Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs
The printing press is in fact one of the characteristic technologies of the Renaissance—and, more to the point, of the Reformation, which happened more or less at the same time. Francis Bacon cites gunnery, navigation, and printing as the three great triumphs of European technology. Of course now we know that the Chinese came up with all three first. . .
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Which brings us around to various gambling tiles and sticks used in historical Asia where modern western cultures would use cards. Modern mahjong tiles (and dominos) work perfectly well for this, but strips of bamboo have (naturally) also been used. If you believe the
mythology, mahjong has been around since 500BC but it seems based on a (chinese) card game which in turn dates back somewhere in the Ming Dinasty (1368–1644) - with actual cards, but again the Chinese had TL 4 technologies earlier than the Europeans. And as noted, you make cards with woodblock printing (which they had), not movable type (which isn't very practical with ideograms) - they're
artwork, not
writing.
I vaguely also recall hand-painted "cards" made out of hand-painted thin sheets of ivory, but that necessarily puts them in the realm of "the fabulously wealthy".
Wikipedia claims
playing cards date back to the 9th century in china, which makes them firmly TL3 technology - just one that didn't make it to the West.