Human Epic
Communication and exchange
Early Mesopotamian writing: accounts in clay
Early Mesopotamian tablets used signs to record goods, quantities, and labor, developing proto-cuneiform writing. Written records endured beyond the moment of speech and gradually served more social purposes.
Zhang Qian: missions to Central Asia and Eurasian contacts
Zhang Qian’s journey brought information about Central Asian states and routes to Han China, supporting later contacts within exchange networks maintained by many societies.
Cai Lun and papermaking: materials, craft and transmission
In 105 CE, Cai Lun reported improved papermaking to the court. Archaeological finds include earlier paper, while his improvements and promotion helped establish paper as a writing material.
Song: urban commerce, printing and academies
Cities, trade and maritime activity developed alongside schools, academies and printing. Northern and Southern Song coexisted with Liao, Jin, Western Xia and other states.
Bi Sheng and movable type: clay characters, composition and reuse
Shen Kuo described Bi Sheng’s fired-clay characters, assembled for printing and reused afterward. Dream Pool Essays preserves the methods of making type, composing pages and alternating printing work.
Yuan: capitals, relay routes and cultures across regions
Artisans, merchants and religious communities connected Yuan cities and courts across regions, amid warfare, migration and unequal status. The Yuan name dates to 1271; Southern Song fell in 1279.
Jikji: Buddhist teaching, patronage and metal type
Heungdeoksa temple in Cheongju printed Jikji using cast metal type. The colophon in the surviving second volume records its place, year, and printing process, preserving material evidence of early metal-type printing.
The Gutenberg Bible: producing a book in many copies
Printers in Mainz produced a forty-two-line Latin Bible, demonstrating the capacity to make large printed books in Europe. Surviving copies and contemporary records place the publication in the mid-1450s.
Morse’s first telegraph message: words travel along a wire
Samuel Morse sent “What hath God wrought?” from Washington to Baltimore, demonstrating long-distance telegraph communication.
Bell’s telephone experiment: a sentence reaches another room
In Bell’s Boston experiment, Thomas Watson clearly understood speech sent to an instrument in another room. Bell recorded the result in a letter to his father that day.
Opening the Web: links, software and shared use
CERN placed the Web’s foundational software in the public domain for people to use and improve, encouraging its open spread.
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