A process to make paper from vegetable fibre had first been invented by Cailun in China during the Han dynasty in 105. The first paper mill outside of China would be established by Arabs in Samarkand six and a half centuries later in 751. The growing forces of Muslim, in 751, after having conquered Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Persia and much of Byzantium, would decisively defeat the Tang army at the famous Battle of Talas, between modern-day Tashkent and Lake Balkhash, with help from a branch of Muslim Tujue (Turkic) tribes known as Karluks, who would launch a surprised attack on Tang forces from the rear. Chinese refer to Arabs as Dashi, from the Syrian word Tayi or the Persian word T'cyk for Arabs. Chinese prisoners captured by Arab forces at the Battle of Talas in 751 would eventually introduce the art of paper-making to Arabic lands and subsequently to Europe, but only after Arabic paper makers, jealously guarding the secret from Europeans for five more centuries, selling paper to Europe at handsome profits in the interim.
The ancient Chinese apparently employed metal sround the time of Xia dynasty (2100-1600 B.C.), long before the Bronze Age which began in China around the 12th century B.C. The Bronze Age reaches its height around the prodigious Shang (1600-1027 B.C.) and Zhou (1027-256 B.C.) dynasties, and lasted until fifth century B.C., about the time of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) when the Iron Age begins. The term: Bronze Age, would be first introduced by Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (1788-1865), curator of National Museum of Denmark, as the second of three ages representing new classification periods of the archaeological collection in the museum: Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. A small piece of metal of undetermined alloy content would be unearthed in 1954 at Banpo, site of Yangshao culture, a eponymous site in Changan, modern-day Xian, Shaanxi province. The specimen would be scientifically dated by carbon-14 analysis to about 5000 B.C., the first phase of the Neolithic Age (latest period of the Stone Age). Generally, Yangshao culture, considered by archaeologists as the height of the age of matriarchy, has been placed between 4515 and 2460 B.C. The 1954 find would challenge Confucian historians on their age-old theory of human civilization having been advanced indispensably by male dominance. These male chauvinist scholars have made much of the coincidence of the emergence of a patriarchal culture and the evolution of advanced social institutions beginning around the Bronze Age with the introduction of metal casting. Unearthed evidence of the existence of metal dating back to the age of matriarchy raises doubt on the myth concerning connection between civilization and male dominance. Copper artifacts, including a 12.6-cm-long bronze knife, would be found in 1977 in sites of Majiayao culture in modern-day Gansu province, the first items having been unearthed in 1958, which would share origin with Neolithic Yangshao culture. However, the existence of copper during Yangshao culture would have yet to be clearly established by further archaeological finds. The first significant, sizable evidence of cast-bronze ritual vessels and weapons found at archaeological sites associated with an aristocratic class would also be uncovered in 1954. Erlitou culture (1900 and 1600 B.C.) of Xia dynasty (2100-1600 B.C.) is named after the eponymous village in Yanshi, in modern-day Henan province, in which a rich archaeology site would be selected by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, based on geographical reconstructions of historical references. Estimates based on carbon-14 dating would put Erlitou culture as spanning, in four phases, between 1900 and 1600 B.C. In another eponymous site of Longshan culture (2500-2100 B.C.), the final phase of Neolithic Age, in modern-day Shandong province on the lower reaches of Yellow River (Huanghe), a particularly significant discovery for dating first-uses of bronze in China would be made with unearthing of two bronze awls. They would have a carbon-14 dated age reaching back to 2000 B.C. at the beginning of Erlitou culture. These Erlitou artifacts would fill the gap in archaeological information on the period between Longshan culture and Erligang culture (1600-1400 B.C.). Erligang culture is named from remains uncovered in Erligang at Zhengzhou in the central plains of North China in 1952. The Erlitou site in Yanshi, in modern-day Henan province, would be the first in Chinese history, in so far as established by archaeological finds, to contain a social component with aristocracy characteristics in an urban complex consisting of pounded-earth foundations that once supported buildings of palatial proportions (discovered in 1960), smaller dwellings, workshops (including bronze foundries), as well as burial sites furnished with jades and ornaments with red mercuric cinnabar pigment. Bronze vessels and weapons would be found only at sites of large buildings, providing evidence that they were used only by privileged classes. In contrast, dwellings of members of lower strata of society would contain stone, bone and antler implements and blackish-grey pottery typically linked with Neolithic pottery of Longshan culture. Yangshao culture pottery (4515-2460 B.C.), in the first phase of the Neolithic Age, is generally recognizable by its reddish clay and geometric decorative designs of black and red patterns, while Longshan culture pottery (2500-2100 B.C.), in the final phase of Neolithic Age, is generally of solid black color.
