The former involved carving an impression by removing all material aside from that which formed a negative or reverse image of the symbol one wished to imprint, whereas the latter entailed the opposite process-that is, carving the negative image into the material. There were two types of seals: relief or intaglio. Meanwhile, the technology of making seals had continued to develop as well. it appeared among the Arab civilizations of the Near East. Eventually paper made its way to Southeast Asia and Korea, and by the mid-eighth century a.d. This early paper was made of hemp, bark fibers, cloth, and even fishing nets, and over time Chinese paper-makers perfected the process. 105 represented a significant innovation. Thus the invention of paper by Ts'ai Lun or Tsai-lung (c. 220) presented a series of written suggestions to the emperor, he did so on some 3,000 bamboo strips that required two strong men to carry them. The earliest Chinese scrolls or "books" tended to be unwieldy: it was said that when a learned man of the Han Dynasty (207 b.c.-a.d. During the Chou Dynasty, the second of these elements evolved into more usable forms, including silk and flat strips of bamboo or wood, which when sewn together made a type of scroll. Thus were born the four elements of written communication: the text itself (writing) the material on which the words or symbols were impressed (that is, clay and all the other forerunners of paper) the medium for making the text or symbols visible (ink) and the technology of transmitting ink to tablet: the seal. The latter came from the black excretions, such as creosote, left by burning wood and oil in lamps later, when this innovation passed to the West, it would be incorrectly called "India ink." As for ink itself, it may have originally come from various animal and vegetable substances, but in time the Chinese discovered a more stable material. Using a rudimentary form of ink, the seal would then be impressed on a variety of materials. The seal made its first appearance in the Chou Dynasty (1027-246 b.c.), when rulers and nobles commissioned artisans to carve them from precious jade or even rhinoceros horn, as well as copper. In China, the written word first appeared on bones or shells, and as technology developed, stone and later bronzeware became the preferred medium. Not only did they write on clay using a stylus, but in time the scribes of the earliest Mesopotamian civilizations began to use carved seals to repeat certain images-in particular, the "signature" of a ruler. The Egyptians carved their hieroglyphs into stone, but the Sumerians, lacking an abundance of stone in their homeland, instead used clay blocks. This was one of the signal developments toward the beginnings of civilization itself, since the transmission of ideas is essential to the propagation of learning. Long before paper and printing was the invention of writing itself, which seems to have come about independently in Sumer, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and China about 6,000 years ago. In time this would spawn an innovation that, when adapted in the West, would literally transform society: movable-type printing. As for block printing, it too had appeared outside China, where textile-makers used it for making patterns on cloth but in China during the seventh century a.d., the technique of printing large quantities of text with blocks first came to fruition. Two earlier Chinese inventions, paper and ink, paved the way for block printing so too did the practice of using carved seals, which dates to early Mesopotamian civilizations. Many centuries before the invention of the printing press in Europe, the Chinese developed a form of printing using carved wooden blocks. The Development of Block Printing in China Overview
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