In this class we discuss the development of information technology from cuneiform to Gutenberg's printing press.

1. Paper to Print
ART 100
UNDERSTANDING VISUAL CULTURE

2. agenda
• recording things: how do we keep records?
• clay tablets [Sumeria]
• papyrus [Egypt]
• bamboo, silk, paper [China]
• qipu [Andes]
• parchment [Europe]
• from script (handwriting) to print
• advances in print technology

3. The earliest uses of writing (and other systems of notation)
that survive are ledgers that keeping track of quantities—
particularly household accounts, debts, amounts in inventory,
etc.

5. clay tablet
British Museum Society Tablet
Mespotamian, Late Uruk
(3100BC-3000BC)
clay with impressed cuneiform
3.7 in H x 2.7 in W x .91 in D
record of beer consumed on
account of different workers;
impressed with five different types
of numerical symbols

6. clay tablets
PROS CONS

9. water, sun and pressure compact the individual strips into a single
sheet; to make larger sheets, individual sheets are glued together

10. Lesley Perrins, How
Paper Is Made. (Facts
on File: New York,
1985): 16.
Processing Papyrus stalks into paper

12. papyrus fragment
Simonides [Greek]
epic poem about a Greek military victory

13. Fragment of Gospel
of John
3.5 x 2.5 inches
script style dates this
to 125-150
oldest surviving
fragment of New
Testament
Rylands

15. papyrus
CONSPROS

17. China
calligraphy on bamboo strips
c. 300 BCE
history text

18. Paper and Systems of Notation
• rise of paper production in Baghdad late eighth/early ninth
sparks production of books, scholarly activity, development of
libraries
• it also impacts the develop of systems of notation, new ways of
representing human knowledge in various fields
• math (numerals)
• commerce (numerals, coinage, standard accounting
procedures)
• geography (cartography)
• cooking
• music (counter-example of dance notation)
• genealogy
• battle plans

20. qipu or khipu (pronounced KEE-poo): based upon the Quechua word for "knot,"
an unique record-keeping system developed in the Inca Empire.

21. Data is stored in the position of the strings, their
length, and the number, size and position of the knots.

22. The Inca Empire expanded
rapidly in the 15th century.
Thousands of miles of roads
were built across the Empire;
soldiers needed payment;
temples required maintenance.

23. The qipu were stored and
used by “khipucamayuq”—
administrators of the Inca
Empire who used them to
encode census and tax
data.

25. animal hides were stretched,
dried and treated to create velvety
smooth surfaces for writing

26. http://web.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/parchment.html

27. “Giant” Bible of Mainz
completed July 9, 1453

28. parchment
PROS CONS

29. script vs. hand

30. from script to print
• print permits a greater degree of standardization and
modularization
• more information can be exchanged more quickly
• linked to rise of science, ongoing development of human
rights

31. early printing
• Woodblock printing
• Invented during the Tang Dynasty (618-907)
• Popularized during the Song Dynasty (960-1279)
• Moveable metal invented in Korea during the 9th century; many
extant copies of Korean metal-type printed texts from the 12th and
13th centuries.
• There were also sets of moveable wood type.

32. wooden type

33. Buddhist text
China
c. 1300
woodblock

36. cast bronze type

37. tray of set metal type

39. 1454 or 1455
printed using moveable metal type; ¼ of the copies printed on parchment, the other ¾
printed on imported Italian paper

42. Jost AMMANN (1539-1591)
“The Printer's Workshop,” from The Book of Trades
woodcut
1568
114 woodcuts illustrating different trades, each with
a poem
In the background, two men are selecting letters
from a double-type case, which they would
assemble
in a line on a hand-held tray according to the
manuscripts pinned beside them.
In the foreground, the man on the right is inking the
lines of type, while the man on the left removed a
completed page from the hinged frame.
The whole assembly is then slid under the press,
which is forced down by one horizontal pull of the
handle.
Woodcut blocks can be printed in this press at the
same time as text.

43. early printed format
 broadsheet/broadside: a single sheet that was used to
print announcements or notices on one side only.
 could be posted publicly and read/viewed by all

44. Erhard Schoen,
broadsheet titled "A scary
story of the devil and a terrible
woman that happened at
Schilta during Holy Week
1533.”
woodcut

46. Georg Mack the Elder
Broadsheet recording the sighting of
a comet at Nürnberg in November
1577
woodcut, colored single leaf

48. etching
1797
France

49. design of printing press
London, 17th century

50. hand-cranked printing press,
but now in cast iron, allowing
greater pressure to be exerted
on the plates

51. early design for steam-powered printing press

52. New combination of
technologies in the 1820s
• steam power
• iron presses
• higher pressure for reproduction of images
• larger printing area
• endgrain wood engraving (produces harder, smoother
surface that can hold finer lines)
These technological improvements led to an explosion of print
materials in the 19th century.

53. Charles Frederick
Ulrich
The Village Printing
Shop, Haarlem,
Holland
1884
Oil on panel
21 1/4 x 22 15/16
inches

54. Published in The Illustrated London News, June 15, 1861, p. 555.

55. press room, Christian Herald, c. 1898

57. what happens when print is
mechanized?
 Ephemera
 tickets, menus, billheads, public notices and posters
 skilled designers, illustrators, caricaturists, beginning of
advertising profession
 Illustrated weeklies
 Also impacted publication of books and prints

71. cover of Harper’s Weekly,
February, 1895

72. changes in advertising

73. These small text-based ads will give
way to an entirely different regime of
of

75. Sir John Everett Millais
“A Child’s World”
1886

76. “Bubbles” Pears Soap ad, 1890