China’s contribution to the World – Ancient Inventions - By: Henri Lind

China is known as one of the greatest among the civilizations existed all over the world. In addition ancient Chinese civilization was known to discover revolutionary products and tools. It is officially known that William Harvey was the first to find the human blood circulation system in 1628.But ancient Chinese documents dates back to second century BC mention about the human blood circulation system. These inventions have been a great help to the entire human population. Some of the famous inventions are paper and the gun powder.

Ancient Chinese were excellent farmers. They have done several inventions in the field of the agriculture. These inventions have caused a rapid development in the agriculture and even at the present engineers and the growers take the examples from these inventions when designing farm machinery and the cultivation systems.

Row planting is extremely convenient in the domestic and the commercial cultivations since it facilitate the convenient irrigation, weeding and the fertilizer application. Arrangement of the plants in rows is very helpful at the harvesting stage. Around 240 BC a Chinese intellectual called master Lu wrote about the advantages of the row planting.

Seed drill is an efficient seed sowing machinery that can be used to sow the seeds in uniform depth. The manual sowing of the seed causes a huge wastage of the seeds. It is known that the Chinese farmers used the seed drill second century BC though the equipment was invented in the Europe by the sixteenth century.

Iron mold board plow is famous equipment used by the Chinese in 4th century BC. Plowing is loosening the soil that would facilitate the aeration. These plows were dragged across the cultivating fields with the power of farm animals.

Compass is handy equipment that can be used to identify the directions. The needle of the compass is always turned to the magnetic north. Today compass is equipment that should not be omitted when you are going on a hike or traveling across the sea and they can be seen combined with wrist watches, GPS units and traveling bags. Ancient Chinese made the lodestone compass by observing the attraction between the lodestone spoons and the brass plates.

Ship rudder was initially used in China. The rudders were used in the Chinese ships by the first century AD. The harness of the horse was also first invented by the Chinese. It was clear that Chinese used a yoke that was made out of softer straps. By the 5th century AD the horse harnesses were very common common.
Pottery, dishes and the tea cups, plates and platters made out of porcelain are very common in a tea, or a dinner table which is also a kind of product invented by ancient Chinese. Tao-Yue is a famous person known to involve with the manufacture of porcelain items between 608 and 676 AD. The porcelain manufacture within China, rose to its peak within the period of 960 – 1279 AD.

Paper and the printing are the inventions done by the Chinese and can be considered as the most powerful inventions among all of the above mentioned discoveries. Paper and printing is one of the powerful “weapon” used by the mass media and a very efficient mode of communication. The papers were first invented by Cai Lung in the first century. This was then evolved to printing technique when the first book was printed in the 868 AD with a character containing template cut out of wood. Further the credit of inventing the toilet papers should also go to the Chinese.

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