In AD 868, a man named Wang Jie paid to have a Buddhist book printed in honor of his parents. Printers carved each page, backward, on a block of wood, inked it and pressed paper onto it. A copy of that book, the Diamond Sutra, was found in a cave in western China in 1900. It is the oldest printed book with a date that we know of.
Key idea
In Japan, an emperor reigned from the palace in Kyoto. From 1192, real power belonged to a military leader called the shogun, with warriors called samurai who served the great lords. Samurai followed a code of loyalty and self-control, and many also studied poetry, calligraphy and the tea ceremony.
About AD 1000, a lady of the Japanese court, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote The Tale of Genji, often called the world's first novel. Later, in 1271, a young Italian merchant named Marco Polo set out for China. He stayed about 17 years, and his book amazed Europeans with stories of paper money and cities larger than any in Europe.
Worked example: Printing before Gutenberg
- Both dates are AD: subtract.
- 1,455 − 868 = 587.
Answer: About 590 years earlier.
Common mistake
Try it at home
- Make a stamp: draw a simple shape on a flat piece of craft foam or a potato half (a grown-up does any cutting), press it on an ink pad or in paint, and print it many times.
- Write a letter on your stamp. Did it print backward? Printers in China carved their pages backward for this reason.