The entrance of Dongyuan village features a stone sculpture in the shape of Chinese characters printed using wooden movable-type printing. [Photo/66wz.com]
Wooden movable-type printing, which is only practiced among a few dozen craftspeople in Dongyuan village in Rui'an city, East China's Zhejiang province, has been included on the first list of "one county, one product" cultural and artistic classics nationwide, organized by the National Rural Revitalization Administration, local media reported.
The technique, one of the oldest of its kind in the world, has been preserved because the ancient village retains a proud family tradition of compiling clan genealogies and printing them using wooden movable-type. It has been handed down from one generation to another by word of mouth for more than 800 years.
In November 2010, "wooden movable-type printing of China" was inscribed by the UNESCO on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritages in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
Dongyuan wooden movable-type printing make use of the traditional technology that originated in ancient China, and reproduces the scene of movable type printing, one of the "Four Great Inventions" of ancient China which are celebrated in Chinese culture for their historical significance. It is the best physical proof that movable type printing originated in China.
