How did ancient people store information? What did different nations write about What did they write at different times

“In the beginning was the Word…” is a quote from the Bible, and I would like us to remember the materials on which the first words, the first rudiments of information, were inscribed.

In the beginning there was stone, cave walls, coastal boulders, rocks by the sea. On them, the first chroniclers, artists tried to capture what worried them yesterday, today and will be interested tomorrow.

Neolithic stone: stone of Sumer, Egypt, Mexico, England, Norway, China, Azerbaijan…

Drawings on stones. Images. The desire to convey the fact of life. Desire - interest - the search for ever new forms (or techniques) in the transfer of the main thing - information. A more difficult step: an attempt to designate the sound, that is, what could not be seen, but only given to be heard! Pictographic writing: images carved, embossed, scraped on hard and not very rocks of stone - symbols, icons denoting something, appear later. And at the beginning it is ingeniously simple: a bird is a drawing, a rather conditional, but still quickly read contour drawing of a bird, and later the drawing is transformed into an icon: “bird”. But before that we still have to live, having survived more than one hundred years and generations.

Then comes the clay, with its magnificent ability to store traces of exposure. Raw clay is used for everyday needs, and burnt clay goes to the archive, for posterity, as a document, as a memory.

The functions of the information carrier are also associated with metal.

Wax, compacted wet sand, plant leaves, tree bark, silk, animal skins and a variety of materials that are used for one thing: to convey a word, convey information, and, finally, paper.

The birth of paper produced profound changes in human society. We can say that paper has become the material basis of everything that is created by the human mind. Meanwhile, the history and methods of obtaining paper are not quite common and far from simple. Aristotle and Plutarch report that the laws of Draco (621 BC) and Solon (594 BC) in Athens were written on wooden and stone prisms. Titus Livius points out that the treaty concluded by the consul Slurius Cassius in 493 BC was recorded on a bronze column, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions a bronze stele in the temple of Diana on the Aventine with a record of the treaty of King Servius Tulia, concluded with the Latin cities. The "Laws of the 12 Tables" were engraved on the bronze plaques.

And in ancient Rome, two bronze plaques were issued to veterans of the army for 25 years of service as evidence of their services to the state.

In antiquity, special tablets were invented, which were made of wood or ivory. They were called waxed or waxed (CERAE, CERACULI, TABULAE, TABULLAE). The dimensions of these boards basically adhered to the standard: 12x14, 9x11 cm. From the edge of the board at a distance of 1-2 cm, a recess was made by 0.5-1 cm. Then, this recess was filled with wax along the entire perimeter. Two plates were placed on top of each other with the front side, holes were drilled along one edge and passing laces through them, they connected the planks to each other. It was the prototype of the book, which will appear much later ...

They knew how to prepare excellent material for writing already in the 3rd century BC. from papyrus. Now in Egypt, paper precursors are also being prepared using the same technology. Papyrus is abundant in the Nile Delta. Theophrastus in Natural History made a very detailed description plants and how to prepare writing material from it, also bearing the name of this material - papyrus. The stem of the plant is cut off. Then the stem splits along its entire length into long thin strips. The inner part of the stem, more elastic, was cut into thin layers, and closer to the outer shell - thicker. The strips were then sorted by thickness and width. After that, the strips were adjusted to one another. A second layer of strips was laid out on top, but only perpendicular to the first layer. After that, the layers were pressed. At the same time, juice stood out from the strips, which at the same time was an excellent binder. After drying in the sun, the papyrus sheet was impregnated with a special composition. Pliny gives a recipe for making glue from bread crumb boiled in water. They soaked a papyrus sheet the next day. A papyrus filled with text was called a volume (from the Greek TOMOS - part). Although papyrus is a fragile material, a significant number of ancient papyri have come down to us. Among them are the works of Aristotle, the letters of Hyperides (IV BC).

In the II century BC. material appears that declares itself as a competitor to papyrus. King Ptolemy V of Egypt forbids the export of papyrus from the country. At this time, a large library was conceived in Pergamon. Papyrus sheets were ordered for it, but the aggravation of relations between Egypt and Pergamum put the organization of the library in jeopardy. Caught in a hopeless situation, the artisans of Pergamum are frantically looking for a replacement for papyrus. The search for a new material leads inventors to leather.

It is said: “Laziness pushed mankind to discoveries,” and I would add that it was also need. Parchments began to process calfskin on both sides, trying to get a durable, plastic material for writing. And they achieved it! The newly created material was named " parchment " (in Greek), and the Romans called it " membrane ". The new material was better than papyrus.

He was distinguished:

1. High strength.

2. White-yellow color.

3. Ability to bend and not break.

4. The possibility of a new format, warehousing and storage.

Parchment sheets were cut to size and stacked on top of each other. A pile of parchment was protected from above and below by similar-sized boards. New material and new methods of combining information into a single block became the foundation for the birth of the book. This form of the first "books", fastened to the same as wax tablets, began to be called " code ". The boards that protected the codex from above and below began to be covered with leather - this is how the binding appeared. The expression "read a book from board to board" comes just from these times.

Along with parchment, wax tablets are also widely used - they are very convenient for reusable use. King Charlemagne learned to write on such tablets.

The massive need for tablets has given rise to many related professions. Entire branches of tanners appeared - they sewed a kind of leather case on a belt, carpenters who processed planks, lumberjacks, suppliers of special wood for thin planks, beekeepers who sold wax in huge quantities.

Special decrees, regulations, norms on a quality wax plate are issued. Here is what was written in 1268 in the Book of Crafts, in statute LXVIII: “... about those who make writing tablets in Paris. No tablet maker can make tablets, one of which is boxwood and the other beech, and cannot use other types of wood with boxwood if they are more precious than boxwood, i.e., good nut, brazilian tree and cypress. No tablet maker may use lard with wax, and anyone who makes such a product pays a fine of 5 sous to the king, and the product is destroyed, because such a product is of poor quality. From the II century BC. and until the XIII century - 1500 years the quality of a thing retains its significance!

Wax tablets were also used later: in Ireland, dozens of such samples of the 14th century were found in peat bogs. In Lübeck, near the church of St. Jacob, found tablets of the 15th century. In Riga, in the Dome Cathedral, three tablets of the 14th century are kept, one tablet of the 16th century is in the collection of the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library in St. Petersburg. What longevity!

