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pieces than that it agrees remarkably with the length of individual sheets of paper which
compose some of the oldest of the Chinese manuscript rolls recovered by me from the walled-up
library of the 'Thousand Buddhas' at Tun-huang.²⁴ We are in a better position as regards the
width observed in them. This width, of 9½ to 9¾ inches, closely approaches the standard length
of the great mass of our Chinese 'slips' in wood and bamboo from the Limes, as well as from the
Niya and Lou-lan Sites, viz. 9 to 9¾ inches. The inference necessarily suggests itself that the
paper used for our documents was intentionally adapted in size to the standard fixed for the slips
of the wooden stationery which still continued in use at the same period.
Height of
Chinese
wooden
slips. We know from abundant textual evidence examined by M. Chavannes that the standard fixed
in Han times for the 'slips' used by private individuals, as distinct from those reserved for imperial
edicts, classical and ritual texts, etc., was one foot.⁴ The ancient measures which I discovered at
T. VIII and T. XI, and which I have already discussed, have proved that the foot of the Han epoch
represented a length equivalent to 9 inches (23 centim.).⁴ᵃ To this measure the vast majority
of the thousands of 'slips' of wood and bamboo brought to light by the excavations of my
three expeditions conform very closely.⁵ Now the length thus fixed for the wooden stationery in
ordinary use during Han times, if not earlier also, has continued to the present day to determine
the height of the vertical lines used for Chinese writing in private correspondence, and consequently
Conven-
tional size
of paper. also of the stationery commonly prepared for it in China.⁶ It appears to me, therefore, highly
probable that the width prevailing in our Early Sogdian documents from T. XII. a was dictated by
the same reason, i.e. the conventional size prescribed for contemporary Chinese correspondence.
As paper is not as well protected from fraying and the like deterioration at the edges as wood or
bamboo is, the provision of a margin by a slightly increased width had much to recommend it.
Paper first
invented
A.D. 105. But more interesting still from the antiquarian point of view and of a direct archaeological
importance is the material on which these documents of T. XII. a are written. The use of paper
for them seemed at first scarcely less of a problem than the script, unknown though of manifestly
Western origin, in which they were written. On the one hand, there is the fact established by
precise and fully authenticated Chinese historical evidence that the first invention of paper, by Ts'ai
Lun, dates from A.D. 105.⁷ On the other hand, the careful examination by M. Chavannes of the
many exactly dated documents recovered from the ruined stations of the Tun-huang Limes has
proved that none of them come down later than the year A.D. 137.⁸ Nor is the lower chronological
limit appreciably shifted if we accept the date A.D. 153, which is inferred for the fragment of
a calendar T. XI. ii. 6, Doc., No. 680.⁹ From this and other archaeological evidence the conclusion
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592
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