Song Clay Movable-Type Printing

Timeline

1. c. 1040–1050Northern Song capital · Henan ProvinceNorthern Song artisan Bi Sheng carved characters in glue clay, hardened them by fire, then fixed them in a setting using a mixture of pine resin, wax and paper ash, achieving movable-type printing and breaking the one-book-per-block limit of woodblock printing.
2. 1050–1127Kaifeng · Henan ProvinceIn the Northern Song, clay movable type was mainly used for documents with small print runs and varying editions, such as surname genealogies and Buddhist texts. Because clay characters were fragile and picking type was time-consuming, large-scale book printing still relied mainly on woodblocks.
3. 1127–1279Lin'an · Zhejiang ProvinceDuring the Southern Song, clay movable-type technique was still used in some private printing shops, alongside woodblock printing around 1211–1220. Wooden movable type gradually developed in the same period, but clay type remains significant in the history of technology as an early form of movable type.