A mark used by bibliophiles to mark the ownership of books and express personal interests. Also known as book printing. Seal script appeared in China in the Western Han Dynasty.
In order to identify the ownership of books, ancient bibliophiles often put seals on books. The seal is generally engraved with name, person, serial number, hometown, ancestral home, library, official position, logo, giving and receiving, warning, notes, statement, etc.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Jian and Su Shunqin had seals such as "Pei Liuxiang Descendants". In the Southern Song Dynasty, Jia Sidao had seals such as Autumn Valley Book. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, bibliophiles carved the words "I would rather eat my flesh while I am alive, and I would rather lose my hair when I am dead, and my children and grandchildren will never be buried" with deep affection. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, books of the Song and Yuan Dynasties were cherished by bibliophiles, and people who collected books of the Song Dynasty competed to boast. This kind of book collection is very popular.
Scholars in the Ming Dynasty used to call themselves "mountain people" and "lay people", so many of them were engraved on the seals of books, such as "lay people in Wenshui Road", "lay people in Wufeng Mountain" and "lay people in the east of the wall".
Many officials like to carve chapters in books, such as "My Road is in Cangzhou" and "History under the Column" in the following season, "Yan Yun, the town governor, crossed the defense" and "Fu Xuan, the governor" in Ye Sheng to express their feelings of "Spring Breeze Horseshoe Disease". There are also some bibliophiles who express their nostalgia for their predecessors in their books and seals. For example, in Wu Kuan, Jiangsu, there is a seal of "Yanzhou comes in season".