Chinese: recording Hours and Earthquakes

Wang Ching, a philosopher who lives in the 1st century AD, showed that the movements of the stars and the moon and eclipses, were predictable and could not have a magical effect on people’s lives.

Other scholars were at work on mathematics. Zhang Heng calculated a value for pi – the ration of the circle’s circumference to its diameter – which matches closely the figure used today.

In the land where earthquakes were a constant treat, he also made the world’s first seismograph to detect and record them.

At about the same time, the Chinese invented a water clock, and made accurate sundials marked off into 100 equals unit.

They calculated correctly the phases of the moon and the length of the solar year, and had system for writing decimal numbers.

Not all Han ideas were quite so scientific and most people shared the traditional belief in the forces of Yin and Yang.

Yin is weak, passive, female and dark, where Yang is strong, active male and bright. One could exist without the other, and all things are in constant state of flux between the two.

The moon is yin, the sun yang; day becomes night but night will place to day. The forces were symbolized by a circle divided into dark and light halves by a curved line, each half containing a spot of the other’s color.

The Han state was run on the principles of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher born about 551 BC.

His code valued an orderly way of life and the advantages of all people knowing their place in the society, but did not cater for spiritual needs. And neither did the native Chinese beliefs – in stern ancestor spirits and nature gods – offer any hope of personal salvation.

So there was a spiritual vacuum and after the 1st century AD the religion of Taoism (or Daoism) moved to fill it.
Chinese: recording Hours and Earthquakes

The Ancient Chinese: Bronze and Silk

Chinese legend says that silk was discovered in about 3000 BC by the wife of the mythical emperor Huang-di. A silkworm cocoon accidentally fell into some boiling water and when emperors took it out, she found that it was made of an enormously long and very delicate thread.

Whatever the truth about its origin, by the time of the Han dynasty the Chinese were weaving silks of a high standard, with many colored abstract designs and patterns of birds, trees and flowers.

The same sort of care was applied to other arts. Craftsmen made multicolor lacquerware bowls covered with intricate floral patterns; they painted on silk, and carved friezes on tombs and ornaments from jade.

Their glazed pottery was a forerunner of the porcelain of later dynasty. As early as the 16th century BC the Chinese had mastered the art of bronze making, and they excelled in making vessels to hold food and wine.

They were made in a variety of forms – some stood in three legs and others were shaped like animals. All were highly decorated and some were inlaid with gold and silver. Later bronze craftsmen made mirrors by giving bronze discs a highly polished surface and plaques decorated with animal figures.

Around the 5th century BC, Chinese metalwork turned their attention to iron. In the Han years iron was so important that for a time its manufacture was a state monopoly, with 48 foundries staffed largely by forced labor.

The Chinese made cast iron 15 centuries before it was possible in the West and even produced steel by combining pieces of iron with different carbon levels. Their success with cast iron came from their knowledge of bronze working, and the invention of a bellows that gave very high furnace temperatures.
The Ancient Chinese: Bronze and Silk