Chinese Inventions

Silk

2700 BCE

silk is a fine, strong, soft, lustrous fiber produced by silkworms in making cocoons and collected to make thread and fabric. Silk fabric was invented in Ancient China and played an important role in their culture and economy for thousands of years.

Tea

2700 BCE

Tea is a hot drink made by infusing the dried, crushed leaves of the tea plant in boiling water. By the 8th century C.E., tea had become a hugely popular everyday beverage throughout China. Tea houses had sprung up throughout the country.

Porcelain

950 BCE

Porcelain is a white vitrified translucent ceramic; china. porcelain. Some historians think that the Chinese produced the first porcelain as early as the 1st century C.E. Porcelain is made by combining clay with the minerals quartz and feldspar.

Gunpowder

850 BCE

gunpowder is an explosive consisting of a powdered mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal.

Printing

650 BCE

Printing is the production of books, newspapers, or other printed material. In about the 7th century, the Chinese invented a technique called woodblock printing. The printer first drew characters (symbols) on paper. He then glued the paper to a wooden block.

Chinese history

Period: 300 BCE to 1400

Compass

250 BCE

a compass an instrument containing a magnetized pointer that shows the direction of magnetic north and bearings from it. The most popular style of the first Chinese compass used a lodestone (which automatically points to the south) and a bronze plate. The lodestone was carved into the shape of a spoon.

Paddle Boats

250 BCE

a paddle boat is a boat powered by steam and propelled by paddle wheels. People walked on a treadmill to turn the paddlewheel, which in turn moved through the water, moving the boat forward.

Steel

200 BCE

Steel is a hard, strong, gray or bluish-gray alloy of iron with carbon and usually other elements, used extensively as a structural and fabricating material. The Chinese first made steel, a very useful metal, before 200 B.C.E. Steel is made from iron, but it is less brittle than iron and easier to bend into different shapes.

Paper

105 BCE

material manufactured in thin sheets from the pulp of wood or other fibrous substances, used for writing, drawing, or printing on, or as wrapping material.Ts'ai Lun seems to have made his paper by mixing finely chopped mulberry bark and hemp rags with water, mashing it flat, and then pressing out the water and letting it dry in the sun.