The world before the medieval period was very simple. People used to live in tribes and hunting and farming was the most common way of livelihood. The world was divided into European, Arabic, Indic and Chinese empires. In each of these parts of the world great invetions have been made. In this project I would like to describe a few of them. The middle ages (5th - 15th Centuries AD), often termed The Dark Ages, were actually a time of great discovery and invention. The Middle ages also saw major advances in technologies that already existed, and the adoption of many Eastern technologies in the West. Types of Middle Ages Inventions The Middle Ages inventions were numerous and major developments were made in the areas of: Middle Ages Weaponry - Different Armor and weapons were invented by the war like nations of Medieval Europe were the base for the creation and upkeep of modern empiresSiege Weapon Inventions - The Inventions were brought from the crusades and developed to suit Medieval siege warfareNautical Inventions - A huge number of nautical inventions were made enabling the Age of ExplorationFarming Inventions - Increased Medieval food production and allowed increase in populationClocks and Timekeeping inventions helped people to better organize their time and thus do more in less timeThe Printing Press - probably the most important of the Middle Ages inventions which ended the medieval era and helped to speed-up the transition of information Chinese inventions: The compass- The worlds first compass was first made in China during the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.), by balancing a piece of loadstone carved in the shape of a laddle on a round, bronze plate. The first person to use this tool was Zheng (1371-1435), a Muslim from the Yunnan province. He made seven ocean voyagesbetween 1405 and 1433. The gunpowder- Chinese Taoist philosophers, were some of the most important contributors to the invention of gunpowder. However, many different groups and individuals can be named as contributors to this invention. During the Han dynasty extensive research was done on sulphur and saltpeter. As a result many fires were started. In the mid-Tang dynasty, sulphur and saltpeter when combined with charcoal to make gunpowder. The printing press- The Chinese invention of printing with moveable type, credited to Bi Sheng in the year 1045 AD, did not significantly impact Chinese society. Three hundred years later in Europe, Gutenberg's development of moveable type did. Why? It is because the Chinese language uses 3000 to 5000 characters in an average newspaper. The English language, in comparison, uses 26 characters in an newspaper. Clearly, manipulating 5000 characters on a printing press took much longer than moving 26. Still, the invention of moveable type furthered Chinese technology and its role in the advancement of human civilization. European inventions: The Heavy Plough - In the basic mouldboard plough the depth of the cut is adjusted by lifting against the runner in the furrow, which limited the weight of the plough to what the ploughman could easily lift. These ploughs were fairly fragile, and were unsuitable for breaking up the heavier soils of northern Europe. The introduction of wheels to replace the runner allowed the weight of the plough to increase, and in turn allowed the use of a much larger mouldboard that was faced with metal. These heavy ploughs led to greater food production and eventually a significant population increase around 600 AD. Eyeglasses- In Europe eyeglasses first appeared in Italy, their introduction being attributed to Alessandro di Spina of Florence. The first portrait to show eyeglasses is that of Hugh of Provence by Tommaso da Modena, painted in 1352. In 1480 Domenico Ghirlandaio painted St. Jerome at a desk from which dangled eyeglasses; as a result, St. Jerome became the patron saint of the spectacle-makers’ guild. The earliest glasses had convex lenses to aid farsightedness. A concave lens for myopia, or nearsightedness, is first evident in the portrait of Pope Leo X painted by Raphael in 1517. The Printing Press of Gutenberg- The earliest mention of a printing press is in a lawsuit in Strasbourg in 1439 revealing construction of a press for Johannes Gutenberg and his associates. (Scant evidence exists to support claims of Laurens Janszoon Coster as the inventor of printing.) The invention of the printing press itself obviously owed much to the medieval paper press, in turn modeled after the ancient wine-and-olive press of the Mediterranean area. A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting downward pressure against the paper, which was laid over the type mounted on a wooden platen. In its essentials, the wooden press reigned supreme for more than 300 years, with a hardly varying rate of 250 sheets per hour printed on one side. Indic inventions: Spinning Wheel- It replaced the earlier method of hand spinning, in which the individual fibres were drawn out of a mass of wool held on a stick, or distaff, twisted together to form a continuous strand, and wound on a second stick, or spindle. The first stage in mechanizing the process was to mount the spindle horizontally in bearings so that it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The distaff, carrying the mass of fibre, was held in the left hand, and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fibre at an angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist. Arabic inventions: Glass factory- The first industrial complex for glass and pottery production was built in Ar-Raqqah, Syria, in the 8th century. Extensive experimentation was carried out at the complex, which was two kilometres in length, and a variety of innovative high-purity glass were developed there. Two other similar complexes have also been discovered, and nearly three hundred new chemical recipes for glass are known to have been produced at all three sites. The first glass factories were thus built by Muslim craftsmen in the Islamic world. The first glass factories in Europe were later built in the 11th century by Egyptian craftsmen in Corinth, Greece. Hand cannon, handgun, and small arms- The first portable hand cannons (midfa) loaded with explosive gunpowder, the first example of a handgun and portable firearm, were used by the Egyptians to repel the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, and again in 1304. The gunpowder compositions used for the cannons at these battles were later described in several manuscripts in the early 14th century. According to Shams al-Din Muhammad (d. 1327), the cannons had an explosive gunpowder composition (74% saltpetre, 11% sulfur, 15% carbon) almost identical to the ideal compositions for explosive gunpowder used in modern times (75% saltpetre, 10% sulfur, 15% carbon). Soap- The soap now used in modern times is made of vegetable oils (such as olive oil) with sodium hydroxide and aromatics (such as thyme oil). This formula was invented by Muslim chemists, and differed from the earlier soap-like detergents used in ancient times. Sodium lye (al-soda al-kawia), perfumed and colored soaps, and liquid and solid soaps, were also produced by Muslim chemists.