Paper & paper making, ancient and modern

by Richard Herring

Writing’s art, which like a sovereign queen,

Amongst her subject sciences is seen;

As she in dignity the rest transcends,

So far her power of good, and harm extends.

In the earliest ages of mankind, very simple means were necessarily adopted, to preserve the remembrance of any important event. During many centuries, tradition, perhaps solely, served to represent that, which in recent times has been more completely effected by the introduction of printing.

At other periods we find trees were planted, heaps of stones, altars or pillars, as we read in sacred history, were erected; and even games and festivals ordered, to keep up the recollection of important facts. Since, however, the art of writing was invented (be the period when it may), various materials have from time to time been made use of, for the purpose of transmitting to posterity the discoveries and deeds of their ancestors. Thus, for instance, the most ancient remains of writing which have been handed down to us, are upon hard substances, such as bricks, stones, and metals, which were used by the ancients for all matters of public notoriety; abundant proofs of which we have in the recent discoveries of Mr. Layard. And Josephus, in the third chapter of the first book of Jewish Antiquities, tells us: that, “the descendants of Seth, leading a happy and quiet life, found out by study and observation the motions and distribution, or order, of the heavenly bodies; and, that their discoveries might not be lost to men (knowing that the destruction of the world had been foretold by Adam, which should be once by fire, and once by water,) they made two pillars—one of brick, and the other of stone, and wrote or engraved their discoveries thereon; so that if the rains should destroy that of brick, the other of stone might continue to show mankind their observations.”

In the sacred text we are further informed, that great stones were directed to be set up by the children of Israel, after the passage of the Jordan, and being “plastered with plaster,”—which appears to have been a very common practice—“thereon were to be written all the words of the law very plainly.” In the book of Job, which some suppose to have been written by Moses, we have an obscure intimation of the method employed in registering upon the rock, “graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever.” But, although there is apparently a want of clearness in our translation of the passage, by no means does it affect the idea of Job’s desire to give the greatest possible permanence to the words he then uttered. He exclaims, “Oh that my words were now written,” or, (though probably not an exact translation,) “Oh that they were printed in a book;” and more (he adds) “that they were even graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever;” which latter clause some take to be in reference to the leaden tablets which are found to have been in very early use. But I rather favour the interpretation, for which I am indebted, to my much esteemed friend the Rev. Dr. Croly; that as a still more indelible and effectual mode of perpetuating his thoughts, it was Job’s conception that his words should be graven in the rock with an iron pen, or tool, and the interstices afterwards filled with lead, in order that the contrast occasioned thereby might render them the more readily intelligible to those who happened to travel that way.

Herodotus also mentions a letter engraven on plates of stone, which Themistocles, the Athenian general, sent to the Ionians, about five hundred years before the birth of Christ. Lead, however, and similar metals being less difficult to write upon, and more simple and convenient, afterwards superseded to a great extent the use of such unwieldy substances as bricks and stone. And subsequently we find others of a still more pliable texture employed, such as the skins of animals, bark, wood, and the leaves of trees. Solomon, for instance, in the Book of Proverbs, in allusion to the practice of writing upon thin slices of wood, advises his son to write his precepts upon the tables of his heart. And the prophet Habakkuk was commanded to write a vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. Solomon, as you are aware, lived a thousand years, and Habakkuk about six hundred and twenty six, before the Christian era. At a later period, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, when enquired of as to what he would have his child called, asked, we are told, for “a writing table, and wrote, saying, his name is John.” Amongst the Romans, it was customary for the public affairs of every year to be committed to writing by the high priest, and published on a table; such tables being exposed to view, either in their market-places or temples, in order that the people might have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with their contents.

At an early period in their history, both Greeks and Romans appear to have commonly used either those plain wooden boards, or boards covered with wax. It is probable, that at first the tables were written upon just as they were planed, and that the overlaying them with wax was an improvement on that invention. A very decided advantage being thus obtained, in the facility afforded for erasing any inaccuracies that might have occurred, and consequently of correcting the manuscript. The practice of writing upon tablets of one kind or another, appears not to have been entirely laid aside, until the commencement of the fourteenth century; and, indeed, even in our day, tablet books of ivory are occasionally used, for writing upon with black lead pencils.

The use of boards was in some measure superseded by that of the leaves of palm, olive, poplar, and other trees. And, although in Europe, all these disappeared upon the introduction of the papyrus and parchments, in some countries the use of them remains even to this day. Perhaps a record of this old custom may still be found in the word leaf, which we continue to apply to sheets of paper, when sewed up into the form of a book. According to the account of Pliny, the Egyptians were the first to use the palm leaf, and books written on it are still preserved in the East India Museum, as also in the Library of the British Museum.