What if the printing press had been invented in antiquity?

[BrainGlutton]

Say, around the Sixth Century B.C. (the age of the first definitely known Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus), when alphabetic Greek was just getting going as a literary language. Suppose you go back in a time machine to around then and introduce a printing press and make no other change -- or somebody of that time gets the obvious idea from seal-stamps or textile-printing blocks -- does the course of history change? Or do we just have a better record of it?

[XT]

It was. IIRC, the Chinese invented the printing press over 600 years before the Europeans did. Problem was, their written language just didn't lend itself to moveable type, though they did use it extensively.

-XT

[Mosier]

It was. IIRC, the Chinese invented the printing press over 600 years before the Europeans did. Problem was, their written language just didn't lend itself to moveable type, though they did use it extensively.

-XT

I think we're supposed to consider an alternate history in which alphabetic written language and the printing press got popular in the same place at the same time around 600bc.

[Mangetout]

In many (although not all) ways, the question is akin to asking what the world will be like hundreds or thousands of years from now. The printing press was slightly overdue being invented, but much of what we do and are today is a product of it - to the breadth of extent that, had it been.invented earlier, we'd be living in whatever is a plausible future to.us now.

[XT]

One thing I've always fantasized is that the Great Library at Alexandria had a printing press and the availability of large quantities of paper, ink and book making skills. Imagine what might have been saved simply due to having large numbers of copies distributed from the library to various nations or even individuals who might have been interested in copies of the various works. Even before the place was burned they were losing information just because making copies was so difficult, and you had to physically go there to view much of what was there. Imagine the impact of all that knowledge being more widely distributed and available to more people throughout the ancient world.

-XT

[Lemur866]

Well, the paper is the other part of the puzzle. It doesn't do much good to have a printing press if the only material to print on is expensive parchment. You need the combination of cheap paper and printing.

[The Second Stone]

Wouldn't that move antiquity back before that? Isn't anything before moveable type antiquated?

[BrainGlutton]

And to really get highest-and-best-use of it all, somebody needs to invent the sewn-sheet or glued-sheet codex-book to displace those cumbersome scrolls as the industry standard.

[BrainGlutton]

Imagine the impact of all that knowledge being more widely distributed and available to more people throughout the ancient world.

Well, that's what we're talking about here: Cheap written/printed matter for the masses means (or stimulates) mass literacy, with all that implies.

[TriPolar]

A lot would have changed. It is surprising that it took so long to invent moveable type. But it is slightly more complex than it seems. And without the spread of Christianity and the Bible as a book worth printing, the whole thing may not have been able to jump start. You need people who can read, and something people consider worth reading. Christianity may have gotten in the way initially by making scriveners out of monks to keep them busy.

[Bryan Ekers]

Well, that's what we're talking about here: Cheap written/printed matter for the masses means (or stimulates) mass literacy, with all that implies.

Yep. The Phaistos Disk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc) is an interesting artifact, representing movable type circa 1700 BCE, but if your only medium is soft clay, it's of limited use.

[BrainGlutton]

Of course, we're not just talking about Greece -- the contemporary Phoenicians (who invented the alphabet) would use printing too (mainly for commercial purposes, at first). And before long, the government of the Persian Empire would be using printed paperwork.

[Sage Rat]

A lot would have changed. It is surprising that it took so long to invent moveable type. But it is slightly more complex than it seems. And without the spread of Christianity and the Bible as a book worth printing, the whole thing may not have been able to jump start. You need people who can read, and something people consider worth reading. Christianity may have gotten in the way initially by making scriveners out of monks to keep them busy.

The printing press was invented (in Europe) almost as soon as paper was introduced.

Paper itself was being used just on the other side of the Mediterranean by the Arabs, so there was worry by the Church that if paper was introduced, exchange with the Arabs would pick up and Catholicism would be taken over by Islam or ancient Roman and Greek ideas. It was the initial introduction of paper and other knowledge from the Middle East into Europe that caused the little Renaissance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_century), probably cut short by the Medieval Inquisition starting around 1230.

However, starting around 1300 the church started to persecute the Jews. While the Jews had always been something like outsiders in Medieval society, there hadn't been active dislike and fear of them. These fears and suspicions of Jews that pervaded society caused the uprise of the written business contract, which allowed the uprise of loaning, which in turn lead to people trying new business ventures, which included bringing over paper from across the Med, inventing the printing press, and overall leads into the true Renaissance.

