page_title: History of printing
section_title: Woodblock printing (200 AD)
hierarchical_section_title: History of printing / Woodblock printing (200 AD)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Caractères mobiles en bois en alphabet ouïghour (encore utilisés ajourd'hui dans les alphabets mongols, evenki et mandchous. Datés des environs du XIIe et XIIIe siècle, ce sont les plus anciens exemplaires de caractères mobiles jamais découverts. On sait que d'autres, en argile étaient utilisés auparavant, mais l'on a plus trace que de leur impressions ou de descriptions dans les textes de ces époques. Étant donné la ligature des caractères dans cette écriture, chaque caractère mobile comporte un mot complet, contrairement aux caractères mobiles pour l'écriture du coréen ou hanyu antérieurs. Ces caractères ont été retrouvés dans les Grottes de Mogao, à Dunhuang, dans la province du Gansu. Ils sont conservés au Musée de l'imprimerie de Chine à Pékin. English: Old Uyghur alphabet (today used by mongolian and some tungusic languages for writing) wood movable types from 12th~13th century. This is the older sample of a movable type. They was discovered in Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu province, and are today in China Printing Museum in Beijing. 中文（中国大陆）‎: 回鹘文12～13世纪木活字，国际最老活字。于甘肃省敦煌市的莫高窟发现了。
context_page_description: The history of printing arguably starts in Mesopotamia as early as the 4th millennium BC, when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes and then stored in them, and eventually evolved into early writing. Other early forms include block seals, Hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Woodblock printing on paper originated in China around 200 AD. It led to the development of movable type in the eleventh century and the spread of book production in East Asia. Woodblock printing was also used in Europe, but it was in the fifteenth century that European printers developed a process for mass-producing metal type to support an economical book publishing industry. This industry enabled the communication of ideas and sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.
context_section_description: Woodblock printing (diaoban yinshua 雕版印刷), known as xylography today, was the first method of printing applied to a paper medium. It became widely used throughout East Asia both as a method for printing on textiles and later, under the influence of Buddhism, on paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to about 220 AD. Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are covered by the term woodcut (see below), except for the block-books produced mainly in the fifteenth century.
caption: Wooden movable type for Old Uyghur alphabet, dated to the 12th-13th centuries. Discovered in the Mogao caves.
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