Ancient example of printed text to be displayed in Melbourne: ‘It unites us all’

Melbourne’s State Library will display the Hyakumantō Darani, an extraordinary collection of 44,000 Buddhist prayers from 1268 CE, in celebration of its 20th-anniversary exhibition on the book’s evolution. These fragile scrolls, intended to be housed in wooden pagodas but never fully realized, highlight a rare Asian origin of printed text before Europe’s Gutenberg printing press. alongside them is a robust cuneiform tablet from around 2050 BCE, showcasing early writing forms from the Sumerian era. Dr. Anna Welch notes how these objects symbolize the global thread of written communication and their enduring relevance as tools for governance and creativity.