WHO INVENTED PRINTING, AND WHEN DID IT DEVELOP?
There is some debate about where and when printing first developed. Although the ancient Egyptians used woodblock printing to mark textiles, the technology was refined in China and Korea, probably around the sixth century AD.
Crucial to that later development, however, was the development of papermaking in China. The process pioneered during the Han dynasty – according to tradition, in AD 105 – involved pulping rags, mulberry fibres and hemp waste with water. Engravers carved whole texts into wooden blocks that were coated with ink and pressed onto paper, producing facsimiles. The earliest-known printed texts were produced using by Wang Jie, printed in AD 868.