Top Ancient Chinese Inventions and Discoveries

Tea has been so important in China that even the story of silk includes a probably anachronistic cup of it. Legend says silk was discovered when a cocoon fell from a mulberry bush into a cup of imperial tea. This is similar to the legend of the discovery of tea where an emperor (Shen Nung (2737 B.C.)) drank a cup of water into which leaves from an overhanging Camellia bush had fallen.

Tea, no matter what country it comes from, is from the Camellia sinensis plant. It seems to have been a new beverage in the third century A.D., a time when it was still regarded with suspicion, much as the tomato was when it was first brought to Europe.

Today we refer to beverages as tea even though there is no real tea in them. (Purists call them tisanes.) In the early period, there was confusion, too, and the Chinese for tea was sometimes used to refer to other plants, according to Bodde.

_{"Early References to Tea Drinking in China"
Derk Bodde
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Mar., 1942), pp. 74-76.}

The Chinese learned to cultivate the silk worm, reel out its silken thread, and create silk fabric. Not only was the silken fabric useful in heat or cold as clothing, but, as a highly sought-after luxury item, it led to commerce with other peoples and the spread of culture all the way to and from the Roman Empire.

The story of silk comes from legend, but the period in which it was created is what is considered the first historical dynasty in China, the Shang.

Paper was another Han invention. Paper could be made from a sludge made from fabrics, like hemp, or rice. Ts'ai-Lun is credited with the invention, although it is thought to have been created earlier. Ts'ai-Lun gets the credit because he showed it to the Chinese emperor c. A.D. 105. Should paper come before silk? Perhaps, but with the decline in newspapers and print books, as well as the use of email for personal communication, it doesn't seem quite so important as it did, say 20 years ago.

Papermaking - From the Guide to Inventors at About.com

A far cry from the potentially life-saving seismographic invention of the Chinese comes the aesthetically pleasing discovery of porcelain, which was a type of pottery made with kaolin clay. The fortuitous discovery of how to make this type of ceramic material also probably came during the Han Dynasty. The full form of white porcelain came later, probably during the T'ang Dynasty. Today porcelain may be better known as a material used in bathrooms than crockery. It is also used in dentistry as a crown replacement for natural teeth.

The Discovery of Porcelain - From the Pottery Guide at About.com

The Chinese system of acupuncture became one of the healing options available in the west starting in about the 1970s. Very different from the causal concept of western medicine, the needling aspect of acupuncture may stem from as far back as between the 11th and 2nd century B.C., according to Douglas Allchin:

"Points East and West: Acupuncture and Comparative Philosophy of Science
Douglas Allchin
Philosophy of Science
Vol. 63, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers (Sep., 1996), pp. S107-S115.

Acupuncture - From Alternative Medicine at About.com.

Coming from perhaps as early as the Neolithic era, lacquer use, including lacquerware, has been around since the Shang Dynasty. Lacquer produces a hard, protective, insect and water repelling (so it can preserve wood as on boats and repel rain on umbrellas), and decorative surface that can last indefinitely. Created by adding thin layers of the material over each other and onto a core, the resulting lacquerware is lightweight. Cinnabar and iron oxide were commonly used to color the material. The product is the dehydrated resin or sap from the Rhus verniciflua (lacquer tree), harvested by a method similar to mapling.

Source: The Chinese Traditional Art of Lacquer