LOST & FOUND #8 …

Excellent Reading:
--- The Lost Discoveries from the beginning of Recorded History to the Renaissance --- Lost Discoveries - Dick Teresi.

LOST & FOUND
#8 Paper & Printing

  • Buddhist “Diamond Sutra", first known printed book, 868 A.D. - 17.5' x 10.5" scroll, translated from Sanskrit (from India) into Chinese, most other printed materials were calendars and horoscopes (much like today)
  • Writing is perhaps technology which most unifies a civilization, but it also had main function by warring groups to facilitate enslavement of other human beings by spreadin propaganda - Claude Levi-Strauss
  • Chinese were writing from at least 2nd millenium B.C.
  • Writing in Mesopotamia & Egypt at same time - mostly for religious divination - before paper - Egypt: grass stalks, Mesopotamia: clay tablets, Indians: tree leaves, Europeans: sheepskins, early Chinese: tortoise shells & shoulder blades of oxen
  • China: Paper, 140 - 87 B.C., from hemp, tomb in Siam in Shin Shee province, 1,000 years before Europeans
  • China: 2nd century paper from bark + rags + wheat + other mixtures, suitable for brush strokes, clothing, shoes, toilet tissue, wallpaper, kites, origami, umbrellas, money
  • India paper: printing by 7th century A.D.
  • Islam paper: printing by 8th century A.D.
  • Arabs sold paper to Europeans at high cost for 500 years but didn't tell process
  • China: Printing (actual origins are lost), perhaps around the year 0! In 206 B.C. in Han dynasty they rubbed stone tablets for printing, 581 A.D. in Sui dynasty they block printed from single wooden board, 1041 A.D. they used movable type by Bi Sheng with clay blocks on iron plates, needed 360,000 pieces of type for serious printing
  • Gutenberg in 1456 A.D. prints Bible - but by that time there were Chinese libraries with books that were older then, than Gutenberg's Bible is now - for every book of songs that we have now, there are 10,000 Chinese texts.

Questions

  1. How old is Gutenberg’s Bible?
    Gutenberg’s Bible is about 600 years old.
  2. What is Teresi’s comparison of European to Chinese printing?
    When Europeans printed with moveable type there were libraries that were as old then as Gutenberg’s Bible is now.
  3. In your opinion does technology have anything to do with humankind getting along or fighting?
    No, our consciousness is the determinant of peace or war.
  4. In your opinion, why do many American text books speak of Gutenberg’s printing as a milestone?
    American textbooks speak of European origins because they are our predominant ancestors.