Movable-Type Printing

Timeline

1. 1045Central Plains region of the Northern Song · ChinaBi Sheng of the Northern Song carved characters in clay, fired them hard, then used pine resin, wax, and paper ash as a medium, making each character a single type, arranging them for printing — a movable-type printing method with interchangeable individual characters that broke through the limitation of one block per book in woodblock printing.
2. 1061–1070Kaifeng and Jiangnan printing centers of the Northern Song · ChinaBy the 1060s, movable-type printing technology actually existed and had an impact in the publishing industry of the Northern Song. Although woodblock printing remained dominant, the movable-type method offered a more flexible technical path for textual correction, trial printing, and multi-edition documents, promoting a transformation in book production methods.
3. 1070–1100East Asian cultural sphere · East AsiaKnowledge of movable-type printing spread outward with the cultural exchange between the Northern Song and neighboring polities and East Asian countries. Korea, Japan, and other places successively encountered and developed their own native movable-type printing traditions, making this technology an important shared heritage of East Asian book culture.