Kang (brick bed-stove)
Kang (cama-estufa de ladrillo)
- Date
- c. 300 BCE (antecedentes neolíticos discutidos) · confidence low
- Place
- Shenyang, Liaoning, China
- Credited to
- Peoples of northern China
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A platform of adobe or brick with flues through which the smoke of a stove circulates, serving at once as bed, seat and heating. It is the traditional answer to winters in northern China.
Neolithic remains from north-east China are cited, but secure evidence dates from the Han period onwards. Its relation to the Korean ondol (flue heating) is debated: they may be parallel or related traditions.
What it led to
- family housing with one heated room for sleeping and eating
- fuel saving by using the smoke from the cooking stove
- variants in Korea (ondol) and Manchuria