From the 5th century, both papyrus and parchment began to be used for writing. Since that time, about three hundred papyrus documents have come down to us. The National Library in Paris has "books" written on papyrus in the 6th and 7th centuries, and a codex from the 6th century is kept in Vienna. After the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, the export of papyrus to Europe was limited.

In the 11th century, the Arabs replaced papyrus and parchment with paper, and until that time, parchment finally supplanted papyrus in Western Europe. At first parchment was made by monks. The monasteries had a sufficient base for its full production. In addition, the monks, in addition to their main occupation, were skilled craftsmen in many crafts. In addition, monasteries often served as a kind of educational institution. There, many dozens of young novices were trained in many crafts, who, after completing the course of study, could not take the vow of a monk, but after working for a year or two in favor of the monastery as an apprentice, left the walls of the monastery as skilled artisans.

By the 12th century, cities in Western Europe were beginning to develop. There is a growing need for parchment - the main writing material. Workshop artisans are directly connected with this - making parchment becomes a profitable business.

According to the register of the Paris Taglia in 1292, there were 19 parchment makers in the city. Historians have received information about the cities where the parchment-making craft was widely developed: Genoa, Milan, Florence, Rome, Ravenna, Orleans, Besancon, Trier, Liege, Cologne, Krakow, Prague.

If until the XII century, parchment was made in cities and monasteries, then with the advent of universities (Bologna, 1154, Paris, 1200, Oxford, 1214, Naples, 1224), the monopoly on this material passed to the universities.

The process of making parchment is very labor intensive. Parchment was usually made from the skins of sheep, goats, calves, and oxen. (The skin of donkeys was not good for many reasons). First, the skin of a sheep was placed in a vat of lime for several days - for 2-3 days in the East, up to 10 days in the West (as the temperature of the solution rises, the process goes faster). Then the skin was taken out and cleaned of hair and meat, then again immersed in a new vat of lime for a short time, after which it was pulled onto a frame. For cleaning work, a variety of knives - scrapers were used. The most different in shape, according to the angle of sharpening, knives - scrapers helped to clean the surface of the skin. After that, mechanical processing was completed with pumice, bringing the surface of the skin to a smooth state. Then chalk or white lead was rubbed into the skin from both sides. They absorbed fat and whitened the skin. The remnants of the bleach were removed, the skin was rubbed and turned out to be smooth on both sides.

The most expensive translucent parchment was made from the skin of unborn lambs and calves. Parchment made from the skin of such lambs was called "girl's skin" and was intended for books of high-ranking persons.

In addition, parchment was divided into "southern" and "northern". "Southern" was made in southern Italy and Spain. Processing was carried out only on one side. Southern parchment was not highly valued. "Northern" parchment was processed on both sides. Later, Italy and Spain also began to work the leather on both sides and better bleach the parchment.

The need for parchment was growing, and it was not possible to sharply increase its production, since the process of making parchment was very complicated in terms of technology. In view of this, they took certain “barbaric” actions, from our point of view: the original text, drawings were washed away, scraped, bleached parchment in order to reuse it. However, the ink was very absorbed into the parchment, so that neither the pumice, nor the knife, nor any mixtures could completely (blank) destroy what had been written before. Apparently, since those times, a proverb has come down to us: "what is written with a pen, you cannot cut it out with an ax."

Ancient recipes for mixtures, solutions for washing ink were found. For example, in England they made a mixture of milk, cheese and unburned lime, and with this composition they etched an old manuscript. But still, some traces of the previous inscription remained. In 1756, a text was discovered, from under which some dashes, dots looked out. In 1761, five years later, reagents were finally made, with the help of which it was possible to read the old text. It was a translation of the Bible into Gothic by Bishop Ulfila in the 14th century. Since the end of the 18th century, a large number of such manuscripts have been discovered. They were called " palimpsests ».

The successes of alchemists made it possible to read many palimpsests in the 18th and 19th centuries, but only for a short time. The reagent, as it is not sad to admit, after a while destroyed both texts.

At present, 130 palimpsests of the 5th-16th centuries are known to science. The greatest number of them falls on the 7th-9th centuries.

However, washing away the texts did not save the situation. The need for writing material in Europe existed until the advent of paper. The time of the invention of paper is not precisely established. It is believed that it appeared in China in the 2nd century AD. and gradually spread to the West.

In the northern province of China, Shaanxi, there is a cave Baodiao. In 1957, a tomb was discovered in it, where scraps of paper were found. The find dates back to over 2000 years ago. Prior to these excavations, the invention of paper was attributed to Cai Lun. In 105, he petitioned the emperor to use the method of making paper.

The raw materials for paper in China were silk scraps, silkworm cocoon waste, and scraps of old nets. At the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, paper made from plant fibers was not considered rare in China. In the 3rd century, it completely replaced the wooden boards used for writing. At the beginning of the 19th century, paper money appeared for the first time in the world in China. For centuries, the Chinese have kept the secret of paper making. In 751, in the battle near Samarkand between the Arabs and the Chinese, several paper craftsmen were captured by the Arabs. Thanks to this, the East learned the secret of paper. “The development of paper production was slow, and its history is covered in darkness…” wrote Honore de Balzac.

In the 2nd century AD, paper reached Korea. In the 3rd century, paper "moved" to the shores of Japan. But it received real development only by the year 610, and over time, the students surpassed the Chinese - the authors of papermaking. In the III century paper penetrated into Central Asia. In the 7th century it became known in India, in the 8th century - in Western Asia. In the 10th century, paper “reached” Africa, in the 12th century it entered Europe, in the 16th century it was already known in America (Mexico 1580). Handicraft production arose later, in the 17th century in the United States.

The first paper workshop was built in Samarkand by the Arabs with the help of captive Chinese in the 7th-8th centuries. It began to be made from rags and cotton. The Arabs were the first to use the method of grinding paper pulp instead of pounding it in a mortar. The Arabs for five centuries maintained a monopoly on the manufacture of paper, carefully guarding the secret of its production. But all the secret sooner or later becomes clear. This is what happened in this case as well. There is no evidence now of how a closely guarded secret came to be known in Western Europe, but the fact is that the secret no longer existed.

