When asked about the most pivotal invention in the history of books, many would immediately point to Johannes Gutenberg and his printing press. Margaret Leslie Davis’s book, The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book’s Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey, even begins by hailing the Gutenberg Bible as “universally acknowledged as the most important of all printed books.” Indeed, Gutenberg’s 15th-century innovation is often credited with sparking transformative shifts – from the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance to the scientific revolution and the rise of widespread education. As Mark Twain famously stated in 1900, “What the world is to-day, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg. Everything can be traced to this source.”
However, this narrative, while compelling, overlooks a crucial part of the story: the Printing Press Invention Date is not as straightforward as assigning it solely to Gutenberg in 1440 AD. The reality is that the foundations of printing technology were laid centuries earlier in East Asia, thanks to pioneering work by Chinese scholars, Korean Buddhists, and the vast Mongol empire. While Gutenberg undoubtedly revolutionized printing in Europe, attributing the invention solely to him ignores a rich history of innovation that unfolded long before he was born.
To understand this broader history, let’s first consider the mechanics of traditional printing. It involves arranging small, metal pieces of movable type – each bearing a reversed letter – in a frame, inking them, and pressing them onto paper. This process, repeated page after page, allowed for the mass production of books, a stark contrast to the laborious hand-copying that preceded it in Europe.
The conventional story places the printing press invention date around 1440 AD in Mainz, Germany, with Johannes Gutenberg. The subsequent printing of the Gutenberg Bible in the 1450s is seen as the technology’s European debut. Prior to this, European books were painstakingly handwritten and primarily accessible only to the clergy. Gutenberg’s press seemingly democratized knowledge, fueling widespread literacy and reshaping religion, politics, and societies globally.
Yet, as Davis herself briefly acknowledges in The Lost Gutenberg, “Movable type was an 11th-century Chinese invention, refined in Korea in 1230, before meeting conditions in Europe that would allow it to flourish—in Europe, in Gutenberg’s time.” This single sentence hints at a much deeper and earlier history, one that significantly predates Gutenberg’s contributions.
The earliest forms of printing emerged in China around 800 AD. These techniques involved woodblock printing, where entire pages of text were meticulously carved in reverse onto wooden blocks. Ink was applied to these blocks, and paper pressed against them to create prints. By 971 AD, Chinese printers in Zhejiang province had produced the monumental Buddhist canon, the Tripitaka, using a staggering 130,000 woodblocks, each carved for a single page. Later, attempts were made to create movable type using wood and even ceramic characters, although these proved less efficient.
These Chinese innovations travelled eastward, reaching the Korean peninsula and the Goryeo dynasty – from whom modern Korea gets its name. The Goryeo rulers played a pivotal role in advancing printing technology, driven in part by the need to preserve their culture amidst invasions.
In 1087 AD, facing an invasion from the Khitan nomads, the Goryeo government undertook the ambitious project of creating their own Tripitaka using woodblock printing. This endeavor was likely aimed at reinforcing Korean Buddhist identity against external threats. This foresight proved crucial when, in the 13th century, the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan and his successors expanded relentlessly across Asia. By 1232, Mongol troops reached the Korean capital, and tragically, destroyed the Korean Tripitaka by fire.
Undeterred, the Goryeo dynasty immediately embarked on recreating the Tripitaka. This monumental undertaking, completed by 1251 AD, is believed to have been motivated by prayers for divine protection against the ongoing Mongol invasions and a determination to preserve Korean cultural heritage during a period of intense conflict that spanned 28 years.
Amidst this massive project, in 1234 AD, the Koreans made a groundbreaking leap. Tasked with printing The Prescribed Ritual Text of the Past and Present (Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun), the civil minister Choe Yun-ui recognized the impracticality of carving woodblocks for such a lengthy text. Drawing inspiration from Chinese movable type experiments and techniques used for minting bronze coins, Choe Yun-ui devised a method to cast individual characters in metal. These metal pieces could be arranged in a frame, inked, and used for printing, much like Gutenberg’s later press. Crucially, after printing, the characters could be rearranged, eliminating the need for countless carved blocks. Choe Yun-ui completed this revolutionary project around 1250 AD.
