Speaking of the origin of printing, many friends will think of "engraving printing". In fact, before the advent of engraving and printing, the most primitive application of printing technology in China - seals.
As early as the pre-Qin period, seals have already appeared, and the ancient seal is the common name of the pre-Qin seal. Most of the earliest seals we can see are the Warring States Ancient Seal. The ink strokes are as fine as a hair, all out of casting. Most of the white ancient seals are added to the sidebar, or a vertical boundary grid is added in the middle, and the text is cast and chiseled.
However, at that time, the structure of the seal was relatively simple, and the number of words was relatively small. Generally speaking, the contents of the seal are only the name, official position or institution. In addition to the names of "Sima and Situ", the indian content also has various irregular shapes, and the content is also engraved with Ji and animal motifs. Due to the principle of mirroring, the sealed text is anti-body, and there are yin and yang carvings.
Before the birth of paper, the way seals were used was very different from today's seals. At that time, official documents or important documents were written on the jane, and after writing, the bamboo janes would be bundled together, wrapped in a layer of mud seal in the position of the knot, and finally, stamped on the mud seal with a seal. Therefore, the earliest seals did not require printing clay.
Later, after the advent of paper, clay seals were replaced by paper seals. Because the seal cannot be stamped directly on the paper seal, the printing clay came into being. According to historical records, in the Northern Qi period, some people made the seal very large when making seals, and carved more content on the seals, which has the charm of printing and engraving.
After the introduction of Buddhism to China, monks often painted Buddha images at the beginning of the sutras to make the sutras more vivid. Due to the large number of Buddhist scriptures at that time, painting Buddha statues gradually became a complicated task. For convenience, monks began carving Buddha statues on wooden boards and stamping them with handmade wooden seals. Obviously, this way is much simpler than drawing by hand.
When it comes to the development process of printing, it is necessary to mention the stele rubbing technology.
The origin of this technology is quite early, and the ten stone drums found in Fengxiang, Shaanxi today, are the stone carvings of the Qin State in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number of stone tablets has soared, and in order to educate the people, the imperial court of the Han Ling Emperor in the fourth year erected forty-six stone tablets in front of the Taixue Gate, namely the Book of Poetry, the Book of Shang, the Zhou Yi, the Book of Rites, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Biography of the Ram, and the Analects. Don't look at only forty-six stone tablets, but the number of words on these stone tablets is very impressive, a total of 200,000 words. At that time, readers rushed to the gate of Taixue and copied these classics.
However, during the Six Dynasties of Wei and Jin, people found that the efficiency of hand-copied ancient books was too low, so some readers took advantage of the lack of strict guarding of Taixue to smear ink on stone tablets and then use paper to rub them. Some economically minded students printed the classics on the stone tablets in batches and compiled them into volumes, which was very popular. With the popularity of this trend, more and more people are making rubbings, and rubbing technology has also been improved.
In the process of rubbing stone tablets, the ancients initially just smeared ink on the stone tablets, and then covered the paper for rubbing. However, the effect of rubbing in this way is not good, and it is easy to pollute the stone stele, so people gradually invented new rubbing technology. Before rubbing, the wet paper is first covered on the stone stele, and then tapped with a soft wooden mallet to embed the paper into the inscription of the stele. Wait until the paper has dried naturally, then apply ink with cotton and spread it evenly on the paper, so that you can leave a black and white rubbing on the paper.
This method is simple and reliable, and at the same time does not pollute the stone tablets, so rubbing has gradually become the mainstream printing technology.
There is also a certain technology that has a certain impact on the molding of printing, that is, the printing and dyeing technology of cloth. In order to make the cloth beautiful, ancient dyeers used to carve patterns on wooden boards, and then print the patterns on the cloth with fuel to increase sales. With the development of printing and dyeing technology, two kinds of printing plates have gradually appeared, namely embossed plates and hollowed-out plates, the principle of which is somewhat like the yin and yang engraving of seals. For example, the two pieces of printed yarn excavated from Mawangdui in Changsha in the 1970s were printed and dyed using embossed plates.
According to archaeologists, the origin of printing and dyeing technology should be before the Qin and Han Dynasties, and can be traced back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Some scholars speculate that this printing and dyeing technology is most likely the precursor of engraving printing. After all, just changing the cloth to paper and the dye to ink is the complete engraving and printing technology.
In summary, the origin of the mainland engraving and printing technology is most likely promoted by the mutual inspiration and integration of seals, rubbings, printing and dyeing. The wisdom of the ancient ancestors of the mainland is endless, and it is natural to invent engraving and printing technology based on seals, rubbings, printing and dyeing. Before the birth of movable type printing, engraving printing was widely used.
The so-called engraving and printing technique is to engrave the Yang engraving board in advance, and then use ink to apply to the word board for printing. History textbooks say that because the production process of engraving was complex and expensive, it was replaced after the birth of movable type printing in the Northern Song Dynasty. In fact, for a long time after Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, engraving printing was still the mainstream. After all, the layout and compactness of movable type plates did not meet the standards of application at the beginning of the invention, so it was difficult to replace engraving printing.
Resources:
【The Origin of Seals", "Printing"】