Earliest Printed Books in Select Languages, Part 1: 800-1500 A.D. | Britannica Blog

Earliest Printed Books in Select Languages, Part 1: 800-1500 A.D. | Britannica Blog :
"Korean. Baegun hwasang chorok buljo jikji simche yojeol [Jikji] (Cheongju, Korea: Heungdeoksa Temple, July 1377). A collection of Zen Buddhist texts compiled by a Korean priest named Baegun, the second volume of this book is preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. This is the oldest extant example of movable metal type printing.

Metal type was used in Korea as early as 1234; in 1403 King Htai Tjong ordered the first set of 100,000 pieces of type to be cast in bronze. Early examples of Chinese woodblock printing have been found in Korea, most notably the Mugujonggwang taedaranigyong [Dharani Sutra] scroll, perhaps the earliest extant printed document in the world. Discovered in 1966 in the Sokkatap Pagoda at Pulguksa, it presumably was put into Chinese characters by a monk named Mit’asan around the year 704."