Analysis of Historical Documents from a Viewpoint of Paper Science

Restoration of historical documents and arts has become important to inherit cultural properties. Most of historical documents were recorded on paper. Therefore, restoration of ancient papers is demanded and techniques for this purpose must be developed and sophisticated. In our study, several nondestructive methods for analyzing ancient paper have been developed. Image analysis using fast Fourier transform with suitable modifications was applied to optical micrographs of traditionally-handmade Korean and Japanese papers. This analysis determines the angle and anisotropy of fiber orientation of paper surfaces. Fiber orientation of traditionally-handmade Korean and Japanese papers was found to show their own characteristics in accordance with the motion of a papermaking screen made of bamboo splints. Consequently, the information on fiber orientation was found to be possible to distinguish the flow-sheet forming typical of Japanese paper and still-sheet forming typical of Korean paper. Moreover, the anisotropy was always higher for the screen side than for the top side, thus meaning that surface fiber orientation is possible to distinguish the two sides of paper of which papermaking history is unknown. An application of this technique to actual historical documents evidenced that wrapping papers were used as envelops with a lateral side up, namely, after rotating 90 degrees. A variety of cultural habits in writing letters was revealed by discrimination of the two sides.