BAM BOO

The Chinese are one of the oldest of civilizations.  It has written records dating to the Shang Dynasty which began about 1600 BC and references to Xia Dynasty beginning in 2000 BC.   (Dynasties are periods when a country is ruled by a particular family.)  Their oldest system of writing dates to the Shang Dynasty.  During the Qin Dynasty (220 to 206 BC) that followed, a standardized system was established.

So, how did these ancient Chinese manage to produce written history that long ago . . . a history that was preserved for us to read?  First, a little more background.  The critical period is the Han Dynasty which, overall, lasted from 200 BC to 220 AD.  During the later part of this period, the first western visitors made it to China . . . people from the Roman Empire arrived.  They brought with them, among other things - tada - paper.

You see, before this the Chinese had been writing on one of their most prolific plants .  Not papyrus, like the ancients of the western world but bamboo.  You know, that succulent plant that the cute little pandas gnaw on all day.

Most of ancient Chinese literature is brushed onto slices of bamboo stem.  Brilliant.  If they needed more than one line of writing, they attached one bamboo strip to another by thread.  The bamboo shoots are used for food.  The stems are hollow and strong enough to be used to make furniture - it is a wood that will last almost forever.  A sample is pictured below.  Now you can see why Chinese originally read from top to bottom in a column instead of left to right as we do and they do today. The symbols can be words, parts of words or ideas.



Nihao!
*o*