Science and technology of the Tang dynasty

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The Tang dynasty (618–907) of ancient China witnessed many advancements in Chinese science and technology, with various developments in woodblock printing, timekeeping, mechanical engineering, medicine, and structural engineering.

Woodblock printing

The Diamond Sutra, printed in 868, is the world's first widely printed book (using woodblock printing).

The popularization of woodblock printing during the Tang dynasty made the written word available to greater audiences. As a result of the much wider distribution and circulation of reading materials, the general populace were for the first time able to purchase affordable copies of texts, which correspondingly led to greater literacy.[1] While the immediate effects of woodblock printing did not create a drastic change in Chinese society, in the long term, the accumulated effects of increased literacy enlarged the talent pool to encompass civilians of broader social-economic circumstances and backgrounds, who would be seen entering the imperial examinations and passing them by the later Song dynasty.[2][3][4] The extent of woodblock printing is attested to by one of the world's oldest surviving printed documents, a miniature Buddhist dharani sutra unearthed at Xi'an in 1974, dating roughly from 650 to 670.[5] A copy of the Diamond Sutra found at Dunhuang is the earliest surviving full-length book printed at regular size, complete with illustrations embedded within the text and dated precisely to 868.[6][7] Among the earliest documents to be printed were Buddhist texts as well as calendars, the latter essential for calculating and marking which days were auspicious and which days were not.[8] The commercial success and profitability of woodblock printing was attested to by one British observer at the end of the nineteenth century, who noted that even before the arrival of western printing methods, the price of books and printed materials in China had already reached an astoundingly low price compared to what could be found in his home country. Of this, he said:

We have an extensive penny literature at home, but the

Chinaman can for even less. A penny Prayer-book, admittedly sold at a loss, cannot compete in mass of matter with many of the books to be bought for a few cash in China. When it is considered, too, that a block has been laboriously cut for each leaf, the cheapness of the result is only accounted for by the wideness of sale.[9]

Although

printing in China until a newer model of printing press from Europe became used in East Asia.[10] However, the decisive breakthrough in China was not the Gutenberg letterpress, but lithography, a nineteenth-century technological marvel almost wholly forgotten in Europe.[11]

Playing cards

Main article: Chinese playing cards
A Chinese printed playing card dated c. 1400 AD, Ming dynasty, found near Turpan, measuring 9.5 by 3.5 cm.

Playing cards may have been invented during the Tang dynasty around the ninth century AD as a result of the usage of woodblock printing technology.[12][13][14][15][16] The first possible reference to card games comes from a ninth-century text known as the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang, written by Tang dynasty writer Su E. It describes Princess Tongchang, daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang, playing the "leaf game" in 868 with members of the clan of Wei Baoheng, the family of the princess' husband.[14][17][18]: 131  The first known book on the "leaf" game was called the Yezi Gexi and allegedly written by a Tang woman. It received commentary by writers of subsequent dynasties.[19] The Song dynasty (960–1279) scholar Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) asserts that the "leaf" game existed at least since the mid-Tang dynasty and associated its invention with the development of printed sheets as a writing medium.[19][14] However, Ouyang also claims that the "leaves" were pages of a book used in a board game played with dice, and that the rules of the game were lost by 1067.[20]

Other games revolving around alcoholic drinking involved using playing cards of a sort from the Tang dynasty onward. However, these cards did not contain suits or numbers. Instead, they were printed with instructions or forfeits for whoever drew them.[20]

The earliest dated instance of a card game involving cards with suits and numerals occurred on 17 July 1294 when two gamblers, Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog, were arrested for playing with zi pai. Authorities impounded nine of their cards along with wood blocks for printing them.[20]

suits: 9 in coins, 9 in strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), 9 in myriads (of coins or of strings), and 11 in tens of myriads (a myriad is 10,000). The two latter suits had Water Margin characters instead of pips on them [18]: 132  with Chinese characters to mark their rank and suit. The suit of coins is in reverse order with 9 of coins being the lowest going up to 1 of coins as the high card.[21]

Clockworks and timekeeping

Technology during the Tang period was built also upon the precedents of the past. The mechanical gear systems of

astronomical observation.[23] Yi Xing's device also had a mechanically timed bell that was struck automatically every year, and a drum that was struck automatically every quarter-hour; essentially, a striking clock.[24] Yi Xing's astronomical clock and water-powered armillary sphere became well known throughout the country, since students attempting to pass the imperial examinations by 730 had to write an essay on the device as an exam requirement.[25] However, the most common type of public and palace timekeeping device was the inflow clepsydra. Its design was improved c. 610 by the Sui-dynasty engineers Geng Xun and Yuwen Kai. The two engineers provided a steelyard balance that allowed seasonal adjustment in the pressure head of the compensating tank and could then control the rate of flow for different lengths of day and night.[26]