The printing press may have changed history significantly, but then again it might not have. The Arabs were building animatronic devices and performing experiments according to the scientific method, all with paper at hand. But you'll note that it didn't really lead anywhere. Wealthy geniuses had fun toying about with various devices and so on, but that was basically just a hobby. At most, you built something big and fancy to gain the attention of the king and gain favor for a while, but you didn't set up a factory to build millions of them, hire on workers, and bring the invention to market.

Similarly, the ancient Greeks had gears and screws and whatnot, making things like the Antikythera mechanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism), but again, this was probably just the product of a lone tinkerer, playing about in the ancient Grecian equivalent of a garage.

The Arabs had all the technology they needed to produce the printing press, as did the ancient Greeks. In the former case, they even had paper. But they didn't invent the printing press because no one was trying to start a business and make a profit.

Medieval financial thought was probably not all that different from say, the finances of modern Mexico. If someone in your family is doing well, then everyone goes over to his house every weekend to gorge. All of the wealth spreads through the whole family, with the most productive member earning (effectively) no more than the least productive. If someone in your family has a hammer and you need one, you go over and take it, as though it was yours, because you need it at that moment, and they do not.

In modern America, on the other hand, if your own brother came into your room to "borrow" something, most people would throw a screaming fit, let alone cousins or more distant family.

This level of possessiveness is necessary for people to start thinking along the lines of profiting off of their neighbors. That's what the mistrust between Medieval Christians and Jews introduced into society, the willingness and desire to screw over your neighbor for your own sake (aka make a profit). It just so happened that the best way to profit off of your neighbor is to produce things that would make his life better, and the more inventive you are at that, the better a chance you have at profiting from him. Once people realized they could profit off outsiders and scoundrels, they started to do it to their own society and eventually even their family (though to a much limited extent).

Basically, the printing press in Ancient Greece would have been an interesting toy. But until a society somewhere had enemies living across the street from one another, forming strict contracts based on mistrust, and devising ways to get rich off of one another, you wouldn't see much scientific growth beyond what a single wealthy genius can develop in his garage.

[Bryan Ekers]

Ah, if only it had occurred to them to use movable type to print porn, it would have spread like wildfire, like VCRs and the internet.

[appleciders]

And to really get highest-and-best-use of it all, somebody needs to invent the sewn-sheet or glued-sheet codex-book to displace those cumbersome scrolls as the industry standard.

Codices were in use at least as early as the first century CE, and were pretty standard by about the 5th century CE. They may not have been around yet at the OP's 600 BCE, but they probably would have shown up sooner if the printing press were in existence.

[Sage Rat]

Ah, if only it had occurred to them to use movable type to print porn, it would have spread like wildfire, like VCRs and the internet.

That is a fair point. If it had been invented during Grecian or Roman times, instead of Christian, porn would have been fairly popular I imagine.

What was literacy like during those times? Was it just scribes who knew how to read and write, or did high ranking men learn it? Would they start to learn to read so that they could read smut to their wives, and their wives learn it as well, or would they just have a slave read to them?

[TriPolar]

What was literacy like during those times? Was it just scribes who knew how to read and write, or did high ranking men learn it? Would they start to learn to read so that they could read smut to their wives, and their wives learn it as well, or would they just have a slave read to them?

This is the part I don't know, and only lightly alluded to in my previous post (and thank you for that information you responded with). There had to be enough people that could read to make printing worthwhile. As I recall the libraries of the romans were just a pile of scrolls and papers with no real organization. This indicates to me that there weren't all that many people reading them. Some other thing I vaguely recall was the the library at Alexandria was more like a museum than a library, with people looking at the collection and not the content. But I have little background in history to judge the applicability of these snippets of info.

[BrainGlutton]

However, starting around 1300 the church started to persecute the Jews. While the Jews had always been something like outsiders in Medieval society, there hadn't been active dislike and fear of them. These fears and suspicions of Jews that pervaded society caused the uprise of the written business contract, which allowed the uprise of loaning, which in turn lead to people trying new business ventures, which included bringing over paper from across the Med, inventing the printing press, and overall leads into the true Renaissance.

Western Civ is based on antisemitism?!

The printing press may have changed history significantly, but then again it might not have. . . .

Basically, the printing press in Ancient Greece would have been an interesting toy. But until a society somewhere had enemies living across the street from one another, forming strict contracts based on mistrust, and devising ways to get rich off of one another, you wouldn't see much scientific growth beyond what a single wealthy genius can develop in his garage.

Wait, there was all of that in ancient Greece, and ancient Phoenicia -- highly-developed merchant-culture. With written contracts, certainly, and lawsuits, and business ventures.

And do you think that, in a society as mentally and politically alive as ancient Greece, there would not be any demand for newspapers?!

