Serindia : vol.2 / 147 ページ（カラー画像）

0147	Serindia : vol.2
セリンディア : vol.2

seems to be justified that the garrisoning of the stations of the Limes must have ceased some time
in the second century A. D.

Considering the short interval left between these chronological limits, the great distance
separating the extreme western border of the empire from the centres of its industrial activity, and,
last but not least, the conservative ways of Chinese civilization, as illustrated in respect of writing-
material by the exclusive use of wood for the Chinese records of the Niya Site down to the latter
half of the third century A. D., the discovery of these non-Chinese documents on paper at the watch-
station T. XII. a, together with at least one clearly dated record of A. D. 21 and a number of others
also belonging to the early years of the first century A. D., was obviously a matter of special interest.
This induced me in 1910 to recommend samples of paper taken from these documents to the
particular attention of Professor J. von Wiesner, the distinguished plant physiologist. To his long-
continued and fruitful researches is due most of any exact knowledge that we possess of the
development of paper manufacture in Central Asia and the East generally, and he had previously
secured interesting results through the examination of a number of the papers represented among
the manuscript finds of my first expedition.¹⁰

Professor von Wiesner's minute and painstaking microscopic analysis of these paper samples
from T. XII. a has been rewarded by important discoveries, which have been set forth with great
precision and clearness in his paper: Über die ältesten bis jetzt aufgefundenen Hadernpapiere.¹¹ In
view of their distinct archaeological interest, it is necessary to summarize here the main points
established. The examination of the specimens taken from different documents has definitely
proved that the material of their paper was entirely made from textiles which had been reduced to
pulp by a rough mechanical process of stamping.¹² The threads, still clearly recognizable by
microscopic enlargement and undoubtedly made up of plant fibres, point very distinctly to production
from a Boehmeria, which can scarcely be any other than the Chinese hemp (Boehmeria nivea),
cultivated in China since the earliest times.¹³ A particularly interesting observation made in the
paper sample of T. XII. a. ii. 1. a revealed the presence of a textile fragment, much lacerated but still
retaining even for the naked eye a characteristically woven appearance, the threads being laid
lengthwise and across.¹⁴ Professor von Wiesner is inclined to attribute this peculiar feature, found
in the one sample only, to a more primitive procedure, which at first aimed at transforming thin linen
fabrics into writing-material without completely destroying their texture, and shows good reasons
for the belief that the paper in question represents a particularly early stage in the evolution of pure
rag paper.¹⁵

In any case, the material of these documents conclusively proves that the manufacture of paper
solely from linen rags must have been practised in China immediately after Ts'ai Lun's invention
had been made, whereas until the discovery of the T. XII. a documents the use of rags could be
traced in ancient papers from sites of Chinese Turkestān merely as a surrogate admixture to
vegetable fibres which were obtained from the bark of the paper mulberry and similar trees.¹⁶ The
point is of special importance, because it definitely disposes of the previous belief which ascribed
the origin of rag paper to an Arab invention first made at Samarkand about the middle of the
eighth century A. D. and thence spread through the Near East to Europe.¹⁷ But the fact now

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