Uncovering ancient paper secrets

Papermaking is one of the four great inventions in ancient China and has made tremendous contributions to the progress of China and world civilization. All along, our country’s archeology has only found ancient paper and has not yet excavated papermaking sites. Since 2005, people have paid attention to the Zhouling Village of the Hualin Scenic Spot Management Committee of Gao'an City once and again because it is exploring the ruins of paper mills across the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties.

Found 16 relics of made bamboo paper

From Zhouling Village to Minamata Site, it is necessary to take a trip down an ancient road that is covered with bluestone. According to the staff of the Hualin Management Committee, Hualin is the origin and breeding ground of Hualin Hu. It has been more than 1600 years old. In the five generations, Hu Kui lived in seclusion in Hualin. The Northern Song Dynasty Hu Zhongya created the famous Hualin Academy.

In 2005, the staff of the Gao'an Museum discovered a number of Minamata sites during the investigation in Zhouling Village. Minamata is a kind of stone tool that uses hydraulic glutinous rice from the end of the Western Han Dynasty. In order to clarify the uses and ages of the Shuizhan site and at the same time coordinate with the third national cultural relics survey, the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology and the Gao'an Museum jointly conducted investigations and excavations on the Shuizang site in September 2007.

The secret of a thousand years of sleep is gradually being lifted. On both sides of this stream, we have now discovered 16 production-type leeches for making bamboo paper. Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Fan Changsheng

The first water mark site is about 300 meters from the mouth of Zhouling Village. According to Xiao Fabiao, the leader of the joint archeological team of the Hualin Paper Mill Site, the site was found in the weeds. At the time, stone tanks, stone coffins, and slate, etc. were also found on the waterwheels. However, no wooden waterwheels and masts were found. And a wooden sink for diverting water. According to the villagers, until the 1980s, villagers in Zhouling Village were still using the water to grind rice and grave food.

With the extension of the ramparts, there have been several sites of the Minamata site being excavated. At present, there have been 7 excavations within a distance of 500 meters in diameter. Xiao Fabiao said. The reporter saw that some of the otters were in the rice fields, some in the weeds and some in the stream. Unlike the first otters, these otters are shaped like a car with two poles. There is a drain in the southeast corner of the waterwheel pool, a workshop in the south, and rectangular slate and stone slats in dimples. The slate is used to beat the crushed bamboo segments. The sarcophagus is a tool used in the finishing of the bamboo materials for papermaking. This fully proves that these leeches are used to make bamboo paper. Xiao Fabiao introduced. In addition, the archaeologists also discovered a small amount of fragments of the Qing dynasty folk blue-and-white porcelain and Tulongquan celadon of the Ming Dynasty in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, indicating that the abandoned era may be the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

Due to the large amount of construction work, archeologists are now only conducting excavation on the relatively concentrated seven mink sites.

Relics of workshops reproduce ancient bamboo-paper flow

Mink is only used to grind bamboo and is a rough process for papermaking. Archaeologists boldly speculated that there must be an ancient papermaking workshop near these otters.

Through investigations, archeologists eventually chose Fushen Temple as the focus of excavation. Fan Changsheng said that the reason for this choice is that the 100 meters upstream of Fukami Temple has already been dug out into a complete blisters, and it is obviously used for processing pulp. There should be papermaking workshops nearby; secondly, local villagers report that In the surrounding fields, there was a stone wall.

In a large terraced field on the edge of the Fu Paper Temple, the archaeologists deployed 25 probing grounds, each measuring 16 square meters, and excavated the bamboo pits of the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, the ash pits of the burnt alkali, and cooking. Bamboo and bamboo large pieces of burning clay, drying materials and ash mixing workbench, and tail bamboo sand pit pit and other relics. In addition, there are a number of relics such as retaining walls, drains, columns, pillars, and foundations, which fully proves that this is the site of a paper-making workshop.

In front of a piece of braised soil, Liu Jincheng, director of the Museum of Gao'an City, told reporters that this is a key part of papermaking – the Zhuma cooking area. After the introduction of archeologists, the reporter saw seven steps of dipping, washing, burning, mixing, cooking, rinsing, and exposing on the site of the paper workshop at Fushen Temple. If you add a water raft not far from the excavation area, The whole set of processes for making the paper materials needed to make bamboo paper from felling bamboo to comminution pulp can reproduce the made bamboo paper from cutting bamboo to sinking, steaming, and mixing gray in Song Yingxing's Tiangong Kaiwu of the Ming Dynasty. , Rinsing, smashing, etc. A set of processes for making raw materials for making bamboo paper, and it can reflect that the papermaking process of Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasties has been continuously improved and the layout of the workshop has become more reasonable.

On the ruins of the workshop, artifacts capable of providing the stages of the times were also unearthed, mainly various types of porcelain, celadon of late Tang and Five Dynasties, glazed blue and white porcelain of Jingdezhen kiln in the Song Dynasty, black glaze porcelain of Jizhou kiln and kiln, Yuan dynasty Porcelain blue and white porcelain, Tulongquan celadon, Jingdezhen kiln of the Ming Dynasty, folk blue and white porcelain, white porcelain, and Tulongquan celadon. There are also a large number of earthworms used to grind paper medicine. The Paper Research Laboratory of the Provincial Light Industry Institute and the Provincial Paper Quality Supervision and Inspection Station detected the mud collected by the archaeological team at Hualin Paper Mill Ruins and concluded that the residue is a piece of paper, and the paper piece is composed of two kinds of plant fiber raw materials. The main raw material is bamboo pulp, and the secondary ingredient is wheat straw.

Zhang Zhongpei, a member of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and a former dean of the Palace Museum, said after visiting the village of Zhouling that after archaeological investigations in our country, only ancient papers were found, and no papermaking sites have been discovered. The ancient papermaking workshop is now being excavated in Hualin. This is the first time in the country that the site is a new discovery in our country’s archaeology and has opened up a new field of scientific and technological archeology. Chen Siliang, director of the paper-making committee and director of the Paper History Committee, said that this has important implications for the development of papermaking in China.

At present, archaeologists have not found traces of the papermaking process in this link. This will be the focus of the next step in archaeological excavation work.