If the history of making paper in the Arab World started in Baghdad, where did it originally come from ?
It is fascinating to acknowledge that an idea is timeless and has the ability to move, wander and travel not only in space but also in time….
It is also important to comprehend this idea, as somehow we have heard somebody mentioning the words “Silk Road“(the Merchants’ Road from China) sometime in our life… This is the road that carried out the idea of making paper to the Arab World.
But if making paper is the implementation of the idea of paper itself and the process of its incarnation, then where does paper come from ?
Well, I can say that I was always thrilled by the idea of going back to the roots…the roots that, take us or better to say, drive us to Egypt… the country of the Pharaohs ; as the word paper, papier (in French, German, Dutch…) papel (Spanish, Portuguese) is derived from the name of the reedy plant papyrus, which grows abundantly along the Nile River and had been used since more than 4000 years now.
Even if today’s paper making rely no more on papyrus, the Egyptians who many centuries ago applied successfully what they have learned, still have an important presence in today’s paper industry and this what we are going to find out in the next couple of pages.
But before we do, I would like to close this editorial by saying : “In the morning of a new day, everything seems to begin with something ! “
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