THE DAILY NEWS

By Gayda and Love

Achievements and Inventions

Social Studies

Ancient China

Ancient Inventions
The ancient Chinese invented many,
many things - things we still use today.
Their inventions include the wheel, paper,
silk, matches, gunpowder, porcelain,
laquer ware, fireworks, medicines, kites,
tea, the umbrella, jump ropes, tangrams,
dominoes, musical instruments, ink, the
crossbow, decimals, the compass,
tangrams, folding screens, and my
personal favorite - ice cream! What the
ancient Chinese did not do was make
many advances in labor saving devices.
There were so many people in ancient
China that they had no need of labor
saving devices. They had lots of labor. So,
there was no need for the development of
factories. Instead, the ancient Chinese
people concentrated on making
handmade individual items.

Silk - Silk was a soft

and light material
much desired by the
wealthy throughout
the world. It became
such a valuable
export that the trade
route running from
Europe to China
became known as
the Silk Road. The
Chinese learned
how to make silk
from the cocoons of
silkworms. They
managed to keep
the process for
making silk a secret
for hundreds of
years.
Paper- Paper was
invented by the
Chinese as well as
many interesting
uses for paper like
paper money and
playing cards. The
first paper was
invented in the 2nd
century BC and the
manufacture later
perfected around
105 AD.
Printing - Wood
block printing was
invented in AD 868
and then moveable
type around 200

years later. This was

actually hundreds of
years before the
invention of the
printing press by
Gutenberg in
Europe.
The Compass - The
Chinese invented
the magnetic
compass to help
determine the
correct direction.
They used this in city
planning at first, but
it became very
important to map
makers and for the
navigation of ships.
Gunpowder Gunpowder was
invented in the 9th
century by chemists
trying to find the
Elixir of Immortality.
Not long after,
engineers figured
out how to use
gunpowder for
military uses such as
bombs, guns, mines,
and even rockets.
They also invented
fireworks and made
great beautiful
displays of fireworks
for celebrations.

Ancient China
By Gayda and Love

NEWS
Social Studies

The Creation of
Paper
Although our word paper comes
from the word papyrus, a reed
from Egypt, split, then pressed
together to use as a writing
surface, paper was made by a
process the Chinese used from
at least the period of the
Western Han Dynasty.
It is thought paper manufacture
began when rags in water were
pounded and then their wadded
fibers stretched out on a mat.
There they dried, producing a
thin surface. The Chinese used a
variety of vegetable fibers,
including hemp, jute, flax, ramie,
rattan and bark from the
mulberry tree, grasses and
cotton fibers.

Paper is a thin material produced by pressing

together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp
derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying
them into flexible sheets. Paper is a versatile
material with many uses. Whilst the most
common is for writing and printing upon, it is
also widely used as a packaging material, in
many cleaning products, in a number of
industrial and construction processes, and even
as a food ingredient particularly in Asian
cultures. Paper, and the pulp papermaking
process, was said to be developed in China
during the early 2nd century AD, possibly as
early as the year 105 A.D.,[1] by the Han court
eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest
archaeological fragments of paper derive from
the 2nd century BC in China.[2] The modern
pulp and paper industry is global, with China
leading production and the United States
behind it.

Ancient China
By Gayda and Love

NEWS
Social Studies

The storytellers depicted in the

Beijing Qingming scroll (below) may
have benefited from prompt books
that would help them review the
stories that they told orally to their
audiences.

Movable Type

The Process of
Printing
By the 9th century, Chinese
craftsmen had developed a way to
mass produce books by carving
words and pictures into wooden
blocks, inking them, and then
pressing paper onto the blocks.
Each block consisted of an entire
page of text and illustrations. As in
Europe centuries later, the
introduction of printing in China
dramatically lowered the price of
books, thus aiding the spread of
literacy. Inexpensive books also
gave a boost to the development
of drama and other forms of
popular culture.

In the 11th century movable type

(one piece of type for each
character) was invented. Movable
type was never widely used in
China because whole-block printing
was less expensive, but when
movable type reached Europe in
the 15th century, it revolutionized
the communication of ideas.
Movable type was first created by
Bi Sheng (990-1051), who used
baked clay, which was very fragile.
The Yuan-dynasty official Wang
Zhen is credited with the
introduction of wooden movable
type, a more durable option, around
1297.(1) Cast-metal movable type
began to be used in Korea in the
early 13th century, and the first font
is believed to have been cast there
in the 1230s.

