page_title: Four Great Inventions
section_title: Compass
hierarchical_section_title: Four Great Inventions / Inventions / Compass
context_page_description: The Four Great Inventions are inventions from ancient China that are celebrated in Chinese culture for their historical significance and as symbols of ancient China's advanced science and technology.
  According to Chinaculture.org the Four Great Inventions are:
  Compass
  Gunpowder
  Papermaking
  Printing
  These four inventions had a profound impact on the development of civilization throughout the world. However, some modern Chinese scholars have opined that other Chinese inventions were perhaps more sophisticated and had a greater impact on Chinese civilization – the Four Great Inventions serve merely to highlight the technological interaction between East and West.
context_section_description: A lodestone compass was used in China during the Han Dynasty between the 2nd century BCE and 1st century CE, where it was called the "south-governor" (sīnán 司南). It was not used for navigation, but rather for geomancy and fortune-telling. The earliest reference to a magnetic device used for navigation is in a Song Dynasty book dated to 1040-1044, where there is a description of an iron "south-pointing fish" floating in a bowl of water, aligning itself to the south. The device is recommended as a means of orientation "in the obscurity of the night." The first suspended magnetic needle compass was written of by Shen Kuo in his book of 1088.
  For most of Chinese history, the compass that remained in use was in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water. According to Needham, the Chinese in the Song Dynasty and continuing Yuan Dynasty did make use of a dry compass, although this type never became as widely used in China as the wet compass.
  The dry compass used in China was a dry suspension compass, a wooden frame crafted in the shape of a turtle hung upside down by a board, with the lodestone sealed in by wax, and if rotated, the needle at the tail would always point in the northern cardinal direction. Although the 14th-century European compass-card in box frame and dry pivot needle was adopted in China after its use was taken by Japanese pirates in the 16th century (who had in turn learned of it from Europeans), the Chinese design of the suspended dry compass persisted in use well into the 18th century.
caption: Diagram of a Ming dynasty mariner's compass
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