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Bi Sheng invents movable-type printing in Song China

c. 1040–1048 CE·Science, technology & invention·China·
c. 1040–1048 CEDate
Science, technology & inventionCategory
24Empires active
Date
c. 1040–1048 CE
Category
Science, technology & invention
Region
China
Era
Post-Classical / Medieval
Significance

Between roughly 1040 and 1048 the artisan Bi Sheng, working during China's Northern Song dynasty, invented the world's first known movable type, cutting an individual character into moist clay for each glyph and firing the pieces hard.

The types were set in an iron frame on a heated bed of resin, wax and paper ash, which was warmed to fix the type and reheated to release it for reuse, allowing pages to be composed, printed and recomposed. The process was recorded a few decades later by the polymath statesman Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, the source from which the invention is known. Though the vast number of Chinese characters limited movable type's advantage over established woodblock printing in China, the underlying idea spread and matured: Korea cast movable metal type and printed the Jikji in 1377, and centuries later Gutenberg's independent European version of movable type would help drive a communications revolution. Bi Sheng's innovation stands as a milestone in the global history of printing.

See the world map in c. 1040–1048 CE →More science, technology & inventionThe Post-Classical / Medieval era

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