In the VIII century (751), when the Arabs captured Samarkand, the secret of paper production came to Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. The Arabs exported paper to Europe via Spain and Sicily. There is a legend that one knight, a member of the Crusade, was captured and sent to Damascus, where he worked in a paper workshop. Upon returning to his homeland, he founded the first paper "factory". The Italians have another legend, how a certain young monk chewed his shirt in anger and spit it out on the stove tile. In the morning, he noticed that the mass, glued to the smooth surface of the tile, was very even and resembled parchment. The monk tried the ink on this surface and saw that he could write on it. This is how paper was discovered... But all this is from the realm of human fantasy. The legends do not coincide with the facts that paper came to Europe through Spain and Sicily to Italy in the 13th century. From Italy, finished paper began to be exported to Southern France, Germany, and further to Poland, the Czech Republic, From Spain - to the north of France, to England and Scandinavia.

The spread of paper production proceeded in the same way.

Spain was the first in Europe (about 1150) to start making paper, having adopted the technology from the Arabs. In 1154, paper appeared in Italy. Hungary began making paper in 1300, Germany in 1390, England in 1494, Russia in 1565, Holland in 1586, and Sweden in 1698.

In papermaking technology, there were 30 operations. The main figure in the paper mill was the scooper, and the main working tool was a quadrangular shape with a mesh bottom. He lowered it into a vat filled with paper pulp and quickly raised it. It was necessary to do this in such a way that after the water had drained off the grid, an even fibrous layer remained, from which a sheet of paper was then obtained. The scooper was considered an important person and had a number of privileges, unlike other masters.

Over time, guild paper production changed its character, acquired the features of manufactory production. It remained so until the end of the 19th century. This operation was very time-consuming, requiring great physical effort, experience, skill. Usually they were masters of high qualification. They enjoyed respect and privileges. Having done his job, the scoop handed over the frame to the worker - the receiver. He deftly turned the frame over, and the fiber fell on the cloth lining. Raw paper sheets were separated by spacers and collected in stacks. Then the water was removed from them with a press. Many engravings show such a press in detail, so that if desired, a working model can be made without much difficulty, the drawings and engravings are so accurate.

Drying was the final, but not the very last operation. After removing the moisture, the sheets were straightened, smoothed on a smooth roller with a roller made of hardwoods such as beech, walnut or bone. Then pressed again. Sometimes the paper was dipped into a cuvette with diluted animal or fish glue. Ryby was considered better because it was less subject to decay. Then there was re-drying and smoothing.

The papermaking process requires a lot of water to drive the mills. Therefore, paper shops sought to build as close as possible to the water, and more often - right on the river. Such workshops became known as "paper mills". The first paper mills appeared in Italy in the 13th century (Fabriano, 1276, later in Bologna and Ancona), in France in the 14th century (1348), in Germany in 1380, in England in the middle of the 14th century, in Holland, Norway, Denmark - in the 60s of the XIV century, in Poland in 1493, in the Czech Republic - in 1499.

The demand for paper is growing, the number of workshops, craftsmen, and students is increasing. The competition is growing - the desire to occupy one's niche in the production, supply of one's goods, in fixing one's name is growing stronger. Each master has his own tricks, his secrets, which he keeps under strict control, although in general general principle production was known.

In Europe, paper was made from linen rags. First, it was soaked in milk of lime. Then the rags were ground in large mortars, and again soaked in lime water for about a day. Then the crushed mass was taken out, squeezed out, and again ground until a homogeneous mixture was obtained in large vats. The master determined the readiness of the raw material - he allowed the molders to scoop up a special sieve (a wooden frame covered with a fine mesh) with a special practiced movement of the mass - the paper blank. After some time, the water was decanted through a sieve, compacted, after which it was “leaned back” onto a layer of felt. The remaining water was absorbed into the felt, and the paper pulp - the raw material - was even more compacted. A sheet of felt was placed on top, and the operation was thus repeated several times. After a certain time, this entire pile of felt and paper pulp was compacted under a press. The press squeezed out the rest of the moisture and after that the slightly damp sheets of the blank were hung in the shade (necessarily under a canopy) for air drying.

Dried paper went to the ironers: on a marble board, the sheet was smoothed out with a bone stack (a kind of flat and very smooth knife without a handle). The paper ironed in this way went to the sizing machine. He soaked the sheet in a gelatin solution and hung it up again to dry. The dried sheet was returned to the sizing machine for processing the other side, after which the sheet was again hung out to dry. The glued sheet was returned to the ironer. He repeated the operation of smoothing the sheet and handed it over, if polished paper (a type of modern coated paper) was needed, to the polisher. He polished it with ivory and completed his work with jasper, jade, agate, and onyx. Most often, agate polishes were used. A similar technique for honing or polishing a raw piece of clay has been preserved to this day. Such products, called “polished” in ceramics, are popular with ceramic lovers.

Almost finished paper was brought to the table to the master carver. He cut blanks to a certain size and stocked them in dozens. The packer, depending on the number of sheets in the order, assembled a block of finished paper, having previously placed a size board on the bottom and exactly the same on top to protect the edges of the finished paper sheets from mechanical damage. All this was carefully covered with cloth, linen, tied with ribbons, and handed over to the warehouse of finished products or directly from hand to hand to the customer. Paper, as a commodity, was not stale in the warehouse. Here are the main papermaking operations, not counting the additional, technologically rather complex manipulations with paper pulp. There were about 30 main operations, about 15 additional ones.

In the history of paper, both the manufacture of paper from raw fibers and the invention of rag paper are of interest. In 1877, an archive of many thousands of documents was found near the city of Fayum (Egypt). The archive was bought by Archduke Rainer (Austria) and for the study of these documents was transferred to a professor at the University of Vienna, Dr. Karabachek. Professor Wiesner was also involved in the study. He examined the structure of paper under a microscope and came to the conclusion that it was made in the 7th century on the basis of flax or hemp rag. Dr. Karabachek came to the same conclusion in his research.

If we turn again to history, it becomes clear how the paper came to the Arabs. In 851 Samarkand was in danger of being lost, as an army from China was moving towards the city. The governor of the caliph in Khorasan, Abu Muslim, sends a trusted person - his deputy Said-ibn-Sali to Samarkand to repel the attack. In the battle near the city of Atlakh on Taraz, the Caliph's army is victorious, and the Chinese are driven back beyond the Chinese borders. Many prisoners were taken, and among them were numerous representatives of various crafts. big luck it turned out that paper craftsmen were captured. Raw flax, which grew in China on vast territories, was not in Samarkand. The masters were put in a dead end. It was urgent to find a way out. And he was found: there were plenty of fabrics, there were even more rags. A way out was found, and quite witty: if there is no basic raw material (flax - raw), then we will crush the rags into gruel.

