Paper - History
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The Origins of PaperEgypt 3,000 BCWhen we think of the origins of paper, we may think back over 5000 years ago to the Nile river valley in Egypt. It was there that a marsh grass called Cyperous Papyrus flourished. The Egyptians cut thin strips from the plant's stem and softened them in the muddy waters of the Nile. These strips were then layered in right angles to form a kind of mat. The mat was then pounded into a thin sheet and left in the sun to dry. The resulting sheets were ideal for writing on. Since they were also lightweight and portable they became the writing medium of choice of Egyptians, Greeks and Romans for record keeping, spiritual texts and works of art. It is from papyrus that the word paper comes from. Although papyrus sheets were similar to paper in terms of function, being laminated sheets they were technically more like a mat and therefore not the same as the papers of today. Similar processes were developed in other lands - in Central America during the 2nd Century AD the Mayans fashioned a similar product for bookmaking. In the Pacific Islands, a paper was made by beating a fine bark over specially shaped logs to make clothes and ritual objects. However, none of these sheets would qualify as true paper today. The father of true paper - T'sai LunPaper as we know it today comes from another source, China. Excavations of tombs of the former Han Dynasty (207BC-9AD) have revealed silk cloth bearing the texts of Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism (born in 604BC). In 105 AD, Han Emperor Ho-Ti's chief eunuch T'sai Lun experimented with a wide variety of materials, and refined the process of macerating the fibre of plants until each filament was completely separate. He took the inner bark of a mulberry tree and bamboo fibres, mixed them with water, and pounded them with a wooden tool. The individual fibres were mixed with water in a large vat. Next, a screen was submerged in the vat and lifted up through the water, catching the fibres on its surface. When dried, this thin layer of intertwined fibre became what today we call paper. T'sai Lun's thin, yet flexible and strong paper with its fine, smooth surface was known as T'sai Ko-Shi , meaning 'Distinguished T'sai's Paper', and he became revered as the patron saint of papermaking. Spread of PapermakingIt wasn't until the 3rd century that the secret art of papermaking began to creep out of China, first to Vietnam and then Tibet. It was introduced in Korea in the 4th century and spread to Japan in 6th. There, during the 8th century, the Empress Shotuka undertook a massive project consisting of printing a million prayers - dharani - on individual sheets of paper, with each mounted in its own pagoda. With such a profound inception, it is not surprising that the fine art of papermaking has continued in Japan to this day, garnering deep appreciation and ever increasing sophistication. The journey to the westPapermaking spread slowly throughout Asia to Nepal and later to India. It made its true push westward in 751AD when the Tang Dynasty was at war with the Islamic world. During a battle on the banks of the Tarus river, Islamic warriors captured a Chinese caravan which happened to include several papermakers. They spirited them away to Samarkand, which soon became a great centre for paper production. Gradually papermakers made their way further west through the Muslim world, to Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo. Finally, when the Moors from North Africa invaded Spain and Portugal they brought the technology with them and so it was that papermaking entered Europe in the 12th century. Spreading the wordIn Europe, the use of papyrus had dropped out in the 9th century. The preferred medium for the artists and literati of the time was the smooth and lustrous parchment. However, parchment - made from animal skin - was extremely expensive. In fact, it has been estimated that a single bible hand written on parchment required the skins of 300 sheep. The notion of paper being used as a practical everyday item did not occur until the 15th Century. When Johann Gutenburg perfected movable type and printed his famous bible in 1456, he not only spread the word of Christianity, but also sparked a revolution in mass communication. The birth of the modern paper and printing industry is commonly marked from this date. Paper Becomes an Industry - 'The age of experimentation'Printing technology rapidly developed and created an ever increasing demand for paper. The early European papers were made from recycled cotton and linen, and a huge trade quickly developed around the trading of old rags. It is said that the black plague entered England from Europe on these old rags. Yet soon this source became insufficient and some curious attempts were made to source new materials, the most macabre of which was the recycling of Egyptian mummies to create wrapping paper! Others experimented with fibres such as straw, cabbage, wasp nests and finally wood, resulted in inexpensive - and replaceable - materials for paper making. Today, the long soft fibres of softwoods such as spruce have become the most suitable source of pulp for mass production. Mass productionThe demand for paper also created the need for greater efficiency in production. In the late 18th century the labours of Nicholas Luis Robert resulted in the creation of a machine that could produce a seamless length of paper on a endless wire mesh with squeeze rollers at one end. Perfected and marketed by the Fourdrinier brothers, the new machine made papers soon replaced traditional single sheets made by hand. In Europe and America, the mass-production of paper became a thriving industry supplying huge volumes of paper for the production of newspapers, books, magazines, paper bags, toilet paper, money, and a huge variety of other purposes including clothing, chimney's and even coffins! Today, the increasing volume of paper consumption has become a complex environmental matter - and the need for new materials increasingly urgent. While recycling has done some good, much paper is still wasted. |
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Sunday August 08, 2004 17:52 +0200 |