Mechanical delights and automatons

There were many other mechanical inventions during the Tang era. This included a 0.91 m (3 ft) tall mechanical wine server of the early eighth century that was in the shape of an artificial mountain, carved out of iron and rested on a lacquered-wooden tortoise frame.[27] This intricate device used a hydraulic pump that siphoned wine out of metal dragon-headed faucets, as well as tilting bowls that were timed to dip wine down, by force of gravity when filled, into an artificial lake that had intricate iron leaves popping up as trays for placing party treats.[27] Furthermore, as the historian Charles Benn describes it:

Wooden statues of tomb guardians; mechanical-driven wooden statues served as cup-bearers, wine-pourers, dancers, and others in this age.[28]

Midway up the southern side of the mountain was a dragon...the beast opened its mouth and spit brew into a goblet seated on a large [iron] lotus leaf beneath. When the cup was 80% full, the dragon ceased spewing ale, and a guest immediately seized the goblet. If he was slow in draining the cup and returning it to the leaf, the door of a pavilion at the top of the mountain opened and a mechanical wine server, dressed in a cap and gown, emerged with a wooden bat in his hand. As soon as the guest returned the goblet, the dragon refilled it, the wine server withdrew, and the doors of the pavilion closed...A pump siphoned the ale that flowed into the ale pool through a hidden hole and returned the brew to the reservoir [holding more than 16 quarts/15 liters of wine] inside the mountain.

— [27]

Although the use of a teasing mechanical puppet in this wine-serving device was certainly ingenious, the use of mechanical puppets in China date back to the

Heron of Alexandria that employed an urn with an inner valve and a lever device similar to the one described above. There are many stories of automatons used in the Tang, including general Yang Wulian's wooden statue of a monk who stretched his hands out to collect contributions; when the amount of coins reached a certain weight, the mechanical figure moved his arms to deposit them in a satchel.[30] This weight-and-lever mechanism was exactly like Heron's penny slot machine.[31] Other devices included one by Wang Ju, whose "wooden otter" could allegedly catch fish; Needham suspects a spring trap of some kind was employed here.[30]

Medicine

A square bronze mirror with a phoenix motif of gold and silver inlaid with lacquer, 8th century

The Chinese of the Tang era were also very interested in the benefits of officially classifying all of the

goiters; thyroid extracts were not used to treat patients with goiter in the West until 1890.[35]

Wu Xian, Gan De and Shi Shen
respectively. The whole set of star maps contained 1,300 stars.

Structural engineering

In the realm of technical Chinese architecture, there were also government standard building codes, outlined in the early Tang book of the Yingshan Ling (National Building Law).[37] Fragments of this book have survived in the Tang Lü (The Tang Code),[38] while the Song architectural manual of the Yingzao Fashi (State Building Standards) in 1103 is the oldest existing technical treatise on Chinese architecture that has survived in full.[37] During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (712–756) there were 34,850 registered craftsmen serving the state, managed by the Agency of Palace Buildings (Jingzuo Jian).[38]

Cartography

In the realm of cartography, there were further advances beyond the map-makers of the Han dynasty. When the Tang cartographer and politician Pei Ju (547–627) was working for the Sui dynasty as a Commercial Commissioner in 605, he created a well-known gridded map with a graduated scale in the tradition of cartographer and politician Pei Xiu (224–271).[39][40] The Tang cartographer Xu Jingzong (592–672) was also known for his map of China drawn in the year 658.[40] In the year 785 the Emperor Dezong had the geographer and cartographer Jia Dan (730–805) complete a map of China and her former colonies in Central Asia.[40] Upon its completion in 801, the map was 9.1 m (30 ft) in length and 10 m (33 ft) in height, mapped out on a grid scale of one inch equaling one hundred li (Chinese unit of measuring distance).[40] A Chinese map of 1137 is similar in complexity to the one made by Jia Dan, carved on a stone stele with a grid scale of 100 li.[41] However, the only type of map that has survived from the Tang period are star charts. Despite this, the earliest extant terrain maps of China come from the ancient State of Qin; maps from the fourth century BC that were excavated in 1986.[42]

Alchemy, gas cylinders, and air conditioning

A rounded ceramic plate with "three colors" (sancai) glaze design, 8th century

The Tang Chinese period employed complex chemical formulas for an array of different purposes, often found through experiments of

fireproof cement for glass and porcelain wares, a waterproof cream applied to silk clothes of underwater divers, a cream designated for polishing bronze mirrors, and many other useful formulas.[43] The vitrified, translucent ceramic known as porcelain was invented in China during the Tang, although many types of glazed ceramics preceded it.[44][45]