During the reign of Harun al-Rashid, a paper mill was built in Baghdad in 794. The use of paper was also necessary because what was written on parchment could be erased, scraped off, removed. It was impossible to disturb what was written on paper, thus the truth of the document was preserved as long as possible. This conclusion was reached by the newly appointed vizier Jafar ibn Jaya, who was in charge of the state chancellery; Since then, the paper has remained in circulation.

So in 851 the Chinese lost the main thing: the battle and the secret of linen paper. Built in 794, a factory in Baghdad was engaged in the manufacture of parchment and papyrus until the caliph Haroun al-Rashid. Thus, we can conclude that fibrous paper was invented in China, and rag paper was invented by the Arabs with the help of captive artisans - masters of their craft.

Paper technology has made significant advances in a short time. By the 12th century, in Fez, millstones were used instead of mortars, paper was glued with a starch paste based on wheat flour, and the nets were covered with thin wire. Coloring paper in blue, red and yellow is present in the archive found at Fayum. The types of paper were also varied and differed in the place where they were produced. Was made paper for pigeon mail, the so-called. "bird". There were pigeon stations every three ordinary post stations, and the pigeon flew only from one station to another. In addition to Egyptian paper, Baghdad and Syrian (Damascus) paper also mattered.

In the 11th century, paper was already used everywhere. It began to be used even as a packaging material. Nazir Khosroi, who came from Persia and traveled a lot in Egypt, describes something significant in 1035-1042: in the old bazaar in Cairo he saw how purchases were wrapped in bags, even bottles with purchased oil were packed in paper! This was such a shocking fact for him that he notes this luxury and extravagance in several letters.

The physician Abdel Latif, who also traveled extensively in Egypt, describes cases in which the fellahs and Bedouins opened up ancient graves in search of the linen in which mummies were usually wrapped in order to sell the stolen material as raw material to paper mills. It was described in 1200.

Western Europe by the XIII-XIV century also began to produce and use a lot of paper. In Holland, only by 1670 (XVII century) a roller was invented - shredding paper with the help of shafts. In England, the first mill was built by the German Spielmann in 1588 in the town of Darshferd. And France had a paper mill in 1189, adopting a lot from Spain.

For paper technology, important discoveries were made in Germany. The Germans came up with a composition for resin sizing of paper. Keller, in the 19th century, came up with the idea of ​​making paper from wood chips by watching wasps build their nests. After many experiments, Keller in 1845 nevertheless made his own paper from wood waste. Further developments made it possible to obtain paper from straw, alpha grass, etc.

Paper occupies an exclusive place in people's lives. She had many predecessors. Stone and clay, wood and bone, leather and birch bark, wax and metal, papyrus and parchment - all of them in different historical epochs served people as a material for writing, for transmitting such valuable information.

Natalia Mishukova
Summary of the lesson "On what people wrote in ancient times"

Target: the formation of holistic ideas of children about the emergence of writing.

Tasks:

Enrich children's ideas about writing materials, ways of transmitting information;

Develop creative thinking;

Raise interest in the history of writing.

Material: "On what people wrote in antiquity» , plasticine tablets, birch bark, aspen bark, mountain ash, papyrus, blank sheets of paper, visual arts.

vocabulary work: papyrus, parchment, birch bark.

The course of directly educational activities

Guys, do you know how before people communicated being far from each other?

Through letters.

Have you ever received letters?

And you wrote when ever letters?

So today I received a letter from Dunno and he asks us

help him find out what our ancestors wrote?

Do you think there has always been paper?

On what could write people in antiquity when there was no paper? (Assumptions, children's difficulties) At different times People passed on experience, knowledge, information to each other in different ways.

Do you want to know what written by people in the distant past?

The first book in the history of mankind is a stone book of rock carvings. On the stone People scratched out drawings or signs.

Once scientists discovered a rock with drawings. Look closely at the letter, what is shown in the picture? (children's answers)

Ancient the artist carved a boat with rowers on a stone, on it a sickle - a month and three circles - the sun, and below - deer and wild geese pierced by arrows. Try to decipher this letter, what I wanted to tell ancient man ? (Children's guesses).

Later People clay was used for writing. Tiles were made from soft clay, and badges similar to wedges were squeezed out on its surface with a pointed stick. Clay tiles were fired in a kiln, they became light and durable, they were stored in wooden boxes.

Guys, do you want to try write a letter on clay?

(The work of children at the tables)

Sending messages people and knot writing.

Maybe someone knows what else our ancestors wrote?

What are these yellowish scrolls?

Yellowish scrolls for writing were called papyri.

IN Ancient Egypt people wrote on papyrus - this plant looks like a marsh plant - reeds. They cut its stems into narrow longitudinal strips, moistened, dried in the sun, and then glued piece by piece into long wide ribbons. Ribbons were rolled into scrolls and wrote on them with black or red paint - "ink".

Our distant ancestors Ancient Rus', wrote on birch bark - birch bark. Why do you think? (children's answers)

Indeed, birch bark was the cheapest and most accessible material. Scientists managed to find a lot of birch bark letters.

The birch bark is good, but it was not suitable for books, so the books in ancient times wrote on expensive parchment - the skin of calves or kids. It was comfortable to write on., it was stronger than papyrus and birch bark. But the parchment was too expensive, written on it, a book cost as much as a large plot of land with a house together.

The Indians covered the bison skin with images. Each drawing denoted a single word. But when it was necessary to depict the action, it turned out not very clear. The same foot pattern could mean: go, come, go, quickly. Understand as you wish.

Now letters are written on paper, books are printed on it. Who knows what paper is made of? (Answers children: from wood, waste paper).

Let's write a letter about what we learned today. (Compilation of a collective letter on different materials)

What was on first book written?

What material was used people in antiquity for writing? (children's answers)

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Dear Colleagues! In her publication about postcrossing, Oksana Klimova said that postcrossing broadens the horizons of children as those who write.

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“In the beginning was the Word…” is a well-known biblical quote that reflects the real situation. At first, for many millennia, a person learned to express his thoughts with sounds, and later it became necessary to preserve and transmit information transmitted orally. So, step by step, modern civilization has come to a completely different level of writing, without which the current person cannot imagine himself. But interest in what and how people wrote in ancient times does not disappear, but, on the contrary, is fueled by new discoveries in this area.

On what people wrote in ancient times, humanity has learned and learns from preserved historical finds, from references in ancient manuscripts.

