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For hundreds of years in Europe books were painstakingly written word for word by hand by large groups of monks in monestaries. This tedious craft combined
with the monks use of stretched animal skin as paper allowed for the value of books to become very expensive. Books were then considered sacred artifacts and
few people had them. The only people who could afford books were the aristocracy and the clergy and because of this most people were illiterate. This gave a
serious dissadvantage to the underclass and slowed the growth of civilization. When the printing press was invented however literacy jumped. It became very easy
to make the books which before took years to make.It is oftentimes credited that Johann Gutenberg is the inventor and father of the printign press, however this
may not be true.138 Europe may not have had printable type till around Gutenburgs time however in the East it had existed for ages. The Earliest printed book with
a date is the Diamond Sutra and is an example of block printing and was printed by buddhists A.D 868. 81 The credit for the invention of moveable type goes to Bi
Sheng at around 1045-1058 A.D. Originally he created his moveable type out of carved wood but then he devloped a way to make it out of clay. Later in korea metal
type was invented sometime before 1232. Also
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