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Ancient China

Explore the history of written language in ancient China, from the earliest writings on animal bones to the development of over 9,000 characters. Discover how paper-making and mass printing revolutionized communication and education.

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Ancient China

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  1. Ancient China By: Mark Phares

  2. History of Written Language • The earliest Chinese writing was found near the Yellow River around 1300 BCE. • 2000 years later than the earliest writing found in Mesopotamia and 1000 years later than the earliest writing in Ancient Egypt. • The earliest writings were found on the bones of animals. The Chinese would consult Shamans before a harvest or a trip. All the writings were written for the purpose of divination. • Ancient Chinese writing is differs from Western cultures because rather than pair down there alphabet, they expanded it. • By 100 BCE, when paper was first used, the alphabet had over 9,000 characters.

  3. The Terracotta Army A collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

  4. The Beginnings of Paper • In 105 AD, under the Han Dynasty emperor Ho-Ti, a government official in China named Ts'aiLun was the first to start a paper-making industry. • The Chinese tendency toward bureaucracy drove the need for paper. Paperwork was needed to keep track of treaties, preserve prayers, and to archive communications between states. • Ts'aiLun 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. He may have based his idea on bark cloth, which was very common in China and also made from mulberry bark. • With paper available, Buddhist monks in China began to work on ways of mass-producing prayers. By 650 AD they were block-printing prayers.

  5. Confucius: 551 BC – 479 BC Believed that education should not just be an exclusive privilege for the wealthy and established a school for commoners.

  6. Food For Thought • Did mass printing allow Ancient China to experience a “Renaissance” of their own 2,000 years before Western cultures would?

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