Drawings on stones and rocks

The first steps of man in the development of written language have come down to us in the form of drawings on the walls of caves. A cave is a dwelling where a person spent a lot of time and reflected his impressions about hunting, about some family events or events taking place in the community in the drawings on the walls. In ancient times, people simply did not have any other material, except for walls and stones, the surface of the soil.

Images of birds, animals, a person, a tree, objects from the environment were knocked out and scraped out on the rocks - everything that a person saw around him. Later, these images (subject writing) were transformed into symbols, icons, each of which meant something.

Picturesque writing appeared later, when separate subject images were united by one plot, conveying the stages of development of events. The path from drawings to signs and symbols took more than one century.

Rocks and stones are a solid material for drawing drawings. Around 3500-4000 BC. e. began to use soft and plastic clay for the manufacture of tablets for writing. Evidence of this is found in Iraq and Iran (Mesopotamia).

While the tablet was wet, signs were applied to its surface with a pointed stick (stylus, stylus), then it was dried in the sun. This way of writing is called cuneiform. It is believed that she was born in the Sumerian civilization.

Bulky drawings gradually transformed into signs and symbols - it was faster and more convenient to write them, and they took up less space.

Of all the cuneiform tablets found, the last dated to 75 CE. e.

Clay tablets are bulky, fragile, inconvenient for transportation, it is impossible to erase what is written from them, so they were replaced by wax tablets.

A layer of wax was applied to special wooden boards or ivory boards - it was possible to write on it with a sharp lead. With the other rounded end, the unnecessary sign was overwritten and erased.

It was not difficult to make tablets, therefore, in ancient and medieval times, they were used in everyday life for making notes on the household, used as notebooks and in teaching writing.

With use, the quality of the wax deteriorated, it was scraped off and a new layer was applied. The current expression - "from scratch", when you need to start all over again, goes back to those times.

Then the use of the plates improved - they were connected with leather straps, a book was obtained. Mentions of wax tablets are found in Homer, Cicero.

They continued to be used until the 19th century, although they had long been written on paper. For example, it is convenient to use a wax plate in some industries to enter current data.

Letter on papyrus

Papyrus, as a material for writing, began to be used in ancient Egypt (3rd century BC). The name of the material was due to the marsh plant Cyperus papyrus, from which it was made. It appeared on the territory of ancient states around the 7th century BC. e. Teofast has a description of its manufacturing technology.

The papyrus sheet was about the same thickness as a modern paper sheet, and its surface was made smooth by polishing with a stone or a piece of hardwood. It was problematic to store papyrus scrolls, as the material easily absorbed moisture, broke, and the edges of the sheets quickly “furled”.

They wrote on papyrus paper with reed sticks, one end of which was cut obliquely. Lines of different thickness were obtained by tilting the stick at different angles. For writing, black ink was used, the preparation of which was soot and sticky blood serum. To write headlines, red ink was prepared from red chalk and whey. That's where the name "red line" came from.

Around the 2nd century BC. e. a new material appeared, more practical than papyrus. In the city of Pergamum, a lot of papyrus was needed to create a library, and Ptolemy V, who ruled Egypt at that time, forbade its export. Papyrus was replaced by parchment, which began to be made by artisans from Pergamum.

For its manufacture was calf, lamb, goat, cowhide, which was processed on both sides. The material turned out to be double-sided, elastic, durable, light yellow in color, it was much more convenient and easier to store it.

In addition, sheets cut to the same size and stapled together made it possible to create a different format, which served as the prototype of the book.

More and more parchment was required, and the manufacturing possibilities were limited, so it had to be used a second time, erasing, scraping off what had been written earlier. They even came up with a composition for erasing ink and a special bleach. But a qualitative surface was no longer possible - traces of the former text remained.

They wrote on parchment with sharp, durable goose quills. For right-handers, feathers were taken from the left wing, and for left-handers, from the right.

With the advent of paper, the use of parchment gradually ceased.

In addition to these materials, others were used in ancient times, for example, palm leaves, a smooth surface of the bark, a tree trunk, compacted sand, bamboo planks - everything on which some kind of sign could be scratched.

What was written in ancient Rus'

Slavic peoples learned to read and write even before Christian times. On what and how they wrote in Ancient Rus', we know from the manuscripts that have come down to us, from the records of chroniclers and travelers.

The original writing used by the ancestors was called "features and cuts." Cyrillic and Glagolitic replaced this script in the 9th century. Literacy in Rus' was not a single character, but a mass one. This can be judged by the letters found in the excavations of ancient cities, written by ordinary people.

For writing, materials available for those times were used: clay, birch bark, leather, wax.

Parchment was known in Rus', they knew how to make it, but it was very expensive. For example, to produce a book of medium thickness, it took about 200 skins! And there were not so many qualified craftsmen.

Laws, decrees, official letters, annals were written on parchment, it was also used to publish the Bible, important books. For a wider application, it was fabulously expensive.

The people found a replacement for expensive material - they began to use birch bark, which is in abundance in any forest. The first birch-bark letters were discovered during excavations in Veliky Novgorod, and they appeared in Rus' in the 9th-10th centuries.

They wrote on them with sticks (15-18 cm) similar to thick knitting needles with a pointed tip - writing. The other end of a bone, wooden or iron stick was carved.

The word "wrote" is not quite suitable here, since the letters on the birch bark were squeezed out or scratched out. The ink was prepared from soot, elderberry juice, blueberries and other improvised natural materials.

Birch bark letters were used everywhere as a material accessible to all. Books were made from birch bark, connecting several sheets of birch bark with leather straps.

Along with birch bark, wax was also in use. They were filled with small rectangular wooden boards (9x12 cm) with raised edges (so that the wax does not roll off) - ceres. Notches were made on the board to better fix the wax. Most often, black wax was used - it was cheaper. It was convenient to carry ceres with you in your pocket or on a strap, you can erase a letter and write a new one on the same tablet.

The history of the development of writing is still fraught with many unknown and interesting things, but the already available reliable facts indicate that a person has always strived for knowledge and did not stop there.

Target

Summarize the knowledge of children on the topics covered.

Equipment

For students: notebooks or albums.

For the teacher: photocopies (drawings of clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, wooden ceres, birch bark letters), a piece of papyrus.

At the beginning of the lesson, it is necessary to remember what kind of writing was in the ancient states.

