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The first paper was created nearly 2000 years ago, and it
was made from recycled materials. But, while the Chinese and
Arabs refined papermaking, It was not until Gutenberg's
invention of the printing press in the mid-1400s that paper
development was recognized as critical.
The invention of paper is usually attributed to Ts'ai Lun, an
official in the Chinese royal court, in A.D. 105. The
invention of paper solved a pressing problem of the time. Back
then, scrolls of silk were being used as books. But the
development of calligraphy and the animal hair brush, and the
resulting proliferation of literature, created the need for a
writing material that was cheaper and more practical than pure
silk. In fact, part of the Chinese ideogram character for
"paper" means "silk.".
The Arabs got papermaking 600 years later as one of the spoils
of war. The Central Asian city of Samarkand was fighting the
Chinese and captured a number of prisoners, two of whom were
papermakers who were released in exchange for teaching the
Arabs how to make paper. The Arabs wasted no time in improving
papermaking techniques - they were probably the first to make
paper from linen - and they spread the techniques throughout
the Middle East and into Spain.
Read more about
Indian Folk Art....
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