More than meets the eye: Fibre and Paper Analysis of the Chinese Manuscripts from the Silk Roads

Abstract

This study contributes to the history of paper in Central Asia during the first millennium C.E. and aims to create a typology of paper based on a systematic study of Chinese manuscript collections found along the Silk Roads. The further aspect of this study aims to improve our knowledge of archaeometric research considered with the revision and test of scientific methodology which can then be used for historical and philological scholarship. By using fibre analysis and the technological study of paper combined with codicological and textual information, research has aimed to explore the possibilities for dating these materials, and fingerprinting their places of origin. The fact that many of Chinese manuscripts being studied (which are the oldest preserved and dated artefacts from Central Asia) are fixed in time by dates mentioned in colophons makes them valuable and reliable references for building a typology of paper and for comparative study of any yet to be discovered papers from that region. A sample of studied manuscripts comprises a total of 182 Chinese manuscripts selected from the Dunhuang Collection in the British Library in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris (BnF), the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg, and the Turfan collection in the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (BBAW) and the Berlin State Library (StaBi).