one which could fire many arrows one at a time automatically with the pull of the trigger. It was equivalent to today’s semi-automatic rifles. The crossbow didn’t appear in Europe until much later. A stone carving was found in Europe depicting a crossbow which was dated back to around the 4th century B.C. In most places in Europe the crossbow became popular against the advice of Rome in the 11th century A.D. The pope was against it because it was considered too deadly. The Chinese were responsible for many early inventions. It is surprising how we still use some of them today.
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