[Sage Rat]

Wait, there was all of that in ancient Greece, and ancient Phoenicia -- highly-developed merchant-culture. With written contracts, certainly, and lawsuits, and business ventures.
People say that, and it is true, but it's not quite the same. Unfortunately, it's hard to distinguish what the exact differences are due to the lack of written information from the time, and due to the same sort of thinking that calls the ancient Mesopotamians "electricians" because they had batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery).

Basically, there's some fundamental philosophical underpinnings that need to permeate a society before they take law and trade, and approach those like a business, not just as a way to keep the world organized and mostly functioning.

[BrainGlutton]

People say that, and it is true, but it's not quite the same. Unfortunately, it's hard to distinguish what the exact differences are due to the lack of written information from the time, and due to the same sort of thinking that calls the ancient Mesopotamians "electricians" because they had batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery).

Basically, there's some fundamental philosophical underpinnings that need to permeate a society before they take law and trade, and approach those like a business, not just as a way to keep the world organized and mostly functioning.

I see no reason why a printing industry could not flourish without whatever you're talking about, in an ancient Greek society that seems to have supported a pretty big book-copying industry and a lot of highly bureaucratic papyrus-driven governments (especially in the Hellenistic period).

[BrainGlutton]

BTW, in the Classical Mediterranean world, the usual writing surface was not animal-skin parchment (very expensive) but papyrus. And, if paper were not invented, and printing produced sufficient demand, papyrus sedge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_papyrus) could conceivably be planted on an industrial-plantation scale all over the Nile Delta and maybe elsewhere.

[Sage Rat]

Western Civ is based on antisemitism?!
It's my running theory.

The Renaissance is famous for art and mechanics (most war machines). Why? Well because if you're the prince of a medival city-state, you want to show off and kick ass. You hire on scientists and artists to make stuff for you.

But why does that happen when it happens, and not before? Well there was a surge of wealth, starting in Italy, around that time. This is the same time as Pawnbrokers and Jews practicing usury on the Christians (which was allowed, whereas practicing usury on other Jews was not) started to pick up -- both in Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking#Medieval_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_banking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pawnbroking

And as said, this is the same time period as antisemitism started to be advanced by the Pope (starting with Benedict XIII).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_in_the_Italian_Middle_Ages#Middle_Ages

It's speculation as to why these two things would be linked, but it makes sense that it would be at the height of distrust of ones neighbors that society would develop the idea of personal property.

[smiling bandit]

Sage Rat, I can say that's a very... original... theory. I can also say it's definitely... unique. Wildly unique. Flagrantly unique. Complete nonsense, too. The roots are a bit more prosaic and go back much earlier.

[Sage Rat]

I see no reason why a printing industry could not flourish without whatever you're talking about, in an ancient Greek society that seems to have supported a pretty big book-copying industry and a lot of highly bureaucratic papyrus-driven governments (especially in the Hellenistic period).

I don't think there was a "book-copying industry". If you wanted a book, you might hire a copyists to copy it for you. I might be wrong on that point.

Industry is a sort of odd word for it, overall.

To go back to modern-day Mexico, for example, my brother had a devil of a time building his house there. The problem is that there will be say one man who is fairly skilled, knows how to build a proper house, and can actually give you your money's worth without it falling down or blowing up (as is, my brother says that he sees about one house explode off in the distance every week since most aren't built by a man like this). This man will almost always be relatively young, sort of the personal apprentice of the previous master builder in the region. He'll get a few wealthy clients, build a few proper houses, but then after that he doesn't care anymore. He's earned as much of a reputation as he is going to, built as fancy a house as he is going to, and he'll never earn any more money because it all goes to his family and cousins. If you hire him after he's stopped caring any more, or you aren't as properly wealthy as his other clients (like my brother), then he'll not do any work himself, and just assign whoever happens to be sitting about to build your house.

You can say that there's a Construction Industry in Mexico. But it will never quite be the same as the Construction Industry in the US. You don't get consistent results, with everything built to a particular standard of quality. The goal isn't money, it's just name. But because of being in a class-based society, 'name' has a cap.

And in a place like this, when you do business, it's always with relatives. If you're a contractor, then the person you call to do the plumbing on your current project will always be a brother or a cousin, not the best company in town. If your cousin isn't very good, you're still stuck for it. All of the houses that you build will be beautiful, with awful plumbing.

Basically, everything is made to be 'just good enough'. Things which are made well are rare and can only be the property of the very wealthy. If you can print enough books for the top ten nobles in the land, then you're all done. There isn't any benefit to making a million copies, even if the average person could read.

[BrainGlutton]

Ah, if only it had occurred to them to use movable type to print porn, it would have spread like wildfire, like VCRs and the internet.

