--- title: China: the four great inventions — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: the four great inventions», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: This time the teacher agrees completely: all four were first developed in China and spread west over centuries. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: the four great inventions # China: the four great inventions Lesson 53 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/1/) — This time the teacher agrees completely: all four were first developed in China and spread west over centuries. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/2/) — Open your pencil case: paper in your notebook, printed words on the cover, maybe a compass on your ruler. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/3/) — Then think of New Year fireworks. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/4/) — Each of these began in China. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/5/) — But Mei sometimes adds too much: gunpowder was not «only for fireworks», Marco Polo did not bring noodles to Italy, and some things, like the crossbow, were invented in more than one place. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/6/) — China also gave the world porcelain, tea, kites and an early earthquake detector with bronze dragons; a good historian enjoys the true list and checks the extra claims. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/7/) — Paper, printing, the magnetic compass and gunpowder were all first developed in China and spread west; calling them «the four great inventions» became popular in modern times. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/8/) — The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist holy text printed in 868 AD and found in a cave at Dunhuang, is the oldest dated printed book; it is now in the British Library in London. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/9/) — Bi Sheng made clay movable type around 1040 AD, Korea printed the Jikji with metal type in 1377, and Gutenberg's press of about 1450 used metal type, which suited the alphabet. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/10/) — Chinese printers often kept using carved woodblocks, because Chinese needs thousands of different characters. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/11/) — In the Han era Chinese thinkers used magnetic spoons for divination (trying to tell the future), and by the 11th century compasses were used for navigation at sea. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/13/) — Porcelain was perfected in China, especially at Jingdezhen; the word «china» for porcelain comes from the country's name, which probably comes from the Qin. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/14/) — Zhang Heng built a seismoscope in 132 AD: a bronze jar with dragons that dropped a ball into a toad's mouth to show the direction of an earthquake. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/15/) — Early wheelbarrows are recorded in Han China and crossbows by the 5th century BC; ancient Greece had its own early forms of both. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/16/) — Tea drinking began in China and had already spread to many lands by trade; in the 1840s the Briton Robert Fortune secretly took tea plants and know-how from China to India. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/17/) — A 4,000-year-old bowl of millet noodles was found at Lajia in China; Italy already had pasta before Marco Polo, and the story that he brought noodles home comes from a 1929 American magazine. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/18/) — Kites were flown in China at least by the 5th century BC and used for signals; sunshades and umbrellas were also known in ancient Egypt and Assyria. - ← previous: [China: the First Emperor, the Terracotta Army and the Great Wall](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/52-china-the-first-emperor-the-terracotta-army-and-the-great-wall/) - next →: [China: the Silk Road and the Tang](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)