Ancient China
By Gayda and Love

Chinese
Achievements

The Great Wall of China is by far one of

the biggest achievements in Chinese
culture. The primary purpose was always
to protect the Chinese Empire from the
Mongolians and other invaders. Most of
the Great Wall we see today was built in
the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In some
areas, two walls built in two different
dynasties can be seen running side by
side. As early as the Warring States
Periods (476 BC - 221 BC), the ruling
powers began to build walls as a
defense against the northern nomadic
tribes and other potential enemies. The
state of Chu (11th Century BC-223BC)
was the first to build a wall, followed by
the Qi, Yan, Wei, Zhao and Qin.

NEWS
Social Studies

Fun Facts
Gunpowder, paper,
printing, and the
compass are
sometimes called the
Four Great Inventions
of Ancient China.
Kites were first used as
a way for the army to
signal warnings.
Chinese doctors knew
about certain herbs to
help sick people. They
also knew that eating
good foods was
important to being
healthy.
Compasses were often
used to make sure that
homes were built

facing the correct

direction so they would
be in harmony with
nature.
The Grand Canal in
China is the longest
man made canal or
river in the world. It
stretches from Beijing
to Hangzhou.
They invented the
abacus in the 2nd
century BC. This was a
calculator that used
sliding beads to help
compute math
problems quickly.
Paper money was first
developed and used in
China during the Tang
dynasty (7th century).

Ancient China
By Gayda and Love

NEWS
Social Studies

The Creation of
the Compass
A compass is an instrument used
for navigation and orientation that
shows direction relative to the
geographic cardinal directions, or
"points". Usually, a diagram
called a compass rose, which
shows the directions north, south,
east, and west as abbreviated
initials marked on the compass.
When the compass is used, the
rose can be aligned with the
corresponding geographic
directions, so, for example, the
"N" mark on the rose really points
to the north. Frequently, in
addition to the rose or sometimes
instead of it, angle markings in
degrees are shown on the
compass.

North corresponds to zero

degrees, and the angles increase
clockwise, so east is 90 degrees,
south is 180, and west is 270.
These numbers allow the
compass to show azimuths or
bearings, which are commonly
stated in this notation. The
magnetic compass was first
invented as a device for divination
as early as the Chinese Han
Dynasty (since about 206 BC)[
and later adopted for navigation by
the Song Dynasty Chinese during
the 11th century.The use of a
compass is recorded in Western
Europe and in Persia around the
early 13th century.

Ancient China
By Gayda and Love

NEWS
Social Studies

The Creation of
Gunpowder

Works Cited
http://china.mrdonn.org/inventions.html
http://www.ducksters.
com/history/china/inventions_technology.
php
http://science.howstuffworks.com
http://www.cultural-china.
com/chinaWH/features/chinaoverview/
http://www.chinahighlights.
com/greatwall/fact/who-built.htm
http://www.travelchinaguide.
com/china_great_wall/facts/who-built.htm
http://ancienthistory.about.
com/od/writing/qt/033109ChinesePaper.htm
http://asianhistory.about.
com/od/asianinventions/a/InventGunpowder.
htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/tech/printing.
htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing

Few substances in history have had as

profound an effect on human history as
gunpowder... and its discovery was an
accident!
Ancient alchemists in China spent centuries
trying to discover an elixir of life that would
render the user immortal. One important
ingredient in many of the failed elixirs was
saltpeter, also known as potassium nitrate.
During the Tang Dynasty, around 850 A.D.,
an enterprising alchemist (whose name has
been lost to history) mixed 75 parts saltpeter
with 15 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur.
This mixture had no discernable lifelengthening properties, but it did explode with
a flash and a bang when exposed to an open
flame. According to a text from that era,
"smoke and flames result, so that [the
alchemists'] hands and faces have been
burnt, and even the whole house where they
were working burned down."
Many western history books over the years
have stated that the Chinese used this
discovery only for fireworks, but that is not
true. Song Dynasty military forces as early as
904 A.D. used gunpowder devices against
their primary enemy, the Mongols. These
weapons included "flying fire" (fei huo), an
arrow with a burning tube of gunpowder
attached to the shaft. Flying fire arrows were
miniature rockets, which propelled themselves
into enemy ranks and inspired terror among
both men and horses. It must have seemed
like fearsome magic to the first warriors who
were confronted with the power of
gunpowder.