Scholars say they have identified the earliest metal type in Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. The movable type dates back to the mid-15th century. The National Museum of Korea said Thursday the museum recently rearranged the 752 oldest out of hundreds of thousands of letters in its collection. Among them, 30 letters were probably used for the ¡°Neungeomgyeong Eunhae¡± published in 1461 during the time of King Se-jo, a Korean translation of the Shurangama Sutra Buddhist text, and for the ¡°Dusieeonhae¡±, a translated poety book published in 1481.
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Movable Hangul metal type probably dating back to the mid-15th century.
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Lee Jae-jeong, an assistant curator, said experts "analyzed the 30 prints with an electronic microscope and determined that the type matched the two books. The remaining 720 letters matched various translations published in 1668 and are therefore presumed to have been made in the late 17th century. Korea claims the world¡¯s oldest book in movable metal print book, ¡°Jikji Simche Yojeol¡±, published in 1377, 78 years before the Gutenberg Bible.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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