Well, of course, you'd need block-printing for the pictures, but that ain't a big intuitive leap for the culture that invented the red-figure vase! And it might even stimulate the invention of lithography! :)

[Sage Rat]

Sage Rat, I can say that's a very... original... theory. I can also say it's definitely... unique. Wildly unique. Flagrantly unique. Complete nonsense, too. The roots are a bit more prosaic and go back much earlier.
You deny which of these?

1. The Jews acted as first bankers and loaners in Medieval Europe, most notably during the time of greatest oppression.
2. The success of this lead to Europeans to press for usury to be allowed, and to start their own businesses.
3. One of these first businesses was the introduction of paper.
4. Shortly after, the Renaissance occurred.
5. The Renaissance lead into the modern world for Europe. The Middle East and China, both of which had paper and clockwork, did not follow the same development.

[BrainGlutton]

Of course, we're not just talking about Greece -- the contemporary Phoenicians (who invented the alphabet) would use printing too (mainly for commercial purposes, at first). And before long, the government of the Persian Empire would be using printed paperwork.

And the Old Persian script (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_language#Script) BTW, was a "semi-alphabetic" syllabary and might have been efficiently printable. Likewise with the Devanagari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari) script of India. So, add those cultures to the print-bound world before too long.

[TriPolar]

You deny which of these?


Just a few notes here. Please correct my misimpressions.


1. The Jews acted as first bankers and loaners in Medieval Europe, most notably during the time of greatest oppression.


There had to be quite a bit of economic development leading up to the need for bankers and money loans. Jews were going to Hell anyway, so they didn't worry about the ban on usury. This role as the money lenders was an important factor in the oppression.


2. The success of this lead to Europeans to press for usury to be allowed, and to start their own businesses.


To start bigger business with paid employees maybe. I guess this would be the root of the merchant class which could earn it's way out of peasantry.


3. One of these first businesses was the introduction of paper.


How about some more detail on that?


4. Shortly after, the Renaissance occurred.


<checks calender> Ok


5. The Renaissance lead into the modern world for Europe. The Middle East and China, both of which had paper and clockwork, did not follow the same development.

To my earlier point, what did they need to print?

[BrainGlutton]

This is the same time as Pawnbrokers and Jews practicing usury on the Christians (which was allowed, whereas practicing usury on other Jews was not) . . .

:confused: Is there something in the Talmud against it? A rule that applies only to treatment of Jews and exempts treatment of Christians? Because I've seen that sort of thing alleged before, and it always turned out to be spurious.

[Senegoid]

Referring to the possibility of ancient Greeks doing porn:
Well, of course, you'd need block-printing for the pictures, but that ain't a big intuitive leap for the culture that invented the red-figure vase! And it might even stimulate the invention of lithography! :)

They did porn. I took an Art History class a few years back. The teacher showed us a picture of a painted vase showing two men having anal sex. (I wondered, though, what the ambient attitude might have been in those days. Would such a portrayal have been considered "illigitemate" or "dirty" in a sense similar to the modern view of porn? Or would it have been considered a perfectly valid subject to portray in art? The point here (in my mind) is NOT whether homosexual activity is "legit", but whether portrayal of same in art was "legit".)

[smiling bandit]

1. The Jews acted as first bankers and loaners in Medieval Europe, most notably during the time of greatest oppression.

That is dubious. There were certainly many prominent Jewish bankers bankers, but it's not clear whether they were even the most significant, at least in Italy. They probably were in Germany, though. There was also an existing tradition of Lombard banking.

2. The success of this lead to Europeans to press for usury to be allowed, and to start their own businesses.

Yes and no - monasteries throughout Europe were doing the same for quite a while. Restrictions on lending weren't very vigorously enforced.

3. One of these first businesses was the introduction of paper.

Not really, Paper was growing but not at first a significant industry and was not even a very valued product at first. Textiles were vastly more important, and paper was in fact largely an off-shoot, since paper production then used scrap cloth. In order, improvements in agriculture, textiles, and metal production all fed each other and were most important for economic development.

4. Shortly after, the Renaissance occurred.

True, but correlation, and not causation. The Renaissance benefited frm having paper, but it was not a critical product.

5. The Renaissance lead into the modern world for Europe. The Middle East and China, both of which had paper and clockwork, did not follow the same development.

No argument there. But you can kinda say the same for all the periods before, including the "Dark" ages. Growth, though not uninterrupted and not in all aspects at all times, was a hallmark of Christendom even as Rome as falling.

Italy's growth was spurred by several developments: the final removal of Byzantine armies, diversity of the separated but closely-located cities, and easy access to Mediteranean trade. In fact, many of the same qualities which led to the rise of Rome lef to a very different rise of Italy.

