An Experimental Reproduction Study on Characteristics of Woodblock Printing on Traditional Korean Paper (Hanji)

The history of printing technology in Korea is studied by investigating existing ancient documents and records and comparing accumulated data and knowledge. Cultural property research requires non-destructive testing and observation with the naked eye or aided by a microscope. Researchers’ experience and knowledge are required even though they cannot guarantee the outcome. For ancient documents and records that are presumed to consist of woodblock printing, wood type printing, metal type printing, or their combinations, each researcher draws various opinions and conclusions. This often causes confusion and divides the opinions of ordinary citizens and field specialists. Among them, the criteria for judging ancient documents or books printed using woodblock and metal movable material are ambiguous. Academic research on the development history of printing technology in ancient Korea has been stagnant, and conflicts among researchers have also erupted. Involvement of national investigative agencies not specialized in cultural properties has exacerbated the situation. In this study, we investigated printing characteristics that are likely to serve as more objective judgment criteria by quantitatively analyzing the experiments of retrieving several sheets of Korean paper (Hanji) using a replicated Hunminjeongeum (訓民正音) woodblock and quantitatively analyzing the images of the printed papers. In addition, the validity and questions for the typical phenomena presented as a method for distinguishing between woodblock and metal print are reviewed. We investigated the possibility of developing new objective judgement criteria through quantitative analysis using image analysis and investigating the printing characteristics of Korean paper through a reproduction experiment of woodblock printing.