Abstract
China is credited with four major technological contributions to the world-paper, printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's compass. Additionally, the Chinese get credit for silk, tea, porcelain, various plants, herbal medicines, lacquer, playing cards, dominoes, wallpaper, the folding umbrella, the kite, zinc in coins, goldfish, and the discovery of coal.1 Another invaluable contribution was the use of rubbings as a form of reprography, a method of preserving and reproducing words and pictures still in use today. One of the best places in China to learn about rubbings and the related stone carvings is the Museum of Steles in Xi'an, the ancient capital of China and home to the terra cotta warriors. The museum had been established in the Yuan-yu reign (A.D. 1086-93) of the Song dynasty. Its collection includes stones carved with the Confucian classics and dated A.D. 781.2 Late in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) the production of steles (sculptured stones) increased greatly.3 Eight hundred years before the establishment of the museum, the Chinese suffered through a book-burning imposed by the emperor Qin Shihuang. When he died, the Chinese began engraving books in stone as a way of preserving them. Rubbings were encouraged as a way of popularizing literature.4 Today, the Museum of Steles contains more than twenty-three hundred stone records hand written by well-known scholars from
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