Social Media Ideas for Ancient China

Sacred splashes: ancient Chinese ritual of ‘elephant washing’ for good fortune

In ancient China, royal families washed elephants to pray for good fortune – until one elephant went rogue and brought the tradition to an end. Elephants had been spotted and docum...

Ming dynasty work shows how Chinese understood the world in the 1600s

Long before the digital age, a Ming dynasty scholar made it his mission to map human knowledge from a Chinese perspective. The result was an encyclopaedia spanning 127 volumes know...

Why am I obsessed with China’s ancient golden age? I took my daughter on a trip to find out

I felt a duty to write about the Tang dynasty and its incredible social and cultural sophistication – but also to connect my Chinese past with my childDuring the Tang dynasty, whic...

A Dynasty Owed Its Success to the Emperor’s Reverence and Sacrificial Offerings to Heaven

In ancient China, sacrificial rites were not simply ceremonies. They rested on a principle the Zhou dynasty drew from the fall of two dynasties before it: the Mandate of Heaven was...

How Kyoto Preserved Echoes of China’s Tang-Era Civilization

From its street grid and temple architecture to calligraphy, Buddhism, and traditional arts, Kyoto still bears the imprint of cultural traditions transmitted from China more than a...

The Biggest Ship in History Was Built in China 600 Years Ago—Or Was It?

In 2002, the retired British submarine lieutenant-commander turned amateur historian Gavin Menzies created a stir with a book about Chinese seafaring in the fifteenth century. 1421...

The Lands of Little People That Really Did Appear on Earth

A Qing collector wrote down a merchant's account of a city the height of a knee. It is not the only such record.

China study suggests animal sacrifice may have been part of ancient Sanxingdui rituals

Animal sacrifice has played a major role in human history, from mythological stories about Odysseus to modern rituals such as Nepal’s Gadhimai Festival. The tradition also dates ba...

Online claims revive mercury mystery around tomb of first Chinese emperor

Online claims that archaeologists have identified the source of mercury in the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang – China’s first emperor, who unified the country more than 2,000 years ago...

Terracotta warriors were mainly built by women and children, batch fingerprints show

Some 5 metres (16.4 feet) underground near one of China’s oldest cities lies the life-size army of thousands of terracotta warriors. The purpose of the army, located 35km (22 miles...

Wyoming storage shed turns out to be 140-year-old Chinese laundry

A weathered Wyoming cabin used as a storage shed for decades turned out to be a 140-year-old Chinese laundry and bathhouse owned by Sam Sing. After an eight-year effort, the histor...

The other crop that built China: how millet became foundation for Chinese civilisation

Rice may be the most universal ingredient in the world, serving as a cornerstone of the diet for billions in Asia. However, for much of Chinese history, rice faced a serious compet...

Ancient skeleton shows woman in imperial China had her nose amputated

Texts from imperial China suggest that some crimes were punishable with unusual amputations and a 700-year-old skeleton appears to offer the first physical evidence of the practice

23,000 bronzes, 14 years, 60 volumes: how China is mapping lost heritage held abroad

In the quiet of a Peking University research room, shelves groan under the weight of 60 thick volumes. Stacked, they stand taller than an average human. Inside their pages lie the...

How China became the world’s gold superpower

Perhaps no story illustrates the secret of China’s industrial success better than its rise as the world’s gold superpower. China has revered the metal for millennia, yet it has nev...

CCTV+: A Civilizational Dialogue Across 5000 Years -- Liangzhu and the Origins of World Civilization, a China‑Russia C...

BEIJING, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 18, 2026, the 4th Liangzhu Forum opened in Liangzhu, the sacred site that bears testimony to China's 5,000‑year‑old civilizati...

China’s only monogamous emperor: why Hongzhi refused a harem, remained dedicated to wife

It is no secret that Chinese emperors had many women in their lives, and the imperial concubine system was a significant feature of feudal social structures. Ming-era (1368–1644) e...

Quzhou commemorates 2,577th anniversary of Confucius' birth

QUZHOU, China, Oct. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a report from China.org.cn on the anniversary of Confucius' birth:

Is China’s fabled Empress Dowager Huayang buried near an airport? A study says yes

An airport is an unlikely place to search for national origins but researchers say they have uncovered the tomb of the woman behind the man who unified China – next to a major city...

2,200-Year-Old Fingerprints Reveal Who Really Built China's Mysterious Terracotta Army

One of the many thousands of warriors in the Terracotta Army. (fototrav/E+/Getty Images)

Chinese scientists find first evidence of ancient nose-chopping punishment for cattle thieves

Stealing someone’s cattle is a serious crime, and in many places, the thief would end up in jail. However, ancient Chinese justice could result in a truly horrific form of mutilati...

Ubisoft were working on a second Assassin's Creed game set in Qin Dynasty China, if this allegedly leaked footage is to...

Footage alleged to show a prototype of a cancelled Assassin’s Creed game in action has popped up online. The game, it's claimed, was set in ancient China, went by the working title...

Ancient Chinese scholars drank ink for poetic inspiration or poor handwriting penalties

While the Chinese idiom, “Having ink in their stomach”, serves as a metaphor to commend the knowledgeable, the act of ingesting ink was a common practice among ancient literati. Th...

Relive These Ancient Civilizations