Welcome to the cocky ride home for july thirteenth two thousand and twenty one. I'm glenn fleishman in for jackson bird. Who is on vacation archaeologist. Dig up a massive cash. Fifteenth century metal printing type in south korea. Baby beaver is born in x. More for the first time in centuries what if ice cream but also macaroni and cheese. A video game breaks records and may indicate a sales bubble and nick cages pig. Probably good here are some of the cool things from the news today. Sixteen hundred pieces of metal characters used for printing were unearthed in south korea recently. This discovery of movable type characters that can be used to print rearranged into different words and used again has excited scholars of early printing. That's not because they offer the first archaeological proof of printing before you hanis gutenberg. The so-called inventor of printing with movable type that has long existed but because of the sheer quantity and diversity of characters while the type still needs to be authenticated. It's believed to date to fourteen forty three. It would be the largest set of early metal ever discovered even though the use of metal type pieces is recorded in korea. Thirteen seventy seven and almost certainly before that based on examination of surviving books. Only two pieces of type or thought to predate this latest discovery. The type and other artifacts were uncovered while archaeological investigation was underway at a site under development in insa deng an area that was off limits to construction until twenty thirteen. The korea herald described the area and quote a focal point of traditional culture in the northern part of seoul and quote. The cash was found underneath where a house had stood in an area populated by middle class residents and government employees in the fourteen. Hundreds oak young tech head of the pseudo research institute of culture told the korea times quote. It seems that a person buried them during an emergency and failed to recover them. We have recovered many relics buried in a similar manner. during wars. in the sixteenth century and quote the type uncovered comprises one. Thousand pieces in chinese characters and six hundred in hungary will also known as the korean alphabet. Hull was developed by king sage. The great in fourteen forty three which is part of what is driving the dating of this type. The chinese have the earliest surviving accounts of and examples of printing one dating back over eighteen hundred years examples in the first millennia of the common era. Where zeiler graphic or based on carving would typically an entire page or large parts of the page carved than they were inked and paper linen or other material pressed onto it in ten forty ce a pretty precise state. Amanda ambition apparently developed movable type using both wood and cast ceramic pieces. The would was a dead end and none of his ceramic type survives but descriptions of his process go into great detail developments proceeded over decades and centuries in both china and korea that led to using sand molds into which brass was poured to cast brass type. Korean started using brass type as early as twelve thirty four. But there's no copy extent of the book known to be printed with it the earliest surviving book printed this way the jiechi dates to thirteen seventy seven. Europe was fairly far behind. The chinese had also invented paper though. The invention leak through invasions in the capture paper makers european papermaking started in earnest in the twelfth century. Italy the chinese and koreans knew how to cast metal type and print on paper with it. So how'd gutenberg and europeans and general get the credit for centuries that followed. They made it up in volume and by using simple alphabet. The korean king who introduced hongo hopes to encourage literacy but his efforts also made it more ideal for movable hype because it had just a few dozen basic and combination characters compared to the chinese are han characters which numbered in the thousands for basic literacy in that era and mostly still today. Despite this discovery of complete sets of hungary metal type. It was probably an anomaly. Hungary offended scholars and produce controversy. While caught on to some extent there was extensive resistance to it in fifteen o four and anonymous party possibly trying to disguise his upper class status publish documented hong-gul criticizing the contemporary king that led to that king banning hungary and having all books that contained it burned. It wasn't until around sixteen hundred that hungary became used more widely again. The lack of interest in hungary by scholars followed by this ban may have both stifled the growth in printing with metal types and erased historical traces. That could have revealed more extensive use. Couldn't berg apparently had no knowledge of earlier movable type printing from though zeila graphic printing was common enough. It's extremely likely. He didn't steal printing from china or korea. It seems more like improvements in metallurgy and refinement and metal sniffing and the production of coins and mints gave him some key ideas. His family was connected to the mint in might germany and he may have learned goldsmith Though that wasn't common for a member of his social class gutenberg had the same advantage that ngu offered latin and german had just a couple of dozen characters combine that with the critical marks numerals and punctuation. And it's still a very small set of unique characters to cast and print from to emulate scrabble handwriting gutenberg's workshop alternately created alternative versions of many lower case letters for fitting lines neatly as well as ligature or common combinations of characters like fica chin st even with all that the total character count across. Gutenberg's bible is well below three hundred unique characters. Gutenberg had to develop some method of producing lots of these pieces of type that could easily set squarely and lovely together for printing without moving probably using something that was later called a hand mould and if not a hand mould something that similarly allowed the mass production in the hundreds of thousands of pieces of type over just a few years during the printing of the bible. No printers in china or korea seemed to have come up with this hand casting idea. Although the new discovery may put the light of that gutenberg his workshop also had to create a press probably easing a wine presses. A model adapt inc prepare paper to accept that particular inc and figure out how to align pages to name just a few problems but the combination of innovations. He came up with can be readily learned and reproduced. Mostly unnamed printers in china and korea deserve the credit for being i couldn't brings intervention was producing a pre industrial process that.