4 ms·

Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood. As expensive as tunics were, books were much more so. Copying the bible would have

Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood. As expensive as tunics were, books were much more so. Copying the bible would have taken several months (if not years) of labour. And the ability and control to spread such knowledge faster than others would not only be very lucrative but a source of great power.

germinalphrase 5y ago
There are political liabilities to the printing press.
gruez 5y ago
>Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood The printing press seems to be far more complex than just "carve some wood". Otherwise I find it hard to believe that it took until 1400AD for people to figure out how to make large stamps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg's_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg's_pre...
- ghaff 5y ago
  There is a lot of basic scientific knowledge that many/most modern people have (germ theory of disease, how the body works at some level, astronomy 101, etc.) But ancient people weren't stupid. They just didn't have advanced technology. Recreating a whole chain of technology to bring about the iron age maybe 1000 years early probably isn't happening. The fact is that they're mostly doing pretty well with building things that the technology more or less exists for.
- samatman 5y ago
  Woodblock printing was invented in the 7th century in Tang China. The prerequisite for economic printing is paper, and the tech tree for paper is reproducible from Roman conditions. The production of vellum is measured in years, scribes were barely the limiting factor on text production.
- philipswood 5y ago
  I also read somewhere that a good deal of his innovation was also in finding inks suitable for the process. A lot of existing inks at the time where suitable for writing not pressing.
estaseuropano 5y ago
The printing press is the easy part - parchment was expensive and hard or impossible to get.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Did the Romans not have paper of any sort? It seems odd that they only used animal skins for writing on. My understanding is that while parchment (vellum in particular) was used in early printing press printings, such as the Gutenberg Bible, the use of paper was more common because it was so much cheaper, if less durable.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    They did have papyrus but that is even less durable than paper, especially outside of very unique climates like Egypt (and the papyri that we do find there are very fragmentary). Parchment was known, but not widely used for obvious reasons.
  - ufmace 5y ago
    Seems more like all this stuff is tied together in tricky ways. Why bother learning to read if the only supply of written text is people hand-writing it on fragile paper or parchment, so getting even a single page of written text is super-expensive? Why bother figuring out how to make cheap and durable paper when all text must be hand-written by the few who had time to learn how? Why bother making a way to write faster when paper is expensive and nobody knows how to read? People need to solve all of those, and have some reason for solving each one independent of the others, before the written word can even start to proliferate widely.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
A book on agricultural developments post-antiquity to the industrial revolution would be a far more immediate source of power. Less starving -> more surplus -> more specialization of labor and societal development -> goto(1).
Archelaos 5y ago
The woodblock printing existed in Europe even before Gutenberg. Gutenberg's real contribution was the printing with movable metal types, which were themselves made by means of a hand mould he invented. So you had to carve a letter only once, produce one or several moulds from it and use them to cast identical metal types. This had not only the advantage that the types could faster be arranged into a text than cutting it all in wood. Their clear shapes were not only superior in appearance to any wood cut, but in one respect even to hand writen texts: all the types looked alike. Gutenberg's idea was not to make a cheap product for the masses (or at least for those who could read), but an extremly high-quality product for the top of the elite.[1] It is rather interesting to see that his intent and his actual impact were so far apart. [1] Cf. this sample from his bible: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Gutenberg_Bible_B42_Genesis.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Gutenber...

germinalphrase 5y ago

There are political liabilities to the printing press.

gruez 5y ago

>Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood The printing press seems to be far more complex than just "carve some wood". Otherwise I find it hard to believe that it took until 1400AD for people to figure out how to make large stamps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg's_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg's_pre...

ghaff 5y ago
There is a lot of basic scientific knowledge that many/most modern people have (germ theory of disease, how the body works at some level, astronomy 101, etc.) But ancient people weren't stupid. They just didn't have advanced technology. Recreating a whole chain of technology to bring about the iron age maybe 1000 years early probably isn't happening. The fact is that they're mostly doing pretty well with building things that the technology more or less exists for.
samatman 5y ago
Woodblock printing was invented in the 7th century in Tang China. The prerequisite for economic printing is paper, and the tech tree for paper is reproducible from Roman conditions. The production of vellum is measured in years, scribes were barely the limiting factor on text production.
philipswood 5y ago
I also read somewhere that a good deal of his innovation was also in finding inks suitable for the process. A lot of existing inks at the time where suitable for writing not pressing.

estaseuropano 5y ago

The printing press is the easy part - parchment was expensive and hard or impossible to get.

frosted-flakes 5y ago
Did the Romans not have paper of any sort? It seems odd that they only used animal skins for writing on. My understanding is that while parchment (vellum in particular) was used in early printing press printings, such as the Gutenberg Bible, the use of paper was more common because it was so much cheaper, if less durable.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  They did have papyrus but that is even less durable than paper, especially outside of very unique climates like Egypt (and the papyri that we do find there are very fragmentary). Parchment was known, but not widely used for obvious reasons.
- ufmace 5y ago
  Seems more like all this stuff is tied together in tricky ways. Why bother learning to read if the only supply of written text is people hand-writing it on fragile paper or parchment, so getting even a single page of written text is super-expensive? Why bother figuring out how to make cheap and durable paper when all text must be hand-written by the few who had time to learn how? Why bother making a way to write faster when paper is expensive and nobody knows how to read? People need to solve all of those, and have some reason for solving each one independent of the others, before the written word can even start to proliferate widely.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

A book on agricultural developments post-antiquity to the industrial revolution would be a far more immediate source of power. Less starving -> more surplus -> more specialization of labor and societal development -> goto(1).

Archelaos 5y ago

The woodblock printing existed in Europe even before Gutenberg. Gutenberg's real contribution was the printing with movable metal types, which were themselves made by means of a hand mould he invented. So you had to carve a letter only once, produce one or several moulds from it and use them to cast identical metal types. This had not only the advantage that the types could faster be arranged into a text than cutting it all in wood. Their clear shapes were not only superior in appearance to any wood cut, but in one respect even to hand writen texts: all the types looked alike. Gutenberg's idea was not to make a cheap product for the masses (or at least for those who could read), but an extremly high-quality product for the top of the elite.[1] It is rather interesting to see that his intent and his actual impact were so far apart. [1] Cf. this sample from his bible: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Gutenberg_Bible_B42_Genesis.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Gutenber...