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Art. XXII.—Who was the Inventor of Rag-paper?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

A. F. Rudolf Hoernle
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Extract

I propose, in this paper, to review briefly the present stateof the question, and of the answer thereto. Within the last twenty years a great advance has been made with regard to it; and we owe this advance almost entirely to the researches of two savants, Hofraths Dr. J. Wiesner and Dr. J. Karabacek, both Professors in the University of Vienna. In the following review I shall state the results of those researches, together with such conclusions as appear to me legitimately deducible from them.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 1903 , pp. 663 - 684
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1903

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References

page 664 note 1 Führer durch die Ausstellang, mit 20 Tafeln und 20 Textbildern; Wien, 1894.

page 664 note 2 Mittheilungen aus der Smnmlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer. 5 vols. 1886–1892Google Scholar.

page 664 note 3 Reports of ProfessorWiesner, : Mikroscopische Untersuehung der Papiere von El-Faijûm, in vol. i, p. 45Google Scholar; and Die Faijûmer und Uschmuneiner Papiere, eine naturwissenschaftliehe, mit Rüeksicht auf die Erkennung alter und moderner Papiere und auf die Entwicklung der Papierbereitung durchgeführte Untersuchung, in vol. ii, pp. 179–260. Reports of ProfessorKarabacek, : Das Arabische Papier, eine historiseh-antiquarische Untersnehung, in vol. ii, pp. 87–178Google Scholar; and Neue Quellen zur Papiergeschichte, in vol. iii, pp. 75–123.

page 664 page 4 Cotton fibre, in textile form, that is, extracted from cotton rags, inddeed, Professor Wiesner found to be used, but in European manuscripts, and only in comparatively modern times.

page 668 note 1 Die Erfindung des Papiers in China, p. 270, in his Chinesische Studien (Munich, 1890)Google Scholar.

page 672 page 1 My Report on the British Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia has been published as part ii, extra number 1 of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. lxx, 1901. DrStein's, Preliminary Report on a Journey of Archcœological and Topographical Exploration in Chinese Turkestan; London, 1901Google Scholar.

page 672 page 2 Microscopische Untersuchnng Alter Ost-Turkestanischer Papiere, in vol. lxxii of the Denkschriften der Mathematisch-Naturwissensohaftlichen Classe of the Academy. This report refers to the papers comprising my collection described in my Report. Professor Wiesner's report on Dr. Stein's papers has not yet been published; but the Professor has informed ma privately that the results of the examination of these papers confirm in all respects those of the examination of my papers.

page 673 page 1 A more accurate statement will be found below, p. 68, in the translation of Professor Wiesner's Summary.

page 673 page 2 The Arabs wore linen clothes. With the growth of the paper industry a large trade sprang up in linen rags; and in Egypt the cemeteries began to be ransacked and the mummies despoiled of their linen coverings.

page 674 page 1 I may here mention a curious evidence of the trustworthiness of Chinese tradition. Among other things used in Chinese paper-making, it names lichen. This apparently is a most unsuitable substance, and the statement of its use has been looked upon with great distrust. But Professor Wiesner has discovered that, as a fact, lichen was used in the manufacture of some of the ancient Eastern Turkestani paper, which he examined, for the purpose of sizing it.

page 674 page 2 The subject of the invention and development of paper-making by the Chinese, however, deserves a thorough re-examination by Chinese scholars in the light of Professor Wiesner's recent researches.

page 675 page 1 Quoted from the Pên-tsao-kang-mu or Materia Mediïca.

page 676 page 1 Report of a Mission to Yarkand in 1873, under the Command of Sir T. D. Forsyth, K.C.S.I., C.B. Calcutta, 1875. See p. 75Google Scholar.

page 677 page 1 The mortar used by Ts'ai Lun (105 a.d.), the inventor of vegetable fibre paper, is said to have been still preserved as a curiosity in the time of the Thang Dynasty (618–907 a.d.). See Hirth, l.c., p. 627.

page 679 page 1 From Lichtenberg's, Vermischte Schriften, v, 508–510Google Scholar; in Karabacek, l.c., p. 117. I am not in a position to verify the reference.

page 680 page 1 See DrJacob, G., in Oestliche Culturelemente im Abendland, p. 16Google Scholar.

page 680 page 2 See DrStein's, Preliminary Report of Archœological and Topographical Exploration in Eastern Turkestan, pp. 43 ffGoogle Scholar.