Silk Road or Paper Road? Jonathan M. Bloom Boston College Well over a century ago, the bamboo strips or Austrian geologist and explorer tablets that had Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833- been used for writing Fig. 1. Han period bamboo woodslip found near 1905) coined the term Seiden- [Figs. 1, 2] and the Dunhuang, Dunhuang Museum. Photograph © Daniel strasse, “Silk Road (or Route)” to silk textiles that had C. Waugh 1998. refer to the network of land routes been used for larger that linked China and Europe from images, such as maps and were the first to discover (or the 3rd century BCE to the 15th drawings. Although the Chinese rediscover) that waste from century CE. Silk, which was traded initially made paper from refuse textiles that were themselves with the West from the later part fibers, they soon found that they made from plant fibers, including of the Zhou period (ca. 1050-256 BCE) was only one of the many commodities traded along these routes, for jade had been brought to China from Central Asia as early as the Shang period (ca. 1600 to ca. 1050 BCE), and Mediterranean glassware reached China during the Qin period (221-206 BCE) [Sørensen and Marshak 1996]. Traders brought exquisite Chinese ceramics to Iraq in the ninth century, when it was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty (749-1258), and Fig. 2. Land-purchase document in Kharosthi script written on a wooden tablet, Islamic underglaze-painted wares found at Niya by Aurel Stein, BL Or.8211/1494 (N.xv.11.a). Photograph © The as well as Iranian cobalt were British Library, used with permission. All rights reserved. See Silk Road Exhi- taken to China, where they bition online at <http://idp.bl.uk/education/silk_road/SR/kroraina/ krorainia_fs.htm>, item 76. inspired the development of that quintessentially Chinese ceramic could also make it from the inner linen and cotton but excluding wool technique of blue-and-white bark of several woody shrubs, such and silk (which were animal fibers porcelain [Carswell 1985]. Perhaps as bamboo, paper-mulberry, and impossible to use in papermaking), the most important product carried rattan that grew well in moist and could also make good paper along this trade network, however, humid southeastern China, and [Hoernle 1903]. Indeed, it was was paper, a now-ubiquitous from then on waste fibers were not often easier to make paper from material which has had a far normally used in China for previously processed fibers greater impact on the course of papermaking. because the fibers required less human civilization than silk, jade beating. It is likely that at a Buddhist monks and mis- or glass ever had. relatively early date Buddist sionaries, who began to use this travelers also brought paper and Paper, which is a mat of medium for copying sutras and knowledge of papermaking to cellulose fibers that have been other Buddhist writings, carried India, but unlike elsewhere, beaten in water and collected on paper and papermaking from the papermaking did not take hold in a screen and dried, was invented land of its origin to Korea, Japan India for another millennium in southeastern China in the and Central Asia, where they [Soteriou 1999]. centuries before Christ [Tsien stopped on the way to India, the 1985; Bloom 2001]. Originally land of Buddhism’s birth. The arid Paper was unknown in Western used as a wrapping material, paper Central Asian climate was quite Asia and the Mediterranean world began to be used as a writing different from that of subtropical before the coming of Islam, when material around the time of Christ, southeastern China, and the media traditionally used for when it was discovered that this papermakers were forced to find writing there were papyrus and relatively inexpensive, strong and different materials with which to parchment. Papyrus, which had flexible material provided an ideal make their product. It seems likely been used in Egypt from at least replacement for the narrow that Central Asian papermakers 3000 BCE, is made from a plant © 2005 Jonathan Bloom 21 Fig. 4. Letter on parchment from king of Kroraina to local governor in Niya, 3-4 century CE. BL Or.8211/1553 (N.xv.88). Photograph © The British Library, used with permission. All rights reserved. See online Silk Road Exhibition <http://idp.bl.uk/education/silk_road/SR/kroraina/ krorainia_fs.htm>, item 141. volumen, has evolved into words papyrus in a wider variety of such as volume and volute (on environments; it was especially account of its shape). Pagina, strong when used in the codex Fig. 3. Draft of a petition to the katholicos the Latin term for a column of format, for the repeated folding by Aurelios Ammon, Scholastikos, fl. 348 text on a papyrus roll, has and exposed edges it demanded CE. Duke Papyrus Archive, evolved into our