@skulloljorv: ligatureanimation Did you know that the oldest dated printed book in the world was found hidden inside a sealed cave in the deserts of western China? The text is known as the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture printed in 868 AD during the Tang Dynasty. It was discovered in 1907 inside Mogao Cave 17 near the great oasis city of Dunhuang, alongside more than forty thousand manuscripts written in 20 different languages. But the real curiosity isn’t the book, it’s the technology that made it possible. We don’t know the exact date, but at some point between the sixth and seventh centuries, artisans in the Tang Dynasty developed an incredible technology – called xylographic or wood block printing. Entire pages of text were carved into wooden blocks and inked – and paper was pressed onto them to produce a printed page. Once a block had been carved a single block could produce thousands of identical copies, allowing knowledge to be re-produced on an unprecedented scale. By the ninth century, printers were producing far more than Buddhist scriptures. Calendars, dictionaries, works on medicine, astrology, geography, and philosophy were all being printed. Under the Song Dynasty, printing expanded creating what is arguably the world’s first commercial publishing industry – nearly six centuries before Gutenberg printed his famous Bible. Even after movable type was invented in the eleventh century, woodblock printing remained the dominant technology in East Asia for centuries, largely because it was better suited to writing systems with thousands of characters, like Classical Chinese. If you're interested in learning more about the history of printing in East Asia, I can wholeheartedly suggest: Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin and Joseph Needham. 1985. "Paper and Printing" in Science and Civilization in China, Volume 5. Brokaw, Cynthia. 2005. "On the History of the Book in China, Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China". Both excellent entry points for readers new to the subject. #silkroad #ancienthistory #foryourpage #worldhistory #culturalheritage

🅼🅰🆅🅸🅴🅿🅰🆁🅸🆂🅸🅴🅽🅽🅴 :

Then, most of these scriptures were stolen by Europeans.

bob212340 :

the thing is - Chinese today can read and understand the words and the contexts of this 1158 year-old book. Chinese is the only unbroken line of linguistic continuity in human history.

TR :

journey to the west for a purpose

Teo jew nang :

atheists invented printing before christians could print the bible....

Curry_SF :

It’s not real printing

🌸Cecilia🌸 :

and someone stole them

hendrikxu82 :

it isss.printing is invented in China the first time.👍👍

媛 :

Movable type printing was also invented in China by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD

jazzmusicbum :

China really could have overtaken the rest of the world technologically by a wide margin if they didn't decide to fuck themselves over with their isolationist policies

PickyEye :

The printing technology must be stolen from the US.

LPK :

Many don’t know that the overseas Chinese are still calling themselves people of Tang. All the China Towns worldwide are literally named the Tang Town in Chinese.

elijahbrown908 :

Dang, you mean the oldest literature wasn't the epic of Gilgamesh?

RainbowSX🌈 :

Who wants to go treasure hunting too? western China desert 🏜️

Loki Tao :

most likely the medium composition is far more important than the print, being able to stay intact

McKS :

history need to be re-written

Malaya Jewelry :

And the interesting thing is: it’s not actually “Diamond” sutra, it’s called the Vajrachhedika - or Vajra Cutter. The misunderstanding comes from a misreading of Vajra as “diamond”. Vajra is something indestructible, adamantine. And the sutras wisdom is meant to be so sharp - that it cuts even through that. So if one absolutely has to keep the word “diamond” it would be “Diamond Cutter” Sutra.

The_Hunman :

Wow the Chinese were very advanced in ancient time and modern time 👍

Pete :

interesting

Supers122 :

Bailin :

Amazing 👍

chaowei :

Correct

Toonn :

How did the ancient Chinese people come up with this idea?

ChzCakeConnie :

“Sometimes the greatest archeological discoveries aren’t things that were lost. They’re things that people chose to leave behind.” Uh…..ok. And sometimes tree leaves are green and other times they’re yellow.

intsta @jrwone :

very interesting ✨💫

Elias :

1) Printing press invented in Germany, used a Power/lead screw(like what is used in a wine press). revolutionizing printing speed. 1 half turn on the screw prouced a massive uniform 40lb/in^2 across all the movable type evenly. allowing for perfect transfer of the letters on to the page. no faded or lighter letters osections. perfect and uniform. while in China they would spend upwards of 45 minutes on larger prints pressing and rubbing a bone tool trying to evenly deliver enough force across all r stamps surface to get it mostly all transferred. it was exhausting time consuming work resulting in printed pages of variable quality. This bottle neck was reduced to seconds l in Europe with perfect consistent letters for tens of thousands of pages. 2)Movable type invented in Germany using lead alloys with rapid reapplication of ink.