About 3,200 years ago, priests of the Shang kings in China scratched questions on turtle shells and the shoulder bones of cattle: "Will it rain?" "Will the harvest be good?" Then they heated the bones until they cracked and read the cracks as answers. These oracle bones hold the oldest Chinese writing we know, and many of their signs are the great-grandparents of Chinese characters used today.
Key idea
Confucius was a teacher. He taught that children should honor their parents, that rulers should be fair and set a good example, and that people should keep learning all their lives. His sayings were collected by his students in a book called the Analects, and his ideas shaped China for more than 2,000 years.
In 221 BC, the king of Qin defeated the other kingdoms and called himself the First Emperor. He made everyone use the same writing, money and weights, and he joined older walls into a long wall in the north. He was buried with an army of about 8,000 life-size clay soldiers, the Terracotta Army, found by farmers digging a well in 1974.
Worked example: Which dynasty?
- The Han ruled from 206 BC to AD 220.
- AD 105 falls inside that time.
Answer: The Han dynasty. (Tradition says an official named Cai Lun improved paper in AD 105.)
Common mistake
Try it at home
- Dip a clean paintbrush in water and paint the Chinese character for "person," 人, on a dry sidewalk or a chalkboard. It looks like a person walking.
- Find something made of silk or paper at home. Both were first made in China.