Ever since the

bamboo pipelines to stoves where cast iron evaporation pans boiled brine to extract salt.[46] During the Tang dynasty, a gazetteer of Sichuan province stated that at one of these 182 m (600 ft) 'fire wells', men collected natural gas into portable bamboo tubes which could be carried around for dozens of km (mi) and still produce a flame.[47] These were essentially the first gas cylinders; Robert Temple assumes some sort of tap was used for this device.[47]

The inventor and mechanical engineer Ding Huan (

rotary fan for air conditioning, with seven wheels 3 m (10 ft) in diameter and manually powered.[48] In 747, Emperor Xuanzong had a "Cool Hall" built in the imperial palace, which the Tang Yulin (唐語林) describes as having water-powered fan wheels for air conditioning as well as rising jet streams of water from fountains.[49] During the subsequent Song dynasty, written sources mentioned the air conditioning rotary fan as even more widely used.[50]

This Tang yellow-glazed pottery horse includes a carefully sculpted saddle, which is decorated with leather straps and ornamental fastenings featuring eight-petalled flowers and apricot leaves.

Citations

  1. ^ Graff 2002, p. 19.
  2. ^ Ebrey, Walthall & Palais 2006, p. 159.
  3. ^ Fairbank & Goldman 2006, p. 94.
  4. ^ Ebrey 1999, p. 147.
  5. ^ Pan 1997, pp. 979–980.
  6. ^ Temple 1986, p. 112.
  7. ^ Needham 1986d, p. 151.
  8. ^ Ebrey 1999, pp. 124–125.
  9. ^ Barrett 2008, p. 14.
  10. ^ Needham 1986d, p. 227.
  11. ^ Barrett 2008, p. 13.
  12. ^ Needham 1986d, pp. 131–132.
  13. ^
    doi:10.1525/aa.1895.8.1.02a00070
    .
  14. ^
    doi:10.1017/S0041977X00008466
    .
  15. ^ Needham 2004, p. 328 "it is also now rather well-established that dominoes and playing-cards were originally Chinese developments from dice."
  16. ^ Needham 2004, p. 334 "Numbered dice, anciently widespread, were on a related line of development which gave rise to dominoes and playing-cards (+9th-century China)."
  17. ^ Zhou, Songfang (1997). "On the Story of Late Tang Poet Li He". Journal of the Graduates Sun Yat-sen University. 18 (3): 31–35.
  18. ^
    Needham, Joseph and Tsien Tsuen-hsuin. (1985). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Cambridge University Press
    ., reprinted Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.(1986)
  19. ^ a b Needham 2004, p. 132
  20. ^ a b c Parlett, David, "The Chinese "Leaf" Game", March 2015.
  21. ^ Money-suited playing cards at The Mahjong Tile Set
  22. ^ Needham 1986a, p. 319.
  23. ^ Needham 1986b, pp. 473–475.
  24. ^ Needham 1986b, pp. 473–474.
  25. ^ Needham 1986b, p. 475.
  26. ^ Needham 1986b, p. 480.
  27. ^ a b c Benn 2002, p. 144.
  28. ^ Needham 1986b, p. 160.
  29. ^ a b Needham 1986b, p. 158.
  30. ^ a b Needham 1986b, p. 163.
  31. ^ Needham 1986b, p. 163 footnote c.
  32. ^ Benn 2002, p. 235.
  33. ^ Adshead 2004, p. 83.
  34. ^ Temple 1986, pp. 132–133.
  35. ^ Temple 1986, pp. 134–135.
  36. ^ Xi 1981, p. 464.
  37. ^ a b Guo 1998, p. 1.
  38. ^ a b Guo 1998, p. 3.
  39. ^ Needham 1986a, pp. 538–540.
  40. ^ a b c d Needham 1986a, p. 543.
  41. ^ Needham 1986a, p. Plate LXXXI.
  42. ^ Hsu 1993, p. 90.
  43. ^ Needham 1986e, p. 452.
  44. ^ Adshead 2004, p. 80.
  45. ^ Wood 1999, p. 49.
  46. ^ Temple 1986, pp. 78–79.
  47. ^ a b Temple 1986, pp. 79–80.
  48. ^ Needham 1986b, pp. 99, 151, 233.
  49. ^ Needham 1986b, pp. 134, 151.
  50. ^ Needham 1986b, p. 151.

Sources

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