A view of the Great Wall at Beijing (Peking) as it was in 1906

The Great Wall of China is a 5,500 mile long  series of fortifications across most of Northern China.  It is recognized today as one of the Great Wonders of the world and a Unesco world heritage site.

The great wall was built by the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the 5th century B.C. to keep northern barbarians from invading China. Over the centuries the wall was extended and strengthened, with much of its current layout and stone walls being built under the Ming Dynasty. Active construction took place, incredibly, until the 17th century.

The great wall today looks very different than when it was originally built. When the first Great Wall was constructed, the fortifications were mainly of packed earth because masonry had not been extensively developed yet. Succeeding emperors rebuilt and improved the wall over the centuries, adding stone ramparts and towers,  finally giving it the current appearance which is familiar from tourist brochures and documentaries today. However the neatly constructed stone wall with its towers and middle section for pedestrians is not representative of the entire wall: the best constructed and best preserved sections of the wall are near Beijing, since that was the most important area that needed protection. Other sections of the wall were never as well constructed relying instead on packed earth ramparts and some sections have fallen down altogether. In many areas bricks have been scavenged for building materials while in other parts sections of the Great Wall have been destroyed to make room for development including road construction. Therefore the Great Wall is no longer an unbroken series of fortifications.

Here are some pictures of the Great Wall as it was in 1906:

Photograph of the Great Wall and a large tower near Peking

The photograph above is of the Great Wall and one its many towers on the edge of Peking. Note how the massive structure dwarfs the horse cart and driver at its base. The wall must have presented an awesome and frightening sight to any barbarian army from the wilds of Mongolia.

The Hata-man Gate

The picture above is of one of the main gates of the Great Wall. Through this gate passed throngs of people and the assorted merchandise and cattle that the imperial city of Peking needed. Ellen Mary Hayes Peck, western traveler to China in 1906 described what she saw:

The usual throng of dealers and of diverse nationalities are represented, resulting in a great deal of bustle and activity, a great deal of noise and dirt. The crowds around some of the gateways included rows of vehicles and sometimes a group of camels; but the most individual of all conveyances is the Peking cart; indeed, I have never seen any inanimate object that wore so individual an air, and when viewed in large numbers, their appearance is most peculiar. This cart is two-wheeled, with a roof, and with sides and back enclosed. One horse is used. In the front opening sits the driver, some one usually at his side, while behind him, far in the back, may be seen the faces of the occupants peering out. Many of the carts used by the ordinary people have no windows or openings on the side; others have windows covered with a kind of netting which admits some air.

A Tower of the Great Wall

In this picture can be seen one of the many hundreds of towers that served as strong points and bastions of the Great Wall. The towers acted as garrisons and defensive positions for the troops guarding the tower. In this picture, taken in 1906 it appears that some of the masonry has fallen down: even the Wall cannot keep out time.

Useful Links About the Great Wall:

• Great Wall Facts – provides a lot of interesting and less well known information about the Great Wall

• The Great Wall: China Against the World

• Great Wall of China — an interesting site written from a Chinese perspective. It debunks several myths including the fact that the wall is actually not a continuous line, and that the wall was never called the Great Wall of China by contemporary Chinese, but that the term was coined by western travelers and then eventually adopted by Chinese nationalists.

Unfortunately, many of discoveries were lost or failed to be perfected mainly due to China experiencing the equivalent of a dark age when it was overrun and occupied by barbarians from the North.

Considering that the Chinese had developed a hot air balloon toy that was an exact though miniature equivalent of the first manned balloon flown in France centuries later,  one can only wonder what the world would have been like if ancient Chinese civilization had been allowed to develop and take advantage of its initial head start.

Below is a partial list of Chinese “firsts” – technologies and devices which were actually invented or discovered in ancient China:

• the Abacus – the abacus was an ancient counting and addition/subtraction device – the forerunner of the modern calculator.
• the calendar
• the wheel barrow
• paper
• kites – in ancient China kites were used both as a toy and for more military purposes. Large kites were used to hoist human observers aloft to observe the enemy positions. Similar kites were used by European armies at the beginning of World War 1.
• relief maps
• halter (for horses and beasts of burden)
• bells
• fireworks
• an early form of the compass
• self igniting matches
• hot air balloons
• parachutes
• the fishing reel
• negative numbers – an amazing mathematical achievement allowing for complex mathematics and physics
• the umbrella
• gunpowder
• mechanical clocks
• flushing toilets
• magic mirrors
• brackets — which allowed for more complex engineering and construction
• silk
• porcelain (hence china)
• an early version of the printing press
• the suspension bridge

As well as many more ….

The Religions of Ancient China

As today,  Ancient China was a diverse land encompassing many different peoples and regions. Within this vast land were many different religions and belief systems,  some such as Confucianism developed locally while others such as Christianity and Buddhism were adopted (in varying degrees) from other lands.

This is a gateway to a book entitled the Religions of Ancient China by Herbert Giles.

• RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA
  

• PREPARER’S NOTE

• RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT CHINA

• CHAPTER I — THE ANCIENT FAITH

• CHAPTER II — CONFUCIANISM

• CHAPTER III — TAOISM

• CHAPTER IV — MATERIALISM

• CHAPTER V — BUDDHISM AND OTHER RELIGIONS

• CHRONOLOGICAL SYLLABUS

A Poor Chinese Family Works a Home Made Coal Mine

Coal mining has always been a dangerous occupation.  Cave ins explosions, and flooding have claimed the lives of thousands of coal miners.

In the modern era there have been many cave ins in which hundreds of miners have been trapped underground. Modern Chinese coal mines do not have a good safety record.

However, as bad as being a coal miner in modern China may be, it must be many times better than life for the coal miner in the early 1900’s, when coal miners had to descend into dark tunnels dug by hand with no electrical lighting.

In old China, many coal mines were essentially backyard affairs worked by several generations of the same families. These crude tunnels provided a livelihood for the family and also no doubt claimed many of its members.

In the picture attached to the post, one can see the primitive coal minining techniques that existed in Yun-Nan region of China around 1911.
Coal was abundant in many parts of Yün-nan, though production is small and methods of mining were very crude. The picture shows the tunnel leading underground.

The History and Amazing Achievements of Ancient China

This website provides information on the history and culture of Ancient China all the way to the beginning of the 20th Century when China began to emerge as a modern nation.

China’s civilization and culture has survived barbarian invasions and natural catastrophes, and has endured for thousands of years. Its achievements are many: art, calligraphy, pottery, china, and architectural wonders such as The Great Wall of China. China was the first civilization to invent gunpowder, the printing press, and domesticate the silk worm. In the 3rd Century B.C. Chinese civilzation developed the first hot air balloon, Kongming Lantern, which is used to this day in festivals. See also: Chinese Religions

China is the only ancient culture to have survived and evolved from the dawn of civilization to the present, basically intact yet still capable of evolving into the modern world. For example, Chinese writing is almost unchanged from a thousand years ago. Its characters would be recognizable to a Chinese person from 1000 B.C., yet the language has continued to evolve and can describe modern concepts such as computers, quantum mechanics and astrophysics