Information for the teacher

Mesopotamia. Sumer. There was a lot of clay in this country. They built houses from it, made dishes, toys, books. Soft clay molded square or round cakes. With a pointed stick (made of reed) they wrote with wedges. The sharp triangular end of the reed stick left triangular marks on the clay. Later this letter was called "cuneiform". What did they do with the cake after writing the text? Dried and fired in a kiln. So the clay lasted longer.

Cera

Scrolls

Novgorod birch bark letters

Papyrus

What was written on clay tablets?

Official documents, decrees, letters, contracts. During excavations in Assyria and Babylon, libraries of clay books were found that survived even during fires.

The great invention of the Egyptians, papyrus, has been preserved as a word in many languages.

Paper in Ukrainian - papier, in German - papier, in French - papier, in English - paper, in Russian - tissue paper.

The oldest papyrus dates back to 3100 BC.

One of the oldest civilizations arose in the valley of the blessed Nile. Along the banks of the river, in its delta,
an amazing marsh plant, similar to reeds - papyrus, grew in abundance. This reed plant, 5 meters high, as thick as a human hand, had bare trihedral stems that ended at the top with a corolla of leaves.

Complete paper production process. Engraving

Papyrus is written material.

The Greek scholar Theophrastus wrote that the Egyptians dried papyrus roots and used them instead of wood as fuel and for handicrafts. The stems are used to make river boats and light ships. From the core - weave sails, mats, fabrics for clothes, ropes. Papyrus is edible: it was eaten raw, boiled, and baked. Juice was extracted from it.

Pliny the Elder in his Natural History called papyrus the most important means development of an ancient civilization.

papyrus manufacturing technology. Prepared trihedral papyrus stems were cleaned of leaves, cut into pieces, thin bark was removed, a loose porous core was exposed, it was divided with a needle into thin plates, laying them out on a slightly inclined table. Another layer of plates was laid across and moistened with a special glue made from the muddy water of the Nile, flour and vinegar. Still wet sheets were pressed, carefully trimming the edges. When the sheets dried, their surface was polished to a shine with pumice, bone, and smooth shells. The resulting sheets were glued at the ends and rolled into a scroll. Its dimensions reached 40 meters. The scroll proved to be a convenient book form. The ancient Greeks, the entire Hellenic world, the Romans, the Arabs adopted this form of the book without changes. The Scroll dominated for several millennia. It was also used in ancient Rus'.

Cuneiform signs

parchment

Over time, thickets of papyrus reeds almost completely disappeared in Egypt, and the secret of making wonderful writing material from it was lost many centuries ago.

? How are papyrus scrolls made today?

First, the lower, thickest part is cut off from the stem of the plant and cut into ten to twelve longitudinal parts. The resulting plates are exposed to the sun, and after drying, they are placed in a bath of water to dissolve the sugar, starch and other organic substances contained in the stem. A day later, they are removed from the water and rolled out with a wooden rolling pin, thus removing the remaining solution. The wash and spin procedure is repeated three times. Gradually, the plates become soft, elastic and transparent. They are again immersed in the bath, after which they begin to make a scroll. Wet plates are placed horizontally on a piece of cotton fabric so that each of them "goes" a little over the other. From above, thus, a second layer is applied, but already vertically. The papyrus scroll is formed. It is covered with a piece of linen and placed under a conventional screw press until the sheet is dry. All this made it possible to restore museum scrolls. Papyrus was mainly used in Egypt, but was also exported to other countries. The first sheet of the papyrus book was called the "protocol". The Greek word "protos" - the first, last leaf - "eschatokol". The Greek word "eschatos" is the last. A papyrus book was wrapped around a roller, at the ends of which there were flyers. After finishing reading, the book was placed in a leather case, which was called "phelonion". In libraries, papyrus scrolls were kept in baskets.

? What was parchment made from? Who came up with this stuff?

According to legend, the Egyptians forbade the export of papyrus to the city of Pergamon, as the Pergamon Library became larger and more interesting, and competed with the Library of Alexandria. And then in the city of Pergamon they invented a new writing material - parchment (parchment). It was a very expensive but durable writing material. Dressing parchment, especially thin and smooth, without seams and marriage was not an easy task. Finely dressed skin of young animals: goats, sheep, calves. The skin was soaked, the remnants of hair were destroyed, chalk was rubbed so that it absorbed fat, smoothed with pumice, and dried. From the 4th century parchment replaced papyrus. Some parchment books were shaped like papyrus scrolls. But later the book took on a modern look. It consisted of sheets folded in half, which were combined into small groups: three, five, six. Four double sheets were called "notebook". Several notebooks were fastened together to form a book. The binding was wooden, sheathed in leather. Luxurious books were decorated with plaques of gold, silver, enamel and precious stones. Parchment was used in Slavic manuscripts white color. In Western European countries - white and black. In some Greek - blue or purple.

Parchment was brought to Rus' from Byzantium, but gradually they learned how to make it in local workshops.
In the ancient Russian tradition, the words “charter”, “fur”, “skin” were used to designate parchment. Manuscripts written on parchment were called "charate writing". From one skin of a calf, 7–8 sheets for a book were obtained. And for the whole book, the whole herd was required. Due to the high cost of parchment, it was sometimes used twice. Lactic acid was used to wash off the text or scraped off with a knife. After that, parchment was called "palimpsest".

? What was written on ancient rome? What did the wooden planks look like? What were they covered with? What was the subject of the letters?

Wooden notebook - tsera - a square board smeared with wax. They wrote on it with a bone or metal stick - in style or writing. Wrote - a rod 8–16 cm long. They were made of iron, bronze or bone. The spatula was decorated either with an “apple” or with rollers, sometimes with figured carving, inlay. Sometimes iron writing was covered with bronze or silver paint. One end of the style was sharp and the other rounded. They wrote with a sharp end, and with the other they smoothed over what was written. It was possible to write a letter on a cer and send it to a friend who, after reading it, could make amends for what was written and write his answer on it. The ceres were often fastened with cords in twos, forming a "diptych" (the Greek word for "folded in two"). Such "notebooks" were in many countries and in Rus' too. Cera have not changed their appearance: rectangular, 13–16 cm high and 9 cm wide. Planks with narrow sides, having a shallow recess for filling with wax. A notch of hatched lines was made along the entire bottom of the recess for better adhesion of wax and wood. To ensure the safety of the records, a cover of the same size was supposed to be attached to each tablet. There are two holes in the sides for connecting with the lid and one for tying a “notebook” with a ribbon. Sometimes the upper surface of the cera was decorated with carvings. Bills, letters, alphabets were written on them. For small children, special tsers were made, in the upper part of which numbers and the alphabet were written. Having such a board, a small child could engage in self-education.

