The ancient Chinese were innovative and determined. They met their daily needs by creating and innovating some of the most important and long-lasting items in history.
Ancient Chinese inventions date back to the Paleolithic period, and the Chinese were always ahead of their contemporaries when it came to inventing valuable things.
They have given us the four greatest inventions in the world – the compass, gunpowder, paper, and printing, but the list doesn’t stop there.
Here are the top 18 (including two from the medieval period) most famous Chinese inventions:
18. Papermaking (50–121 AD)
Before the invention of paper, people used different materials like wood, stone, and bone to write on. Around 2200 BC, the Egyptians discovered a type of reed called papyrus which could be used to write on by overlapping thin strips that had been soaked in water. The world “paper” was derived from papyrus.
Paper was invented in ancient China around 105 AD during the reign of the Han emperor He Di by Ts’ai Lun (or Chai Lun), an official of the imperial court. However, a recent archeological survey indicates that paper had already been invented 200 years earlier and was used by the ancient Chinese military.
Ts’ai Lun used the bark of the mulberry tree and pounded the fibers into a sheet. Later, he discovered that the quality of the paper could be improved by adding hemp and old fish nets to the pulp. Soon, paper became the new writing material, and it only took a few years before it was widely in use all over China. Later, paper was brought to the rest of the world via the Silk Road.
17. Silk
The invention of silk dates back to the fourth millennium BC during the Neolithic period. Apart from clothing, silk was widely used in a variety of sectors including writing, fishing, and for musical instruments. Silk was dominantly used by emperors and high-class society but later it spread to the rest of the population. During the Han dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), silk became more than just a commodity. It was used as a reward for a worthy Chinese citizen or government official.
Silk became an important part of the Chinese economy. Japan and the Middle East started cultivating silk around 300 AD and the Crusades brought the concept of silk production to Western Europe. This resulted in an economic boom and Chinese silk started to decrease in value and exports. However, China dominates the luxury silk market today.
16. Tea Production (2737 BC)
Tea was discovered in ancient China by the Chinese emperor Shennong in 2737 BC. Shennong liked to drink hot water. One day during a march he and his army stopped to rest and his servant prepared some boiling water for him. A brown leaf fell into the water and the water turned brown. The servant presented it to the emperor, he drank it and found it refreshing.
During the Han dynasty, tea was used as a medicine, and it was used as a drink on social occasions from the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Tea was prepared differently in ancient China than it is today. Tea leaves were processed and compressed into cake form.
The dried teacake known as brick tea was ground in a stone mortar. The powder from the teacake was then boiled in a kettle, or hot water was added to it. It was then served as a hot beverage. White tea (compressed tea) was produced during the Tang dynasty, and it was harvested in the early spring when the tea leaves were still silver needles.
15. Kites
The Chinese were ahead of the rest of the world in producing silk, and they used this silk to make kites, adding a resilient and lightweight bamboo framework to high tensile strength silk. Chinese philosophers Lu Ban and Mozi documented the first kite in ancient China in the fifth century BC.
By 549 AD, paper kites were being used to carry messages for rescue missions. During the medieval period, the Chinese used kites to test the wind, measure distance, and for military communication.
14. The Seed Drill (250 BC)
The Babylonians in ancient Mesopotamia invented single tube drills around 1500 BC, but these never reached Europe or Asia. Chinese farmers generally planted seeds by hand which was time-consuming and ineffective. Most of the seeds never germinated because of pests and the elements. The ancient Chinese found an alternative to this problem.
During the Zhou dynasty, they discovered the seed drill that allowed … However, it wasn’t until the second century BC that they invented a multi-tube iron seed drill that helped them to produce food on a larger scale.
13. Deep Drilling (Second Century BC)
The Chinese developed drilling technology to extract brine from beneath the earth’s surface. It was developed in the landlocked province of Szechuan, around 1,200 miles from the sea, in order to get salt from boreholes.
Deep drilling borehole technology slowly improved, and the ancient Chinese were finally able to extract natural gas from the boreholes. The gas was carried by a bamboo pipe to its destination and then used as fuel.
By the 11th century, the Chinese were able to drill boreholes over 3,000 feet deep. The same technology was used to drill the first petroleum well in California in the 1860s.
12. Porcelain
Porcelain was not a sudden invention, and an ancient form of porcelain existed during the Shang dynasty (1600 BC–1046 BC). It was perfected during the Tang dynasty and was exported to the Middle East.
During the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), the manufacture of porcelain became highly organized and reached new heights. By the time of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD) porcelain was being exported to Europe, Africa, and Asia via the Silk Road.
11. The Compass
The Chinese considered south their cardinal direction, and the original compass was created by the Chinese using a lodestone to point south. This was called the south pointer. A lodestone is a type of mineral magnetite that aligns itself with the earth’s magnetic field.
The ancient Chinese discovered that a suspended lodestone could turn freely and would point towards the magnetic poles. During the Han dynasty, it was mainly used for geomancy and fortune telling. In the 11th century, during the Song dynasty, the Chinese figured out that the lodestone, which was primarily being used as a divination tool, could also be used to indicate a direction for travelers.
In the book Shorter Science and Civilization in China, Volume 3 written by Joseph Needham, it is stated that the Chinese began to use the compass for navigation between the 9th and the 11th centuries.
10. Noodles
An archeological survey in 2002 at the Lajia site of the Qijia culture discovered some ancient noodles made of grains from millet grass. The 50cm-long yellow strands of noodles are predicted to be 4,000 years old.
Prior to this period, the earliest noodles were thought to have been eaten during the Han dynasty. There was a huge controversy over whether the Arabs, the Italians, or the Chinese first invented them.
9. Alcoholic Beverages
The consumption of beer began in ancient China around 9,000 years ago during the Neolithic period. They used rice, hawthorn, honey, and grapes to make the beer.
The four to five percent alcoholic beer was made popular by Yi Di and Du Kang of the Xia dynasty. Various bronze vessels preserved from the Shang dynasty indicate that they had once contained alcohol.
8. Iron and Steel Smelting
During the Paleolithic period, the Chinese used arrowheads made of stone for fishing and hunting. During the Neolithic period, conflicts began to arise among different groups and the Chinese started to modify their farming and fishing tools into deadly weapons. During the Shang and Zhou periods, bronze smelting was perfected to create different weapons as well as tools for farming.
An Iron Age began in ancient China during the Zhou dynasty (1050 BC–256 BC) and iron was used to create weapons, farming tools, and household products. During the Han dynasty private iron making was abolished, and the state began to monopolize the iron smelting industry.