How it began
Scholars believe that woodblock printing first appeared in China around 600, probably inspired by the much older use of bronze or stone seals to make impressions on clay and silk, and by the practice of taking inked rubbings of texts inscribed on bronze and stone. Britannica places the wooden block perhaps as early as the 6th century, as a more manageable substitute for inscribed marble pillars and seals. The process for block printing on paper was perfected by the end of the Tang dynasty (618 to 906).
Before it existed
By the end of the 2nd century CE the Chinese had the three elements needed for printing: paper, ink and surfaces bearing texts carved in relief. Some texts were classics of Buddhist thought inscribed on marble pillars. Pilgrims applied sheets of damp paper to the pillars and daubed the surface with ink so that the raised parts showed up. Religious seals were also used to transfer pictures and prayer texts to paper.
How it works
The text was first written in ink on a sheet of fine paper. The written side was applied to the smooth surface of a block of wood coated with a rice paste that retained the ink. An engraver then cut away the uninked areas so that the text stood out in relief and in reverse. To print, the block was inked with a brush, a sheet of paper was spread on it, and the back of the sheet was rubbed with a brush. Only one side of the sheet could be printed. Blocks were usually cut from date or pear wood.
How it spread
The oldest known printed works were made by this technique. In Japan, Buddhist incantations ordered by Empress Shotoku were printed about 764 to 770. In China the Diamond Sutra, the first known printed book, is dated 868. Printing from wood carving appeared in Europe no earlier than the last quarter of the 14th century, and in the first half of the 15th century small books were published there by a method identical to that of the Chinese.
What changed first
At first woodblock printing was used mainly for books on agriculture and medicine, and for calendars, calligraphy and auspicious charms. In 762 the first commercially printed books were sold in the markets of Chang'an, the Tang capital. By 782 printed papers were available in the marketplace as receipts for business transactions and tax payments. Widespread printing also stimulated a paper industry that made specialized papers for different purposes.
What lasted
Beginning in 932 a collection of Chinese classics in 130 volumes was printed from blocks. The method was slow: a project begun in 971 to print the Tripitaka, a collection of Buddhist scriptures, took twelve years to finish its 1,076 volumes. Those limits led to the invention of movable type in the Song dynasty, yet woodblock printing remained popular in China for several centuries afterward.
