Early Printing

WHS connected to early examples of woodblock printing (China/Egypt 3th/4th century) or use of the printing press (invented in 1439). "Early" is translated as "before the 19th century", as Western printing technology then had become common and widespread around the world.

World Heritage Sites connected to 'Early Printing':

  • Aachen Cathedral Gutenburg created his first pieces with moveable type as momentos for pilgrims heading to Aachen, when this was cancelled one year he was forced to reveal his secret invention as a way of repaying len
  • Haeinsa Temple Houses the 81,258 wooden printing blocks from the Tripitaka Koreana
  • Kiev Pechersk Lavra: early 17th century printshop, now Book and Book Binding Museum
  • Lima First print shop in 1584
  • Luther Memorials
  • Lyon
  • Mantua and Sabbioneta Sabbioneta: Hebrew printing-press (1567)
  • Mexico City The house at "the corner of Moneda and Licenciado Primo Verdad streets in Mexico City was the home of the first printing press/print shop in the New World. (It) is located on the outer edge of what was the sacred precinct of the Templo Mayor" (Wiki). It was constructed in 1524 by Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spaniard captured by Mayans after a shipwreck who was obtained by Cortes to help as a translator during his conquest (via a Nahuatal/Mayan speaker). The first printing press arrived in 1539; link
  • Mogao Caves Diamond Sutra (currently in the British Museum)
  • Mogao Caves "the oldest printed book in existence, a ninth-century copy of the Diamond Sutra" (woodblock)
  • Paris, Banks of the Seine
  • Plantin-Moretus Museum
  • Qadisha Valley The first printing press in the middle east was built in 1610 at the Monastery of Qozhaya in the Kadisha valley. It used Syriac characters. Also this printing press was the first to print in Arabic language.
  • Spissky Hrad & Levoca Levoca: "There was a printing press as early as 1624" (wiki)
  • Strasbourg This is where Gutenberg lived when he perfected the movable type and first displayed the printing press
  • Venice and its Lagoon