After the Northern Sung Dynasty, the characters of kanin were decorated more and more, and they gradually became a tool to show the authority of the governmental officials and lost the function of being read.
しかし北宋以降、官印は文字の装飾化が進み、だんだん文字を読ませるための印というよりも単に官吏の権威を現す道具となって行く。