Printing

Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper (using woodblock printing) appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.

History

Woodblock printing

Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns that was used widely throughout East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper.

In East Asia

The earliest examples of ink-squeeze rubbings and potential stone printing blocks appear in the mid-sixth century in China. A type of printing called mechanical woodblock printing on paper started during the 7th century in the Tang dynasty, and subsequently spread throughout East Asia. Nara Japan printed the Hyakumantō Darani en masse around 770, and distributed them to temples throughout Japan. In Korea, an example of woodblock printing from the eighth century was discovered in 1966. A copy of the Buddhist Dharani Sutra called the Pure Light Dharani Sutra (Korean: 무구정광대다라니경; Hanja: 無垢淨光大陀羅尼經; RR: Mugu jeonggwang dae darani-gyeong), discovered in Gyeongju, in a Silla dynasty pagoda that was repaired in 751, was undated but must have been created sometime before the reconstruction of the Shakyamuni Pagoda of Bulguk Temple, Kyongju Province in 751. The document is estimated to have been created no later than 704. By the ninth century, printing on paper had taken off, and the first completely surviving printed book is the Diamond Sutra (British Library) of 868, uncovered from Dunhuang. By the tenth century, 400,000 copies of some sutras and pictures were printed, and the Confucian classics were in print. A skilled printer could print up to 2,000 double-page sheets per day. Printing spread early to Korea and Japan, which also used Chinese logograms, but the technique was also used in Turpan and Vietnam using a number of other scripts. This technique then spread to Persia and Russia. This technique was transmitted to Europe by around 1400 and was used on paper for old master prints and playing cards.351-367

In the Islamic World

From 900-1444 wooden and tin block printing (known as a ṭarsh) was in use throughout the Islamic world, its use in 10th century Muslim Spain marked the earliest instance of block printing in Europe. It was mostly a minority enterprise by street magicians and tricksters known as the Banū Sāsān or Ghurabā', who mass printed amulets and talismans featuring Qur'anic verses and magical symbols, keeping the mechanical process secret to feign handwritten authenticity for illiterate buyers. Of these over 70 survive, though no print block. The craft reached a high level of technical complexity, some talismans being composed of minuscule text only 0.1 cm high. However, it was also used for official uses, such as to stamp Fatimid tax receipts and the Emirate of Granada's commercial goods as well as to print Almohad state decrees, Ilkhanid paper money and elaborate Hajj certificates. After 1436 or 1444 block printing vanishes from the Islamic world without explanation. However, Egyptian Romani Ghurabā' migrating to Central Europe at the start of the 15th century may have played a role in the transmission of block printing to Europe.

In Europe

Block printing first came to Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate. When paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the technique transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onward. Around the mid-fifteenth-century, block-books, woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with movable type. These were all short, heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, in the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the estimated range of dates being between about 1440 and 1460.

Movable-type printing

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