[BrainGlutton]

Referring to the possibility of ancient Greeks doing porn:


They did porn. I took an Art History class a few years back. The teacher showed us a picture of a painted vase showing two men having anal sex. (I wondered, though, what the ambient attitude might have been in those days. Would such a portrayal have been considered "illigitemate" or "dirty" in a sense similar to the modern view of porn? Or would it have been considered a perfectly valid subject to portray in art? The point here (in my mind) is NOT whether homosexual activity is "legit", but whether portrayal of same in art was "legit".)

In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, (http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Wine-Dark-Sea-Greeks-Matter/dp/0385495536) Thomas Cahill says the Greeks produced erotic/pornographic art for private enjoyment at home, but did not display it in public. But, of course, nude figures as such were a different category. (Gay porn was as legit as any other.)

[Farmer Jane]

I hypothesize we wouldn't have just three monotheistic world religions, what with all that thinkin' for yourself and all. :)

[Trinopus]

. . . The printing press may have changed history significantly, but then again it might not have. The Arabs were building animatronic devices and performing experiments according to the scientific method, all with paper at hand. But you'll note that it didn't really lead anywhere. . . .

Wasn't the high Arab civilization pretty much murdered by invasions, Mongols and Tatars and the like?

So, really, a lot would depend on the course of the rise and fall of civilizations, which we can't predict. Maybe Greece would have been strong enough to fight off the Romans... But maybe the waves of migration that overwhelmed Rome would, then, have overwhelmed Greece. Absolutely no way to know.

Isaac Asimov, in an essay, "The Tragedy of the Moon," wondered what would have happened if Venus had a large moon, much like the Earth's moon. It would have been visible to the naked eye, and would have prompted a much earlier discovery of orbital mechanics and a heliocentric model. Science would have had a vast head start, and our history might be thousands of years ahead of where we are now...

Or, y'know, we might all be dead from the thermonuclear exchange between the Chinese and the Indians in 900 B.C.

Trinopus

[BrainGlutton]

Wasn't the high Arab civilization pretty much murdered by invasions, Mongols and Tatars and the like?

Perhaps with printing and a broadly literate population, that (or any) civilization might have been more resilient -- bits and pieces of its collective knowledge being stored in minds and books here and there all over the place, easy to piece together even if the main centers of learning and their inhabitants are destroyed.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

600 BC? God woulda found a way to bring Jesus to earth before the printing press was invented, then. If people would have come up with a way to show what was being said at the time of Christ, God would have needed to move the goalposts back just a bit further.

[chappachula]

Western Civ is based on antisemitism?
yes, according to my professor of medieval/Renaisance history.
I remember him saying "if the Jews hadn't existed, the Church would have had to invent them", because they were essential for society to function. Catholic law prohibited "usury"--defined as charging any interest at all on loans.This made banking impossible.
As commerce developed, and became as important as agriculture, it became essential to provide loans to the new, rising class of businessmen. But the Church refused to allow interest.
Western civ was changing, but the Church wasn't.
So the only place to get a loan was from the Jews. And it's pretty easy to see why antisemitism followed.

[smiling bandit]

I remember him saying "if the Jews hadn't existed, the Church would have had to invent them", because they were essential for society to function. Catholic law prohibited "usury"--defined as charging any interest at all on loans.This made banking impossible.

How many times do I have to go over this?

No, No, NO! Gah! People don't bother to learn anything about history and then spew whatever someone supposedly told them he felt on the internet.

For a brief start: banking went along just fine before the rise of large Jewish finance houses, antisemitism predates Christianity, and in any case even the idea that the Church completely prohibited interest is not particualrly accurate, either.

[BrainGlutton]

600 BC? God woulda found a way to bring Jesus to earth before the printing press was invented, then. If people would have come up with a way to show what was being said at the time of Christ, God would have needed to move the goalposts back just a bit further.

:confused: Is this a whoosh? Why would God be inimical to print existing in Jesus' time?

[BrainGlutton]

Remember, we're talking about all the literate cultures from Carthage and Rome to India acquiring print, probably within 50 years or less of introduction, as it's not a difficult technology to copy.

[Maeglin]

How many times do I have to go over this?

No, No, NO! Gah! People don't bother to learn anything about history and then spew whatever someone supposedly told them he felt on the internet.

This is true.

