Explore wood type printing

Recently, Zheng Yixian, a consultant and research librarian of the Fujian Provincial Library, and Chen Shun, deputy director of the audio-visual department, discovered the ancient wood type printing and printing techniques that are still alive in Ninghua County. After a preliminary investigation, the number of existing wood type in Ninghua County exceeds 300,000.

The two experts explained that the significance of finding "living" wood type characters lies not only in the fact that everyone thought that the technology that has disappeared has been eliminated, but that there are still people who are using these wooden movable characters to use this technique. At present, the wooden movable type printing technology faces the problem of no heir, and it is urgent to start a protection mechanism.

Wooden type letters still need to find out

In ancient China, the engraved printing was developed and perfected through the Northern Song Dynasty and produced muddy movable type printing. Later, in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Yu, an agronomist in the Yuan Dynasty, created the wood type in the second year of Daede (1298). The wood type is carved into a single word such as pear wood, jujube wood or willow wood. Because it is relatively convenient to draw materials, the cost is not high, and it is relatively simple and rapid to manufacture, it has become a commonly used type of movable type in the history of movable type printing in China. Before and after the Opium War in the 19th century, the ancient engravings and wooden movable type printing were gradually eliminated and disappeared.

In our daily life, we can hardly see wooden movable type printing. However, according to media reports, the live wood characters that are still in use have been found in Ruian, Zhejiang, and Qimen County in Anhui, and they are also used to print genealogy. The wooden movable type of Zhejiang Ruian has successfully applied for the protection of national intangible cultural heritage. The expert judged that printing the genealogical tree was an important way for wood to survive and live to the present.

Zheng Yixian, a consultant and research librarian at the Fujian Provincial Library, introduced the living wood type that was discovered by the new learned community in Ninghua County. The first thing they would like to do is to “trace the source” and the second is to find out the family. “Ninghua’s woodworking typewriters can only talk about the inheritance relationship of their grandfathers and uncles. When they went deep into the source, where did they come from, they were not clear. And, In addition to printed clan genealogy, they still have not printed any other books and they are all of our concern."

Age of engraving is not the key

Now the woodworking characters mentioned by the composers are all from their memory. As for when these ancient wood type characters remained until now, they have not yet been researched.

In this regard, Zheng Yixian said that in the future they will carry out inspections through scientific means and determine whether these words are inscribed in the Qing Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, or the modern era. He emphasized that “from the wooden typeface technique we are concerned with, the era of wood type carving is not a very critical point. Because the wood type technique itself can survive is precious. Now, these masters are facing no With regard to the heirs, the relevant intangible cultural heritage protection departments urgently need to initiate protection mechanisms."

At the same time, Zheng Yixian said that the origin of the exploration of wooden movable type will also have some new additions to the world's printing history, book history, cultural history, and civilization history. “Now in Ninghua, Fujian, we have discovered that a large number of workshops still using wood type printing, and if there are more discoveries later, it is clear that in the history of Chinese printing, it is necessary to add some content to it, and it is possible to fill in blanks or to write a new chapter. In the history of Chinese books, people mentioned Jian Anben and Ma Shaben, but they paid less attention to this piece of wooden movable type. Studying how wood buzzwords in the past had once had a glorious past, and speaking to a bigger point, it may be possible to enrich Chinese cultural history. Something colorful."