This pivotal moment highlights that the printing press invention date, in terms of movable metal type, arguably belongs to Choe Yun-ui, not Gutenberg. Choe Yun-ui’s innovation, developed nearly two centuries before Gutenberg, encompassed the core principles attributed to the German inventor: movable metal type, arranged in a frame, inked, and pressed to paper for faster book production.
So why is Gutenberg more widely celebrated? While Choe Yun-ui’s invention was revolutionary, its impact was limited geographically. Korea at the time was under constant invasion, hindering the dissemination of this technology. Furthermore, the complex Korean writing system, based on Chinese characters, involved a vast number of characters, making the creation and arrangement of metal type a laborious process. Additionally, the Goryeo rulers primarily intended printing for the use of the nobility, limiting its broader societal impact.
In contrast, Gutenberg’s innovation emerged in a Europe undergoing significant social and economic changes. However, it’s also plausible that printing technology migrated westward from East Asia. Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan who established his rule in Beijing, had access to both Korean and Chinese printing technologies. It is theorized that he may have shared this knowledge with another grandson, Hulegu, who governed the Persian part of the Mongol empire. This could have facilitated the westward transmission of printing techniques along the Silk Road. As historian David Robinson notes, “Mongols just tended to take their technologies everywhere they go, and they become a part of local culture, sometimes acknowledged, sometimes not.”
The Uyghur people, a Turkic group integrated into the Mongol army, resided along the Silk Road. Being considered learned and distinguished, they were well-positioned to adopt and potentially spread printing. They also possessed a crucial advantage: an alphabet, a relatively simple writing system compared to Chinese or Korean characters. While printing didn’t explode in the Western Mongol empire, Uyghur movable-type prints have been found, indicating its presence and use.
Moreover, the Mongol invasions of Europe between the 11th and 15th centuries could have inadvertently introduced printing technology further west, potentially reaching Germany. The influx of people from Western Asia into Europe during this period is evidenced by the adoption of words like “horde” into European languages from Turkic origins. As Professor Christopher Atwood suggests, “Generally, if something is going from East Asia [to the west], it would be hard to imagine without the Mongols.”
Ultimately, European entrepreneurs invested in Johannes Gutenberg’s printing venture. He combined movable type technology, strikingly similar to Choe Yun-ui’s, with a screw-press mechanism adapted from wine or olive presses. This innovation significantly increased printing speed and efficiency, making mass production commercially viable. Despite decades of effort, financial struggles, and lawsuits, Gutenberg’s press revolutionized European society.
However, the narrative that solely credits Gutenberg with inventing the printing press overlooks centuries of innovation in Asia. Computer programmer Blaise Agṻera y Arcas aptly points out, “The idea that a technology emerges fully formed at the beginning is nuts. Anyone who does technology knows that’s not how it works.” Margaret Leslie Davis acknowledges this to some extent, suggesting that the myth of Gutenberg as a lone genius persists because “the sweep of what followed is so vast that it feels almost mythic and needs an origin story to match.”
Despite briefly mentioning China and Korea, The Lost Gutenberg largely perpetuates the Gutenberg-centric narrative. It fails to fully acknowledge the earlier printing press invention date in Asia and the potential pathways through which this technology may have travelled westward.
It’s important to recognize that the Gutenberg Bible, while significant, is not universally considered the “most important book.” Furthermore, the oldest extant book printed with movable type is not European, but Korean: the Baegun Hwasang Chorok Buljo Jikji Simche Yojeol (“The Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings”), dating back to 1377. This Korean text stands as a testament to the earlier advancements in movable type printing in Asia.
In recent years, there has been growing recognition of the crucial contributions of Asian inventors to printing technology. However, the full story, one that extends far beyond Gutenberg and acknowledges the true printing press invention date in East Asia, is still not widely known. Understanding this broader history is crucial to appreciating the complex and global nature of technological innovation.
