Cheongju Early Printing Museum, History museum in 운천·신봉동, Cheongju, South Korea
The Cheongju Early Printing Museum is a history museum in the 운천·신봉동 neighborhood of Cheongju, Korea, devoted to the story of early printing. It sits on the grounds of the former Heungdeoksa temple site and contains permanent galleries, a collection of old printing tools, books, and metal type, as well as hands-on areas.
The museum opened in 1992, after archaeologists confirmed the exact location of the Heungdeoksa temple site in 1985. The Jikji, printed at that spot in 1377, was inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2001.
The museum centers on Jikji, a Buddhist text printed at the nearby Heungdeoksa temple site in 1377. Visitors can see what the movable metal type looked like and try making a print themselves at hands-on stations.
The museum is open every day except Monday, and most visitors spend around an hour and a half to two hours inside. If you also want to walk the Heungdeoksa temple ruins on the grounds, allow a little more time.
The Jikji was rediscovered in 1972 by researcher Park Byeongseon at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, where it still remains today. This means the original of the world's oldest surviving metal-type printed book is not on view in Korea, only reproductions.
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