Unknown Maker, Japan

Here Chinese classical script is printed in vertical rows, with red and black annotations along the side that convert it into Japanese. Kanbun kundoku-these red lines and small marks, which indicate punctuation and reading sequence-is a system still used today. Depending on the placement of the annotations, the text can be read and interpreted in different ways.

This page, which probably dates to the 1600s, was printed in Japan. The main text (Shiji), seen here in the larger characters, was first written in the first century BCE by a Chinese scholar documenting 2,500 years of Chinese history. The smaller characters serve as commentary.