During the excavations of the city of Pompeii, a banker's house was found, where on the wall were portraits of the owner and his wife, holding a cera and style and wooden boxes in which cera containing money receipts lay. The Ceres survived the ancient world. They were also used in the Middle Ages.

? What was written in ancient Rus'? Was ink used?

In order to use birch bark as a writing material, as a rule, it was specially prepared. A sheet of birch bark should have had a minimum of veins. The brittle layers of the bast were removed from its inner side, and the flaky surface layer was removed from the outer side. Then the birch bark was boiled in water with alkalis. But they wrote without it. In most cases, the text was written on the inner surface of the bark, and sometimes on the outer surface using a bone or iron stylus (wrote). Styloses were a pointed rod, equipped on the opposite side with a flat spatula. This form was determined by the dual purpose of this tool. They wrote on birch bark, and on waxed boards - tsers. The inner surface of the bark was used, because it is elastic. Birch bark with natural twisting is folded with the inside out. Texts found on such "scrolls" last longer. Stores very well in a humid environment. In the air, when dried, the birch bark quickly twists due to the uneven tension of its layers. It becomes brittle, exfoliates along the veins. Such writing material is not designed for long-term storage. A person who received a birch bark letter and familiarized himself with the contents threw it away. Having fallen into the mud and being trampled into wet soil, the letter thus acquired a second life. Birch-bark letters were used by people of various strata of society. There were many smart people. Among them are boyars, large landowners, merchants, clergy of various hierarchical ranks, artisans, peasants, men, women and children. Among the birch bark letters found in Novgorod there are many documents, personal letters, student "notebooks" with exercises in writing and counting. In ancient Novgorod, people wrote not only on birch bark, but also on wooden boards - tsers, covered with a layer of wax. Wax ceres were known both in ancient times and in the Middle Ages. They were used as material for short-term recordings. The high cost of parchment, and then paper, was the reason why wax tablets (“wax”) became widespread throughout the medieval world.

? Which material won over all the previous ones? Who invented it?

Historians believe that for the first time paper from bamboo and mulberry wood was made by master Cai Lun in 105. But modern Chinese historians say that paper was known long before Cai Lun. The secret of paper production was discovered by accident. Two Chinese paper makers were captured in Samarkand, where they were told how to make paper. In the 8th century paper became known to the Arabs. Then she appeared in Byzantium. Infiltrated into Spain and Italy. In the XII-XIII centuries. paper spread throughout Western Europe. In the XIV century. it began to be made in Rus'.

Paper was made by hand from linen, cotton, rags. Vegetable fibers and rags were soaked in a vat of paint and glue. Stirred and crushed to the state of slurry. The master - wallet - scooped up the gruel in a form, the bottom of which was a copper mesh, and placed it on a board above the vat. When the water drained, he laid out a wet sheet of paper on the cloth, and again covered the paper on top with it. Then another loose layer of paper, again cloth - and so on several times. Got a few sheets. Together with the cloth, they were put under a press to squeeze out excess moisture. The cloth was taken out. The sheets were pressed a second time and hung to dry. If you looked at the sun through the paper, you could see watermarks. They appeared at the end of the 13th century. European masters began to mark paper. To do this, an ornament was made on a wire mesh, imprinted on a paper sheet. Each master had his own ornament, his own filigree.

How was ink prepared for writing on paper and parchment?

The ink was made from soot, ink nuts that grow on oak leaves, and the "ink sac" of cuttlefish. They also used iron filings with cherry glue (resin). Cooked ink on kvass or honey. To highlight the first line, they used red paint, which was extracted from plants - dragon's blood, lead-based - red lead, mercury-based - cinnabar. Purple paint was the most expensive. It was extracted from sea molluscs. This color has become a symbol of imperial power. From 470, purple was used only by emperors for signing decrees. For expensive handwritten books, sheet or "created" gold or silver was used. Sheet gold or silver rolled into thin foil was superimposed on letters written with a sticky substance.

"Created" was called precious metal, ground into powder, on the basis of which paint was made. Silver was rarely used.

In the old days, ink prepared according to various recipes was used to copy books. For example, this is how ink was made according to the recipe “On smoked ink for icon and book writing”: “First you need to get soot; they put several pots with a broken bottom on the bricks and harden the back side so that the smoky soot goes up, and put birch bark with fire under the pots on the front side. At the same time, it was necessary to ensure that the soot in the pots did not catch fire, and to remove the accumulated layer in a timely manner. Then the soot was mixed with saliva or wine, diluted with water, mixed with cherry glue - gum. A decoction of alder bark, red must, ink nuts and iron was added to the resulting mixture. The ink was corked in a jug or in a pot and kept warm for some time. Iron ink was also prepared in this way: they took pieces of rusty iron, old locks, keys, chains, nails and lowered them into a decoction of alder bark with the addition of sour kvass or vinegar. “First, having cut the green alder peels, without moss, young ones, and on the fourth day put the bark in a pot, and pour water or good kvass or ash [barley] wort, and lay the bark full of the pot, and boil in the oven, it would boil much and it would be enough, the day until evening, and put a little iron in a pot, and put the pot with everything, no matter where the place is cold, not warm, and on the third day pour ink.

? Has anyone tried making their own ink?

penknife

In ancient times, a pointed reed reed served as a pen. They wrote with bone or metal pens. A bird's feather began to be used already in the Middle Ages. In Rus', they used mainly goose, swan and peacock feathers. Previously, the tip of the pen was split and sharpened with a knife. Therefore, the penknife was always with the scribe.

Confusion task

In the market of Pompeii one could meet merchant who, with you, could write any document or letter on birch bark dipped in red ink fountain pen . Other merchants showed bull skins with ready written verses. You can also find it in some shop. paper notebook and handle to write in it.

Answers to the crossword for lesson 8

1. Cinnabar. 2. Skin. 3. Egypt. 4. Cuneiform. 5. Felon. 6. Alphabet. 7. Miniature. 8. Cera. 9. Style.

Sergey Yurievich Nechaev

Amazing Inventions

Foreword

What is an invention? This is a fundamentally new technical solution to some problem, it is the "engine" of progress.

A great many amazing inventions have been made throughout the history of mankind. Accordingly, the entire history of mankind is the history of inventions. Therefore, it is simply impossible to tell about all the inventions and inventors in one book: listing them alone would require several huge volumes.

