Printing in the Song Dynasty
- The Song Dynasty started in 960 and ended in 1279
- Throughout the Song Dynasty there were many advances and inventions. One very notable invention was printing.
- Woodblock printing and Movable-type printing allowed people to produce books or texts quicker than handwritten ones.
- This helped spread medical texts among other texts in a more timely manner.
Woodblock Printing
- Each character was carved onto a wooden block.
- Ink was brushed over all of the block and once it was completely covered a piece of paper was placed on top of the block
- Whoever was printing would then use a brush to lightly brush the back of the paper to make sure all of the paper was coming into contact with the ink on the carvings.
- This process was very time consuming. It would take a long time to individually carve every single character and there were so many different characters to carve.
- This was the start of printing but because of how tedious it was, eventually the Song Dynasty moved on to movable-type printing.
Movable-type Printing
- Invented by Bi Sheng
- Characters were carved into little cubes made out of wood or clay.
- The cubes were placed onto a piece of wood with sections for each character.
- Then just like with woodblock printing, ink was brushed over all of the cubes.
- A piece of paper was put on top and brushed to ensure all the ink was going onto the paper.
- This was more convenient and less time consuming because the blocks were interchangeable so all different things could be printed.
