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Bi Sheng Invents Movable Type Printing

Type Event Region China Time 1041–1048

Around the Qingli era (1041–1048), Bi Sheng, a commoner of the Northern Song, created clay movable type printing: carving characters in clay, hardeni…

Timeline

  1. c. 1041–1048Hangzhou (Liangzhe Circuit) · HangzhouBi Sheng carved characters in clay, each character forming a single type, and hardened them by fire. For typesetting, pine resin, wax, and paper ash were used as binding material, with an iron frame holding each type in place to form a printing plate ready for printing. This method saved the cost of woodblock carving and was especially suited to books with few characters or requiring re-typesetting.
  2. c. 1045–1048Hangzhou (Liangzhe Circuit) · HangzhouBi Sheng used movable type to trial-print scriptures and common books, and passed the method on to his disciples. Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays records that his disciple Wang Zhuo could transmit the method, showing that movable type printing had successors in the mid-Northern Song.

Sources