Ancient writing materials
Writing materials are very essential for man kind. These are required to let know our past and present history to the future generation. In fact existence of a nation depends upon writing materials. Thus it is necessary for us to preserve these suitably. Preservation means to protect and control ancient writing materials from any destroying and damaging.
1. Stone:
In ancient period, man lived in the cave. They had written by symbol on the stone for durability. Most of the Asokan inscriptions were engraved on stone. Rosetta Stone is an example of this. These stones are kept upon one by one in a room.
2. Bark/ Leaves:
Bark is the layer of tissue surrounding the woody cylinders of trees. Bark was used almost universally as a writing surface at once time. Besides, palm leaves were used to writing materials in the ancient time.
A mixture of lampblack and oil and salt of Salicylic acid were used on these for protection from insects.
3. Clay Tablets:
Clay tablet was made with mud. Clay first moistened then kneaded into dough, shaped by hand, inscribed with a stylus while still soft band finaly hardened. These were preserved in the big box for there frailness.
4. Papyrus:
This writing material made from the marrow of the papyrus plant. This was smooth enough when new to be written on with the Egyptian’s fiber brush pen. For convenience, the papyrus sheets were glued into long strips. Then these were rolled on wooden cylinders and wrapped in skins or cloth.
5. Parchment and Vellum:
The process for making parchment and vellum is supposed to have been developed about 190 B.C. at Pergamum in Asia Minor. true vellum is the skin of a young, usually not over six weeks old, calf which has been cleaned of hair, fat, muscle etc. It is preserved by soaking in a always been the choice of craftsmen for luxurious manuscripts and for expensive bindings. Parchment was used for bindings and manuscripts of lesser quality.
Sewing the written sheets these were covered with skin or vellum, at both side for protection from insects.
Metal
Since very few sheets of metal with writing on them have ever been found it is assumed that metal was rarely used for writing. Bronze tablets and copper sheets were used to provide semi-permanence and could be stored more easily than rock.
Wood
Wood was used for temporary purposes and not many such tablets have survived, as the climate in most countries is not conducive to their preservation.
Wax
An extremely temporary method of writing was to scratch letters onto wax tablets. These were thin wooden boards covered with a fine coating of beeswax. The boards could have small holes at one end that permitted a ring to be inserted allowing many sheets to form a flip book
Paper
Paper was a Chinese invention in the second century AD but for over a thousand years passed before it eventually found it way to the west and on in to Europe. Paper made from hemp was found in a Western Han tomb in the form of ancient maps.
In the 13th century paper mills sprang up in Spain, France and Germany.
SILK
The Chinese used silk to make a writing surface that could be used for scrolls. They were used as far back as 200BC. Large text scrolls were designed to be displayed on a wall for periods of time while narrow vertical text scrolls were meant for recording only
Bone
Bone was not an uncommon writing surface, yet it was used only for special circumstances.
This is a Chinese oracle bone written in the old seal script. Oracle bones were used in ancient China for divination or fortune telling.
Palm Leaf
Palm leaf manuscripts were made from dried pal leaves across much of India and South East Asia. They were dried then text was written using a sharp pointed instrument and carbon soot was then rubbed over the text to make it stand out.
Slate
From the Victorian through the Edwardian period school pupils write their exercises on framed sheets of slate allowing the text to be erased and rotten over again and again.