For a brief start: banking went along just fine before the rise of large Jewish finance houses

Yes. It is tempting to think that the Jews dominated early medieval moneylending and banking because so many of the documents that survived are Jewish in origin. For example, consider the Geniza archive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Geniza). It contains a huge number of Maghribi commercial documents, all because it was Jewish practice to dump their documents in a cemetery. We happened to be lucky enough to find this one.

antisemitism predates Christianity

Long predates it. The best book you will ever read on the rise of anti-semitism in the Middle Ages is The Formation of a Persecuting Society by RI Moore. There is something unique about late medieval and Renaissance persecution, and RI Moore teases it out really well. He links persecution to literacy, the increase of bureaucratization, and ultimately the rise of the middle class. It is a very stimulating read and is quite short.

and in any case even the idea that the Church completely prohibited interest is not particualrly accurate, either.

Also true. Christians, who dominated banking and finance during the Middle Ages, had no problem charging each other interest. They could receive special pardons from the church (usually for some sort of fee), they hid loans in bogus partnerships, and added surcharges and handling fees to contracts that did not explicitly bear interest. LeGoff has the classic book on the subject, called Your Money or Your Life. He argues that the church invented Purgatory to give moneylenders the hope of eventually going to heaven. Another great book, also very short.

[smiling bandit]

Maeglin, I could -

*Checks whether Maeglin is male or female*

- offer you a warm-hearted by completely platonic handshake. I may even check out those books.

[Maeglin]

Maeglin, I could -

*Checks whether Maeglin is male or female*

- offer you a warm-hearted by completely platonic handshake. I may even check out those books.

Ha, thanks. I didn't even know where to start with some of the above arguments, so I figured I'd just pick up where you left off.

I think that the role Jews played in early medieval finance was very important, though. They did have better access to eastern luxury goods until the Italians superseded them. The Jews were also important royal financiers in the early Middle Ages, also ultimately replaced by the Italians. They were moneylenders to kings because they had no political recourse whatsoever. Kings could refinance their debts to Jews at whim on whatever terms because they had no other protection save the king. The Plantagenets bled the Jews dry before tossing them out of England at the end of the 12th century and then promptly started borrowing from Italians.

[Maeglin]

And the Old Persian script (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_language#Script) BTW, was a "semi-alphabetic" syllabary and might have been efficiently printable. Likewise with the Devanagari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari) script of India. So, add those cultures to the print-bound world before too long.

Devanagari comes onto the scene about 1500 years after your printing press innovation. In 600 BC, Indians were probably using some flavors of Brahmi (descended from the Aramaic script) and would have also probably been printable.

[Lamia]

They did porn. I took an Art History class a few years back. The teacher showed us a picture of a painted vase showing two men having anal sex. (I wondered, though, what the ambient attitude might have been in those days. Would such a portrayal have been considered "illigitemate" or "dirty" in a sense similar to the modern view of porn? Or would it have been considered a perfectly valid subject to portray in art? The point here (in my mind) is NOT whether homosexual activity is "legit", but whether portrayal of same in art was "legit".)I took a class specifically on Ancient Greek art in college, and I remember the professor saying that vases were basically the wall posters of Ancient Greece. They weren't considered fine art.

[ModernPrimate]

or somebody of that time gets the obvious idea from seal-stamps or textile-printing blocks

I think you are crazy. It's not an "obvious idea" at all.

[psychonaut]

Of course, we're not just talking about Greece -- the contemporary Phoenicians (who invented the alphabet)The Phoenicians did no such thing. Their alphabet, like ours, evolved gradually from earlier scripts. The earliest undisputed alphabetic script predates the Phoenician one by at least five hundred years.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

:confused: Is this a whoosh? Why would God be inimical to print existing in Jesus' time?

You kidding me? Christianity is deeply dependent on an oral culture to gain a foothold. You woulda had say 17,000 books being mass produced in the greater Jerusalem metro area alone in Jesus's "lifetime," none of them eyewitness accounts of his miracles, or those few deeply flawed as to their reliability or authenticity ("I Balled Jesus of Nazareth--and He was Good!" by Mary Magdalene, etc.) and the religion would have been a laughingstock before it ever got started.

[BrainGlutton]

You kidding me? Christianity is deeply dependent on an oral culture to gain a foothold. You woulda had say 17,000 books being mass produced in the greater Jerusalem metro area alone in Jesus's "lifetime," none of them eyewitness accounts of his miracles, or those few deeply flawed as to their reliability or authenticity ("I Balled Jesus of Nazareth--and He was Good!" by Mary Magdalene, etc.) and the religion would have been a laughingstock before it ever got started.

You can't seriously be suggesting that oral tradition is more reliable -- or more dignified -- than print media.

[Maeglin]

You can't seriously be suggesting that oral tradition is more reliable -- or more dignified -- than print media.

