Engineers
Bi Sheng
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Bi Sheng was a Chinese artisan of the Song dynasty who invented movable type printing using fired clay characters between 1039 and 1048, roughly four centuries before Johannes Gutenberg's independent movable-metal-type press in Europe. Because Bi Sheng was a commoner, almost nothing else is known of his life; his invention survives only because the scholar-official Shen Kuo recorded it in his Dream Pool Essays.
Facts
Disputed
Birth YearWikipedia's infobox gives a 972-1051 span, but the precise birth year is not independently attested beyond that inference; only his death year (1051) and the 1039-1048 window for his invention are directly recorded. NationalityChinese (Northern Song dynasty) 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
In the Other Atlases
- Also in History Atlas: Bi Sheng, the same subject.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.