Before the invention of the printer, the technique of engraving was not considered as art, but as a mean of communication.  During the 18th century original pieces of work started to be conceived, and during the 19th century artists began to produce limited and signed editions of their compositions.
3000 years ago, Sumerian civilization was the first known to produce multiple copies. They cut stones in a cylinder shape, in which afterwards they carved their designs. By rolling these cylinders on soft clay, they “printed” the original design. Nowadays technique is based on this basic principle. This invention created the concept of the roller, today known as rolling or printing press.

Around the 1st century AD, after paper was invented by the Chinese civilization, the process of engraving started to look similar to the concept we know today. However, the technique was not really developed in Europe until the paper arrived in the 15th century.