This would be a perfectly reasonable assertion. People lie in print media just like they do in oral traditions. If anything, the lies are worse in print media just because the act of printing itself heightens expectations of truth.

Somehow oral traditions managed to pass on quite a lot of dignity. Homer has stood up pretty well.

[ModernPrimate]

I think this Brainglutton considers himself too "brainy" for his own good.

[Silophant]

This is unlikely. Brainglutton's fairly established here.

[BrainGlutton]

Somehow oral traditions managed to pass on quite a lot of dignity. Homer has stood up pretty well.

Of course, a lot of oral traditions bear a nearer resemblance to Chaucer.

[Sage Rat]

How many times do I have to go over this?

No, No, NO! Gah! People don't bother to learn anything about history and then spew whatever someone supposedly told them he felt on the internet.

For a brief start: banking went along just fine before the rise of large Jewish finance houses, antisemitism predates Christianity, and in any case even the idea that the Church completely prohibited interest is not particualrly accurate, either.

Bolding added.

To also quote Maeglin:

There is something unique about late medieval and Renaissance persecution, and RI Moore teases it out really well. He links persecution to literacy, the increase of bureaucratization, and ultimately the rise of the middle class.

I think that the role Jews played in early medieval finance was very important, though. They did have better access to eastern luxury goods until the Italians superseded them. The Jews were also important royal financiers in the early Middle Ages, also ultimately replaced by the Italians. They were moneylenders to kings because they had no political recourse whatsoever. Kings could refinance their debts to Jews at whim on whatever terms because they had no other protection save the king. The Plantagenets bled the Jews dry before tossing them out of England at the end of the 12th century and then promptly started borrowing from Italians.

So far as I can tell nothing either of you said actually contradicts anything which anyone else said? :dubious:

[Maeglin]

Bolding added.

To also quote Maeglin:





So far as I can tell nothing either of you said actually contradicts anything which anyone else said? :dubious:

You. You are completely wrong and the causal chain you posit in post 26 is not borne out by the facts as we know them.

Your linkage between anti-semitism and commercial development is at first glance wrong for two basic reasons. The first is chronological. The height of Jewish importance in the growth of medieval finance occurred in the early Middle Ages, when broadly speaking, society was far more tolerant of Jews (and Muslims). Anti-semitism followed but did not cause the decline of the financial importance of medieval Jewry.

Second, the persecutions of the 13th century were not limited to Jews. Religious experimentation within the church itself, which flourished in the 12th century, was brutally extirpated. Consider Fourth Lateran in 1213, which forbid the foundation of any new Catholic religious orders. Persecutions of homosexuals, lepers, prostitutes, mystics, female spirituals, and other fringe elements of society occurred at exactly the same time as accusations of blood libel against the Jews. Marginal groups from all over medieval society were under heavy pressure in this period. 13th century persecution was special, but not because it concerned Jews.

[Quartz]

Basically, the printing press in Ancient Greece would have been an interesting toy. But until a society somewhere had enemies living across the street from one another, forming strict contracts based on mistrust, and devising ways to get rich off of one another, you wouldn't see much scientific growth beyond what a single wealthy genius can develop in his garage.

That's a hugely interesting post but I'm not sure I agree. I'm thinking in particular of a king's need to promulgate laws and pronouncements. Printing - even on clay tablets which are then fired - is vastly cheaper than an army of scribes. Imagine if Hammurabi's laws had been widely promulgated, cast in stone, and not subject to the changing whim of the magistrate? Or Rameses II's pronouncements were able to be sent on papyrus to the leader of each nome?

[BrainGlutton]

Your linkage between anti-semitism and commercial development is at first glance wrong for two basic reasons.

What's more fundamentally wrong is the linkage Sage Rats draws between the "philosophical underpinnings" of commercial development and those of a literate, print-hungry society. He is saying the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, etc., could not be modern societies in that sense because they lacked real individualism and they were still Mexicans in their family-based worldview, or something. That's bullshit. There was never a civilization more literacy-oriented nor more family-oriented than China, after all. Of course they would've done something with print if they had a script you could fit in a printer's letter-case.

[Quartz]

Say, around the Sixth Century B.C. (the age of the first definitely known Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus), when alphabetic Greek was just getting going as a literary language. Suppose you go back in a time machine to around then and introduce a printing press and make no other change -- or somebody of that time gets the obvious idea from seal-stamps or textile-printing blocks -- does the course of history change? Or do we just have a better record of it?

Printing is still going to be difficult and expensive. Remember that paper had not been invented. So you're printing on clay tablets (which are then fired), parchment, vellum, or papyrus. Papyrus is cheap but fragile. I think that the prime consumers (if you will) will be the lawmakers and diplomats. With particular reference to the latter, the technology would soon spread east, first to the Persian empire, then India, and then to China. The technology might be sufficient to make them change to an alphabet.

