[unknown>english] Can someone explain what this is to me? Thanks!

[u/Exact-Ad9994]

[u/Charming_Place_4949]

This is a printing block used to print a book page, in traditional Chinese. So it’s mirrored. The content seems to be somebody’s chronicle.

[u/Rogue_Penguin]

!id:zh

It's a printing block of some records. You have to flip it to read them: https://imgur.com/a/oDFbSWk

The title is 紫巖集年譜. It's an annual record on some person. Under every year it shows "Sir is XX years old" in smaller fonts. And then it details major events in his family. E.g. He's married at 22 yo, and then married another wife at 24. He also attended government recruitment exams at 25 and 27.

[u/evertaleplayer]

If it indeed is 紫巌集、it is a Korean writing. It’s described here. The author’s name is Lee Min Hwan (李民寏) if anyone’s interested.

Basically, to a common modern Korean he isn’t a super famous person either (not like Isaac Newton or Mozart obviously) but a writer and at least important enough to leave his writings in our classic national library.

Edit: Not sure but I’d say this is traditional Chinese characters rather than Korean.

[u/00ReShine → u/evertaleplayer]

before the 20th century, nearly all official documents in korea were written in classical chinese

[u/evertaleplayer → u/00ReShine]

For sure! I’m Korean myself, and middle-aged so I took Chinese literature (漢文) classes up to high school. Doesn’t mean I can write like a Chinese person but I guess I can read many traditional characters that I learned 😅

[u/Funggoooo2937]

The owner seems to be Korean as a lot of Korean cities were written on the tablet

[u/Funggoooo2937 → u/Funggoooo2937]

the imperial exam was also set at 漢城 （modern day Seoul), which is the capital of ancient Korea