BBC Chinese, May 19, 2010.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/multimedia/2010/05/100519_vid_chinaprints_britishmuseum.shtml
My comment: From the web site of British Museum:
(1) The Printed Image in China: from the 8th to the 21st centuries. 6 May –
5 September 2010 / Rooms 90 and 91 / Free.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/printed_image_in_china.aspx
It states, "Printing was invented in China around AD 700." I am unsure what
it alludes to.
"The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are
of silk printed with flowers in three colours from the Han dynasty (before
AD 220 ).
"In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first mentioned in his
book 'Yuan Xian San Ji' that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist
scriptures during the Zhenguan years (AD 627~649).
"An early example of woodblock printing on paper, was discovered in 1974 in
an excavation in Xi'an (then called Chang'an, the capital of Tang Dynasty),
Shaanxi, China, whereby individual sheets of paper were pressed into wooden
blocks with the text and illustrations carved into them. It is a dharani [陀
羅尼] sutra printed on hemp paper and dated to 650 to 670 AD, during Tang
Dynasty (618–907). Another printed document dating to the early half of the
Chinese Tang Dynasty has also been found, the Snddharma pundarik sutra [梵
文；妙法蓮華經 in Chinese; "Lotus sutra" in English) printed from 690 to 699.
(b) The first printed periodical is
Kaiyuan Za Bao 開元雜報
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiyuan_Za_Bao
("printed on silk, and appeared between 713 and 734")
(2) Separately:
The David Vases. Jingdezhen, dated equivalent to AD 1351. On display:
Chinese ceramics, Room 95.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/d/the_david_vases.aspx