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===Movable-type printing=== [[File:五贯宝卷.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|Copperplate of 1215–1216 5000 [[Cash (currency)|cash]] paper money with ten bronze movable types]] [[File:SelectedTeachingsofBuddhistSagesandSonMasters1377.jpg|thumb|''[[Jikji]]'', "Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Son Masters" from Korea, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. {{lang|fr|[[Bibliothèque Nationale de France]]|italic=no}}, Paris]] {{Main|Movable type}} Movable type is the system of printing and typography using movable pieces of metal type, made by casting from [[matrix (printing)|matrices]] struck by [[punchcutting|letterpunches]]. Movable type allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing. Around 1040, the first known movable type system was created in China by [[Bi Sheng]] out of [[porcelain]].<ref name="Great Chinese Inventions"/> Bi Sheng used clay type, which broke easily, but [[Wang Zhen (official)|Wang Zhen]] by 1298 had carved a more durable type from wood. He also developed a complex system of revolving tables and number-association with written Chinese characters that made typesetting and printing more efficient. Still, the main method in use there remained woodblock printing (xylography), which "proved to be cheaper and more efficient for printing Chinese, with its thousands of characters".<ref>Beckwith, Christopher I., ''Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present'', Princeton University Press, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-691-15034-5}}</ref> Copper movable type printing originated in China at the beginning of the 12th century. It was used in large-scale printing of [[paper money]] issued by the Northern Song dynasty. Movable type spread to Korea during the [[Goryeo]] dynasty. Around 1230, Koreans invented a metal type movable printing using bronze. The ''[[Jikji]]'', published in 1377, is the earliest known metal printed book. Type-casting was used, adapted from the method of casting coins. The character was cut in beech wood, which was then pressed into a soft clay to form a mould, and bronze poured into the mould, and finally the type was polished.<ref>{{harvnb|Tsien|1985|p=330}}</ref> Eastern metal movable type was spread to Europe between the late 14th and early 15th centuries.<ref>{{cite book |author = Polenz, Peter von. |title = Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart: I. Einführung, Grundbegriffe, Deutsch in der frühbürgerlichen Zeit. |publisher = New York/Berlin: Gruyter, Walter de GmbH |year = 1991 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.rightreading.com/printing/gutenberg.asia/gutenberg-asia-1-introduction.htm|title = Did East Asian Printing Traditions Influence the European Renaissance?|author = Thomas Christensen|access-date = 2006-10-18|year = 2007|publisher = Arts of Asia Magazine (to appear)|archive-date = August 11, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190811145633/http://www.rightreading.com/printing/gutenberg.asia/gutenberg-asia-1-introduction.htm|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author = [[Juan González de Mendoza]] |title =Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China|url = http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k75292n/f2.image|year = 1585|language=es}}</ref><ref>[[Thomas Franklin Carter]], ''The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward'', The Ronald Press, NY 2nd ed. 1955, pp. 176–178</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=[[L. S. Stavrianos]] |title=A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century |edition=7th |year=1998 |orig-year=1970 |publisher=[[Prentice Hall]] |location=Upper Saddle River, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-13-923897-0 }}</ref> The Korean form of metal movable type was described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to Gutenberg's".<ref>Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter (2002) However, more correctly it should be described as the other way around. Gutenberg's form of metal movable type was extremely similar to the Korean Jikji's, which was printed 78 years prior to the Gutenberg Bible. A Social History of the Media: from Gutenberg to the Internet, Polity, Cambridge, pp. 15–23, 61–73.</ref> Authoritative historians [[Frances Gies and Joseph Gies]] claimed that "The Asian priority of invention movable type is now firmly established, and that Chinese-Korean technique, or a report of it traveled westward is almost certain."<ref name="Frances&Joseph">[[Frances Gies and Joseph Gies|Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph]] (1994) ''Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Age'', New York : HarperCollins, {{ISBN|0-06-016590-1}}, p. 241.</ref> [[File:Metal movable type.jpg|right|thumb|A case of cast metal type pieces and typeset matter in a composing stick]]
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