Sacrificial offerings are presented to Heaven (Tian) in ancient bronze vessels (gutongqi) which meticulously conform to shapes deemed ritualistically correct, each specifically named. Each ritual vessel, with specific formal name denoting each particular shape, is designated for a particular ritual function. The ding, the li, the gui, the yu, the dou and the fu are containers for various kinds of food, the jue, the jia and the gu are vessels for speicific wines, the guang is a vessel for mixing wine and the he is for diluting wine with water. The zun, the lei and the hu are for storage of wine and the you is for heating wine. These bronze ritual vessels, cast in classic, perfectly-proportioned forms that result from centuries of meliorative refinement. Each vessel is covered with delicate surface patterns of ornamental design that form an integral unity with its refined shape. Over centuries, these bronze ritual vessels of classic shapes have taken on significance as cultural icons. They have come to command awe and respect as well as to evoke deep emotions from the Chinese consciousness. These bronze ritual vessels are Chinese cultural symbols of man's collective essence within the cosmic whole, in a civilization that acknowledges the existential significance of the individual only in terms of his ritual relationship to community. These bronze vessels, symbolizing a clan's collective achievements, represent the height of Chinese artistic attainment in an era before the invention of paper by Cailun in 105 A.D. Bronze ritual vessels were cast in Shang dynasty (1766-1121 B.C.) and Zhou dynasty (1027-256 B.C.) to record clan merits. Such merits were reported to the spirit of departed ancestors through sacrificial rites. The merits are inscribed in bronze vessels as historical records for posterity. Bronze bells are called tongzongs of simply zongs. Each bell has two tones, one when struck at the rim, the other at the middle. Zongs of graduated sizes yield calibrated pitches tuned at three tonal intervals apart from one another, producing eighteen stepped musical notes with a set of nine zongs.
Historians of technology, notable among whom would be Joseph Needham of Cambridge University, would suggest that Chinese invention of stirrups made possible, among other pivotal historical events, development of the game of polo. Metal stirrups were first cast in China around the third century. The Greek horsemen of Alexander the Great and the cavalrymen of the Roman Legions rode on saddles without stirrups. European knights would not use stirrup until the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the ninth century. Stirrups enable the rider to better control his horse in sharp turns, to stand up above his saddle in fast gallop and to reach further by leaning his upper body without fear of falling off his saddle. One of the earliest surviving Chinese bronze stirrups dating from the sixth century would come to be on permanent display in modern time in Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. Polo as a sport first evolved among Bei Tujue (Northern Turkic) tribes during wild celebrations held after battle victories. Members of the Tujue cavalry would compete by striking from horseback with their spears decapitated heads of enemy chieftains rolling on the ground. Gradually a ball the size of a human scull would be substituted and the sport develops from a free-for-all, drunken brawl on horseback to a refined game of sophisticated horsemanship and teamwork. By the fourth century, the game itself became the focal event of an elaborate ritual of gaiety and music, picnic with roast meats, wine and fruits, and general manly merry-making before admiring female spectators. In time, the game spread to Persia and North India. Modern Polo would be born when British officers in India would adopt the game and introduce it to England in 1869. By the time of the Tang dynasty (618-907), polo has become elegant and stylized in China. Horse breeding has become by now a sport sponsored by the rich and powerful in Tang society. Tang nobles are clearly passionate horse lovers. Warriors and court-ladies alike are frequently represented on horseback both in painting and sculpture, as well as in literature.
The production of crossbow showed the development of manufacruing in China. Crossbows, known as nu, has shorter range than double-curved longbows and are slower in firing. But they have become devastatingly accurate since a grid sight to guide their aim was invented eight centuries ago by Prince Liu Chong of the imperial house of the Han dynasty (B.C. 206-220 A.D.). Crossbows were first used fourteen centuries ago in Spring and Autumn period (Chunqiu 770-481 B.C.) when their employment in the hands of the infantry neutralized the traditional superiority of war chariots. The use of crossbow thus changed the rules of warfare and the balance of power in the political landscape of ancient China, favoring those states with large sheren (commoner) infantry forces over those with powerful chariot-owning militant guizus (aristocrats). The earliest unification of China by the Legalist Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.), whose unifying ruler was an antagonist of fragmented aristocratic feudalism, had not been independent of the geo-political impact of crossbow technology. History records that in 209 B.C., the Second Emperor (Er Shi r. 209-207 B.C.) of the Qin dynasty, son of the unifying Qin Origin Emperor (Qin Shihuangdi r. 246-210 B.C.) who fought twenty-six years of continuous war to unify all under the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.) which subsequently lasted only fourteen years before collapsing, kept a crossbow regiment of 50,000 archers. Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, author of the classic Record of History (Shi Ji), wrote in 108 B.C. that a member of the Han royalty, Prince of Liang Xiao (Liang Xiao Wang), was in charge of an arsenal with several hundred thousand crossbows five decades earlier, in 157 B.C. Two working crossbows from China, dating from the eleventh century, one capable of repeat firing, would come to be in the modern-day collection of the Simon Archery Foundation in Manchester Museum at University of Manchester, England. Most triggers and sights used in crossbow in China had been manufactured by master craftsmen who signed their metal products with inscribed marks and dates. Shen Gua (1031-94), renowned Bei-Song-dynasty (Northern Song 960-1127) scientist cum historian on Chinese science and technology, would refer to his frustration over his inability to accurately date an eleventh-century excavation, upon finding on a crossbow mechanism the inscription: "stock by Yu Shih and bow by Chang Rou", but with no accompanying dates. Even in tenth century B.C., production of crossbows in China had already involved a sophisticated system of separation of manufacturing of parts and mass assembly of final products. Crossbows would be last used in war by in China by the Qing dynasty army in 1900, with tragic inadequacy, against the invading armies of eight allied Europeans powers with modern firearms.
Henry C.K. Liu