word “page,” weakened papyrus sheets. P.Duk.inv.18R, online at <http:// scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/ and liber, originally the Latin The origins of the codex are records/18r.html>. Photograph © Rare word for bark, became the much debated, and it remains Book, Manuscript and Special Collections generic Latin word for book. unclear whether the triumph of the Library, Duke University Libraries, used Although the most common form codex format in the Mediterranean with permission. All rights reserved. of the book was the papyrus roll, world was directly related to the that flourishes along the banks of sometime in the centuries after spread of Christianity [Roberts and the Nile. The stalks of the plant Christ a new form of book, with Skeat 1983]. For about a were cut into lengths, the lengths separate folded leaves sewn thousand years writing-tablets of were cut into strips, and the strips together on one side, emerged. wood with a thin overlay of wax laid side-by-side in two This was known as a codex, from had been used for note-taking, perpendicular layers, held together the Latin term for a block of wood. composition, and temporary by the gummy sap exuded by the Parchment, which takes it writings, and these tablets were plant [Fig. 3]. Individual sheets name from the city of Pergamon often made in hinged pairs or sets, were joined together in rolls, which in western Anatolia, was the other essentially precursors to the the Egyptians used right to left and writing support used widely in parchment codex. Parchment the Greeks, who imported the Antiquity [Fig. 4]. Made from the codices allowed both sides of the material, used from left to right. skin of an animal which had been writing surface to be used The Greeks called papyrus khartes, soaked in lime, scraped of its flesh (impossible on a scroll) and made a word that has been transformed and hair, stretched on a frame and it much easier to refer to a to paper-related terms in many dried, parchment had long been particular passage in the text, modern languages, including carta used by the ancient Hebrews for because the reader did not have (Italian for paper) and our own copying their scriptures, the Torah. to “scroll through” the entire work card and chart. The Romans called The sheets, made from ritually- to find what he or she was looking the plant by the Latin term slaughtered animals, were sewn for. By the time of the revelation papyrus, which has also been together to form long rolls on which of Islam, the codex format was transformed into many other the text was written. Since an firmly established in western Asia paper-related terms, such as paper animal had to be killed to make a and the Mediterranean world as (English), papier (French and sheet of parchment, it was always the preferred format for books, German), and papel (Spanish). much more expensive than particularly the Christian Bible, The Greek word for a papyrus roll, papyrus, but it could be made with the notable exception of the biblios, has given rise to words anywhere (papyrus could only be Hebrew scriptures, which from Bible to bibliography, while produced in Egypt). Furthermore, continued to be copied on the Latin term for this same thing, parchment was more durable than parchment rolls, and diplomatic 22 Fig. 5. Quran on parchment, 8/9th century CE. National Museum, New Delhi 59.187. Photograph © Daniel C. Waugh 2001. documents, which continued to be leather, wood and paper, which copied on vertical-format papyrus Soviet scholars discovered at the scrolls. remote site of Kala-i Mug [Zeymal’ 1996]. A few decades later in 762 The first copies of the entire the new Abbasid dynasty Fig. 6. Sogdian Ancient Letter No. 2, ca. 313 CE, found by Aurel Stein at text of the Quran, which Muslims transferred the capital of the Watch Tower T.XII.a on the Dunhuang believe is God’s revelation to Islamic empire from Damascus in Muhammad, were transcribed on Limes. BL Or.8212/95 R. Photograph Syria to Baghdad in Iraq; this new © The British Library, used with per- parchment codices, although eastern focus, combined with the mission. All rights reserved. Nicholas papyrus, which was still produced government bureaucracy’s soaring Sims-Williams’ translation of the let- in Egypt (conquered by Muslim demand for records, led to the ter is online at <http:// armies in 641), continued to be introduction and quick diffusion of depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/ used for bills, letters and records paper in the Islamic lands. texts/sogdlet.html>. [Khan 1993]. Muslims visually differentiated copies of their Papermaking was begun in notaries began to use paper from scriptures from the Christian Bible Baghdad itself by the late 8th the late eleventh and twelfth by generally using a horizontal century.