The Chinese Roots of Playing Cards
The modern designs that we see on mass marketed poker playing card packs at the casino are typically imagers of 15th and 16th century European royalty. Even the names of the cards, like King and Queen, represent a European cultural model. Given the decided European slant of modern playing cards, it may be difficult to belief that playing cards can actually be traced to China.
A major argument in favor of the Chinese roots of playing cards is that the earliest cards were printed on paper. Paper, of course, is said to be invented in China in 105 A.D. This important invention would have provided the pivotal material needed to produce playing cards. When combined with wood block printing techniques created in Egypt, the Chinese had the capacity to produce something similar to a deck of cards.
The earliest record of playing card use in China mentions cards being used during the T’ang dynasty (618-906). There is a bit of a problem with source material at this point because while the source mentions cards during the T’ang dynasty, it was not actually written until a couple of hundred years later. Most scholars agree that the use of poker playing cards was prevalent in China by the 9th century, although more expensive decks were reserved for the sole use of the emperor.
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