Inventions from Ancient China

1. Ancient Chinese Inventions
World Cultures

2. Sericulture (Silk Production)
• Legend says that around 2700 BCE, the
Empress Hsi Ling Shi had a silkworm
cocoon fall into her hot tea. As she
watched the stands of fiber unravel, she
had a vision of how to harvest and weave
the threads into silk.
• Making Silk

3. Decimal System
• An example of how the Chinese used the
decimal system appears in a transcription
from the 13th century BCE, in which '547
days' is written 'Five hundred plus four
decades plus seven of days'.

4. The Seismograph
• Earthquakes had long plagued China.
Chang Heng, a scientist, mathematician
and inventor designed the first
seismograph around 132 CE, a bronze
vessel with an inverted weighted bob in
the center which would release a small
bronze ball through one of eight grooved
openings when a tremor caused the bob
to sway.

5. Replica of Didong Yi, the world's first
seismograph.

6. Paper
• The invention of paper from hemp fibers
dates to the second century BCE. The
oldest surviving piece of paper was found
in a tomb near Xian and dates from
between the years 140 and 87 BCE.

7. Lacquer ware
• Lacquer dates from the 13th century BCE.
Lacquer is a plastic varnish that has great
powers of preservation, strength and
durability (like plastic). The Chinese
obtained lacquer by tapping lacquer trees
and used it for furniture, screens, coating
cooking utensils and making weapon
accessories.

9. Rockets and multi-staged
rockets
• Invented around 1150 CE when a bamboo stick
was attached to a cluster of fireworks. The stick
was fitted with an arrowhead (sometimes coated
with poison) and a balancing weight and was lit
from a frame shaped like a dragon or other type
of launcher box.
• Multistage rockets were rigged so that the rear
fuses for the second stage of the rocket would
light once the front stage had burnt out.

11. Horse collar or Trace
• By the fourth century BCE, the Chinese
had invented the trace harness. This
harness worked by means of a breast
strap which allowed a horse to exert itself
and bear pressure on the chest bone.
Prior to this invention, horses were made
to wear throat-and-girth harnesses, which
severely choked the animal as it tried to
pull.

13. The Abacus
• By the 14th century the abacus was in
common use. The abacus is a wooden
frame with a horizontal bar that divides the
upper section of the frame from the rest.
Columns of vertical wood rods hold
counting beads. The counting beads are
moved over to represent the units, tens,
hundreds, thousands and so on.

15. What is this?

16. Compass
• The spoon or ladle is of magnetic lodestone, and the
plate is of bronze. The circular center represents
Heaven, and the square plate represents Earth. The
handle of the spoon points south. The spoon is a
symbolic representation of the Great Bear. The plate
bears Chinese characters which denote the eight main
directions of north, northeast, east, southeast, south,
southwest, west, northwest, and symbols from the I
Ching oracle books which were correlated with
directions. Separately marked are the finer gradations of
twenty-four compass points, and along the outermost
edge are the twenty-eight lunar mansions.

17. Wheelbarrow

18. Barbed wire being transported by a traditional Chinese wheelbarrow
near Shanghai in 1938. This type, with the large central wheel, can be
pulled from the front as well as pushed from behind, and can carry
more than two tons-The Genius of China

19. Kites
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23. Video
Chinese Inventions