providencepubliclibrary: So, Gutenberg Didn’t Actually Invent...

So, Gutenberg Didn’t Actually Invent the Printing Press:
On the Unsung Chinese and Korean History of Movable Type.
- M. Sophia Newman, LitHub.

“But the lengthy book would have required an impossibly large number of woodblocks, so Choe came up with an alternative. Building on earlier Chinese attempts to create movable type, he adapted a method that had been used for minting bronze coins to cast 3-dimensional characters in metal. Then he arranged these pieces in a frame, coated them with ink, and used them to press sheets of paper. When he was done, he could reorganize the metal characters, eliminating the need to persistently chisel blocks. It was faster—to a certain extent. He completed the project in 1250 AD.

Perhaps it should be Choe Yun-ui whose name we remember, not Gutenberg’s.”

Read the complete article here.