[BrainGlutton]

Printing is still going to be difficult and expensive. Remember that paper had not been invented. So you're printing on clay tablets (which are then fired), parchment, vellum, or papyrus. Papyrus is cheap but fragile. I think that the prime consumers (if you will) will be the lawmakers and diplomats. With particular reference to the latter, the technology would soon spread east, first to the Persian empire, then India, and then to China. The technology might be sufficient to make them change to an alphabet.

Doubtful. Korea's example didn't.

[Quartz]

Doubtful. Korea's example didn't.

But we're talking 500 BC, not significantly later. This is right in the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, prime time for the spread of the printed word.

[BrainGlutton]

But we're talking 500 BC, not significantly later. This is right in the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, prime time for the spread of the printed word.

But the Chinese hadn't invented paper yet*, then, they were still writing on bamboo strips . . . Still, if that could be overcome, we are talking about the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought or whatever they called it, the impact of print on the intellectual life of the time would have been awesome.

* Paper was invented 105 A.D., during the Han Dynasty. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper)

[Quartz]

But the Chinese hadn't invented paper yet*, then, they were still writing on bamboo strips . . .

They had vellum, didn't they?

[Maeglin]

They had vellum, didn't they?

Vellum is very, very expensive.

[BrainGlutton]

Vellum is very, very expensive.

Yes . . . vellum (or parchment) is like really thin leather. Animal-skin product.

[Quartz]

Vellum is very, very expensive.

If the cost of printing on vellum is significantly less than the cost of using scribes, then that won't matter.

[BrainGlutton]

If the cost of printing on vellum is significantly less than the cost of using scribes, then that won't matter.

It will still prevent the press from reaching its full potential -- it's not just the cost, it's the supply. There's an upper limit to the number of animals a country will slaughter in a year, and in all but desert countries it will be much lower than the number of trees they can cut that year.

[Quartz]

It will still prevent the press from reaching its full potential -- it's not just the cost, it's the supply. There's an upper limit to the number of animals a country will slaughter in a year, and in all but desert countries it will be much lower than the number of trees they can cut that year.

Very true, but cost is linked to supply, and consider the populations of ancient cities like Rome, which, with its 1 million population in the time of Augustus, required a lot of feeding. Also consider that executions were rather common, so vellum from human skin might be readily available. Besides, are you not assuming they know they can make paper from trees?

[Maeglin]

If the cost of printing on vellum is significantly less than the cost of using scribes, then that won't matter.

This doesn't make any sense. Printing requires a capital investment whose cost is amortized over the life of the press. The more you print, the lower the marginal cost per item printed since the fixed cost gets spread out over more units produced. If the supply of vellum us low and the price is high, then you don't get enough scale to make the capital investment worthwhile in the first place. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where it would have been more economical to hire a scribe than to invest in a printing press.

[Saltire]

Are we assuming the invention is essentially Gutenberg's press? If so, the invention would have to come with significant mining and metallurgy advances. Gutenberg's greatest contribution was not the idea of movable type (He wasn't the first to think of that) but the exact alloy that made type easily moldable and yet durable for years of reuse. I doubt the Aegean cultures knew where to find a lot of antimony.

Assuming they had the materials and worked out something like paper, one of the major differences to come about would be in religion. By the time of Christ and Mohammed, their lives would be well documented by multiple contemporaries, rather than being written up years later in many fragments later assembled into scripture.

Personally, I think their fame would be shortlived and ridiculed by the newspapers. On the other hand, if the miracles actually happened and a lot of the participants were interviewed...

[BrainGlutton]

Also consider that executions were rather common, so vellum from human skin might be readily available.

Only if you're printing the Necronomicon.

[Quartz]

I doubt the Aegean cultures knew where to find a lot of antimony.

You'd be mistaken. Antimony was well known in the ancient world. Read the Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimony).

[Dissonance]

If the cost of printing on vellum is significantly less than the cost of using scribes, then that won't matter.

Also consider that executions were rather common, so vellum from human skin might be readily available.

Soylent vellum, it's made from scribes!

[BrainGlutton]

I think you are crazy. It's not an "obvious idea" at all.

Moveable type is not an obvious idea. But, if you can reproduce an image with a seal-stamp or a textile-block, you're printing. It doesn't take much imagination to see that you can reproduce a page of text the same way -- if you want to take the time to carve a wood block. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodblock_printing) Getting from there to moveable type, that probably took more than ordinary imagination.