Behind the Scenes of Archaeological Discoveries: Rewriting Paper History (1)

"Kyoto Champion Fuyang Paper", Fuyang is China's traditional "land of papermaking." However, a recent accidental archeological discovery pushed forward the history of well-documented paper mills in China for 359 years. What happened after this major archaeological discovery? The reporter made a special trip and made some field visits.

An archaeological discovery that rewrites the history of papermaking in China [witness] Xu Shunfa, deputy director of Fuyang Municipal Cultural Relics Management Committee Office, curator of Fuyang City Cultural Museum.

"The half-year period since September 2008 has been the busiest time since I took the job." When meeting the reporter, Director Xu Shunfa felt that he had made a mistake.

According to Xu curator, Fuyang has a long history of papermaking. "Shanxi Lin'an Anzhi" and "Dreams of Dreams" all record that Fuyang produced paper in the Southern Song Dynasty, but historical research on papermaking has only stayed in ancient books. In September last year, during the third national cultural relics survey, Fuyang had a discovery that excited the archaeologists: There is a papermaking workshop in the north of Fenghuang Mountain in Gaozhou Town, which has a total area of ​​about 22,000 square meters. Sites, nearly 30,000 specimens of cultural relics have been unearthed. Experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage have repeatedly argued that this is the earliest complete papermaking site in China and basically reflects the papermaking process from raw material pretreatment, picking, cooking, pulping, pulping, papermaking, The process of roasted paper, etc., has exquisite relics that are exquisite in shape and high in specifications. It was at least 359 years earlier than the site of the Ming Dynasty papermaking workshop in Gao'an, Jiangxi Province. Among them, the unearthed square brick has the inscription of “Dazhong Xiang Xiang Fu II Diary 2 Diary”. This kind of practice of lettering and note-making in the workshop is very rare. It clearly shows that the paper-making workshop is located in the Song Dynasty of Song Dynasty in the Northern Song Dynasty. The year (that is, 1009 AD) already existed, 1,000 years ago. Therefore, the expert group determined that it was the earliest ancient papermaking workshop found in China. Not long ago, the Song Dynasty paper mining site in Pazhou, which was excavated in Fuyang, was honored as a candidate for the top ten archaeological discoveries in China in 2008.

“The discovery of this papermaking site was accidental. Last year, the 320 National Road in Fuyang was repaired, and the reconstruction work at the site was reduced to the site near Gazhou Village in Gaoqiao Town. The excavated Nansong Paper Relic Site was located at the north end of Fenghuang Mountain and was only about 0.5 from the ground. In meters, the road workers dug up a lot of broken tiles. We decided at the outset that there must be treasures on the ground." Speaking of the original archaeological excavations, Xu Shunfa looked excited. “Look here, on the south is Phoenix Mountain, with abundant mountains and rivers; on the north is a canal, with a low height from south to north, forming a natural slope, which is very beneficial to the diversion and drainage of ancient papermaking.”

Last weekend, the reporter braved the rainy spring rain and made a special trip to this papermaking site in the northern foothills of Phoenix Mountain. Umbrellas were standing under the feet and muddy. Underneath the fence, there were some deserted bricks, mud and ponds. I don't know how it was a thousand years ago.