The 5 Surprising Chinese Inventions

China’s long history has seen lots of important inventions. The most famous ancient inventions are “China’s Four Great Ancient Inventions” –  gunpowder, paper making, printing and the compass. However, here I have collected some ancient Chinese inventions that you may never heard about.

1. Ice Cream

Ice cream was first created more than 3,000 years ago in ancient China, when well-off Chinese families treated their guests with sweet juices mixed with snow or ice. It was brought to Europe by Marco Polo and since then swept the world.

2. Dominoes

Tile games have been found in China as early as 1120 CE. The evidence shows that the pieces of dominoes truly originated from China and were actually created by Keung T’ ai Kung. It then made their way to Italy in the 18th century, and today it continues to grow in popularity around the world.

3. Toilet Paper

The first use of toilet paper in human history dates back to the 6th century AD in China. In 589 AD the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote about the use of toilet paper. This eventually spread throughout China. By the 14th century an annual manufacturing amounted to ten million packages of toilet paper in the Zhejiang province alone.

4. Matches

The first use of matches was in 577AD in a town in northern China, where women used sticks covered with a mixture of chemicals to start fires for daily cooking.

 5. Mechanical Clock

The first clock in the world was created by Yi Xing from China’s Tang Dynasty (618－907). The clock runs with water regularly dripping on a wheel and a revolution is completed every 24 hours. Later, Su Song of the Song Dynasty (960－1279), created a sophisticated clock, which is the ancestor of modern clock.