As early as Shang Dynasty, people used knives to carve the word "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" on tortoise shells. These characters have sharp blades, beautiful brushwork and high level of "lettering". Before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and the Qin Dynasty, seal cutting was called "seal". After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, it was stipulated that the "seal" was used exclusively by the emperor, and the seals used by ministers and people were collectively called "seal". This led emperors to use seals or treasures, officials to use seals, generals to use seals and private users to use seals.
The word "seal" in seal cutting was written as "Zhen" in ancient times, next to the word jade. All the concave and convex patterns carved on jade are called "truth". Later, bamboo and silk became popular writing tools, so the shape of seal script was changed from "jade" to "bamboo". In fact, in ancient times, anything that belongs to jade carving, stone carving, bamboo carving and bronze carving can be called "seal cutting", and seal cutting is only a small part of it. When he arrived at Qin Shihuang, he comprehensively sorted out the national calligraphy styles, which were divided into eight styles. The words on the printing surface were called "copying and printing"; When Wang Mang decided to write six books, he called it "Miao Zhuan". From then on, it was clearly determined that Zhuan Shu was the font used for seal cutting. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, due to the preferences of literati, although the seal system was changed, it was still printed with seal script. It was not until the Ming and Qing Dynasties that a large number of Indian people came out that seal cutting became an art form based on seal script, expressing density and separation on the printing surface by carving, and seal cutting also changed from carving in a broad sense to the knowledge of printing in a narrow sense. Some people directly refer to this knowledge of printing as "engraving", "iron pen", "iron book" and "engraving stamp".