Ritesh Kumar Behera | Origin and development of paper

History Of Design

 Topic: Origin and development of paper

 By Ritesh Kumar Behera 

22BCD035

Paper is a thin sheet material produced by processing cellulose fibres derived from plant sources. It's a versatile material that is used for various purposes like printing, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. 

Papyrus, the paper of ancient times. 

A section of the Egyptian book of the dead on papyrus

The word paper is derived from the word papyrus, writing material of ancient times and also the plant from which the papyrus was made. The papyrus is a grass-like aquatic plant that grows up to 4.6m in quietly flowing water. Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt way back in the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was found in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbour located on the red sea coast. These excavated artefacts were called the diary of merer which dates back to 2560-2550 BCE. The Egyptians used the papyrus stem to make other materials like cloth, mats, sails, and cords.  These papyrus scrolls also describe the last years of building the great pyramids of Giza. The paper made from papyrus was adopted by the Greeks and was used heavily in the Roman empire to make legal documents and books. In the first two centuries, the papyrus gained a rivalry from another mode of writing known as parchment which was made from animal skins. 

Parchment 

A book made out of high quality parchment 

Parchment is the processed skins of animals mainly goats, sheep and calves made specifically to write on them. The word parchment is derived from the ancient Greek city Pergamon, the place where parchment was invented in the 2nd century. Animal skins were used for writing even before but a new way of stretching and cleaning made the use of both sides possible. Parchment made from more delicate skins like newly born calf or lamb was known as vellum. Parchment and vellum were locally produced and were cheaper as compared to papyrus. It had higher durability in most climates. Its use in Egypt continued until it was replaced by less expensive paper introduced by the Islamic world who learned it from the Chinese.

Papermaking

Earliest known paper fragment 

The exact date and the inventor of paper cannot be deduced but the earliest pieces of evidence of paper making date back to 179-141 BCE. During the Shang (1600-1050 BCE) and Zhou(1050-256 BCE) dynasties of ancient china, the official records were made on bamboo and bone making them very heavy and fragile. While some records were made on silk, it was generally too expensive to use. 

In 105 BC Cai Lun, inspired by bees, began making paper out of rags and other plant fibre and was credited as the inventor of the method of paper making. After printing was popularized during the Song dynasty the demand for paper grew rapidly. The supply of bark which was used for making paper could not keep up with the growing demands and hence resulted in the invention of various new kinds of paper using bamboo.

The rapid production of paper increased the number of individual collections of literary works in the following centuries. According to Timothy Hugh Barrett, paper played a pivotal role in early Chinese written culture, and a "strong reading culture seems to have developed quickly after its introduction, despite political fragmentation."

From the fourth century to 1500 the biggest library collections in China, were four times bigger than those in Europe. European book production began to catch up with China after the introduction of the mechanical printing press in the mid-fifteenth century.

The printing revolution 

The first printing press

In 1440 Johannes Guttenberg made the first printing press which led to the printing revolution. A single printing press could produce 3600 pages per day as compared to the 40 made by hand printing and a few by hand copying. It drastically reduced the cost of printing documents and books in Europe. The arrival of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. 

The first paper making machine 

With the help of an English engineer and industrialist Bryan Donkin, the first paper-making machine was designed and made at Frogmore, Hertfordshire in 1803, from that point more and more machines, were made with significantly reduced the cost of this hard-to-obtain product. 

ISO 216 paper format

in 1991 Wilhelm Ostwald proposed a standard system of paper formats collectively known as the ISO 216 to make paper stocking and document reproduction cheaper and more efficient. 

My A5 sketchbook 

As an artist, paper is something that I use on an everyday basis. It is something that I come across every day and carry it  to my college in one form or the other.  Although the paper will stay a solid medium to record information for some time but sooner or later it will be replaced by the modern and digital ways of writing and recording documents. 

Citation-

1. history.com
2. britanica.com 
3. Alamy.com
4. wikipedia.org
5. historyofpaper.com
6. khanacademy.org