Paper, pencil, watch, canned food, car, plane, helicopter, parachute, submarine, TV ... Without all this it is impossible to imagine life. modern man. But once there weren't any...

How did all this come about? When? Who came up with this?

The book you are holding in your hands is about that. About the history of the appearance of paper and the first paper machines. About matches and the first "flying ships".

About the voltaic column and the invention of canned food. About the world's first programmer and about the first watch. And much, much more.

People who entered the history of world invention were both professional engineers who received an excellent special education, and simple self-taught.

But none of the great inventions were made by accident. In fact, such "accidental" discoveries are made only by prepared minds, only by people who are very passionate about something, persistent, patient and able to think outside the box.

The author dedicates his book to all those who are not afraid to make inventions.

THE HISTORY OF PAPER

What was written on before paper?

Now it is simply impossible to imagine life without paper. It appeared a very, very long time ago, and the history of its emergence and many successive transformations is not so simple. Of course, the origin of paper was due to the appearance of writing - after all, it was necessary to write on something.

And the very first forms of writing appeared around 4000 BC. e. A little later, special graphic signs were invented for fixing and transmitting information - scientists call these ancient schematic drawings pictograms.

At first they wrote on damp clay tablets. Our distant ancestors dried them in the sun or burned them in the fire to fix the text. After that, the tablets could be sent to each other, including over very long distances. But these letter-tiles were very uncomfortable (heavy and fragile) and too time-consuming to make.

Wood has become an easier and more reliable material for writing. For example, in ancient China, people used bamboo boards, on which they burned hieroglyphs with a red-hot needle. They wrote in China before the invention of paper and on silk, but it was always very expensive, and no more than 30 hieroglyphs were placed on a bamboo tablet. You can imagine what the "bamboo book" looked like. Probably, in order to transport it, a cart drawn by oxen was required.

But our Slavic ancestors applied their texts to birch bark, that is, to the outer layer of birch bark. Their ancient writings are called birch bark letters.

Birch bark of the 12th century

In ancient Greece and Rome, people wrote on waxed wooden boards. This was already a significant progress, since a layer of wax made it possible to erase the old and write a new text on the same tablet. In Rus', such wax-covered boards were called cerami.

And in search of more suitable media, people tried to write on large leaves, on skin, on bones, etc. For example, in countries with a hot climate, dried palm leaves were often used for this. They were huge in area, and they could fit entire compositions. More "advanced" Egyptians used papyrus for writing, the material for the manufacture of which was the trihedral reed stems that grew in abundance on the banks of the Nile. Note that the earliest documented papyri in existence may have been used between 3000 and 3500 BC. e. However, the manufacturing technology of papyrus - this first "paper" - was quite complicated, and therefore the papyri turned out to be very expensive.

In the II century BC. e. in Asia Minor, the production of a new material for writing developed - parchment. It got its name from the city of Pergamon of the Kingdom of Pergamon (now it is the territory of northwestern Turkey).

Parchment was made from the skin of young calves and sheep using a very complex technology, but it was much stronger and more durable than papyrus. Another huge advantage of parchment was that it could be written on both sides. But, unfortunately, it was also expensive, so in order to write new documents, sometimes it was necessary to wash off the ink from old parchments.

The recipe for the most ancient ink has not come down to us, but it is known that the Egyptians wrote on their papyri with a mixture of soot and oil. The ancient Chinese also used a similar composition.

Naturally, humanity needed a more practical and cheaper material, and paper eventually became such a material. Her name (in English language – paper) is very similar to the word "papyrus". Some scholars believe that the word "paper" came into Russian from Italian bambagia, others are sure that this word comes from the Tatar paper. Both, by the way, are translated as "cotton".

the invention of paper

According to ancient chronicles, paper was invented in China. It is no accident that the Chinese were the inventors of paper. This country already in the most ancient times was famous for the most complex system of bureaucratic management and a huge number of officials, from whom the rulers demanded constant accountability. That is why in China there has always been a need for convenient, and most importantly, inexpensive writing material.

It is generally accepted that paper was invented in 105 by a certain Cai Lun(50–121). However, some scholars argue that paper appeared in China much earlier. Most likely, the Chinese official Cai Lun, who served under Emperor He Di, invented not the first paper, but the world's first "industrial" method of making it. Being a very educated person, he improved the technologies already known by that time. In any case, the emperor granted Cai Lun a high title and made him rich.

Before Tsai Lun, paper in China was made from hemp (fibers of hemp stalks), and even earlier, as we have already said, from silk.

And Tsai Lun proposed to prepare a fibrous mass (suspension) from almost any crushed plant material and waste to obtain paper: mulberry fibers, bamboo shoots, straw, grass, moss, algae, etc. The liquid mass was scooped up with a special form-grid (some like a sieve made of bamboo), water seeped through the holes in the mesh and left an even layer of future paper in it. After drying in the sun, the workpieces were smoothed with flat stones, and sufficiently strong sheets were obtained.

Soon, starch and glue, as well as natural dyes, were added to the paper pulp to increase strength.

Approximately in the 3rd-4th centuries, paper completely displaced all kinds of boards that were widely used for writing.

It should be emphasized that the invention of paper had enormous consequences, not only for China, but also for the rest of the world - after all, for the first time in history, people received an excellent and relatively inexpensive material for writing, an equivalent replacement for which, by and large, has not been found to this day. day. Thus, the name of Tsai Lun is rightfully among the greatest inventors in the history of mankind.

Manual paper making

In the 6th-7th centuries, paper production was also established in other Asian countries: for example, in 600, paper appeared in Korea, in 625 in Japan.

In July 751, a battle took place on the Talas River (on the border of modern Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), in which the Arabs defeated the Chinese and managed to capture several paper craftsmen. From these valuable captives, the Arabs took over the experience of paper production, and then improved it themselves.

Samarkand became the first "western" center for the development of paper production. In 800, paper appeared in Baghdad, and in 1100 in Cairo.

Surprisingly, the Europeans were the last to learn how to make paper. Obviously, this art came to Europe from the Arabs in the 11th-12th centuries. First, paper was made in Spain, Italy and France, and later - in other countries (in 1228 - in Germany, in 1309 - in England).

Thus began the "paper age". Each nation contributed something of its own to the paper production process. Inventive Italians, for example, came up with a way to apply watermarks to it, used animal glue to glue it, etc.

Paper production came to Russia in the middle of the 16th century, during the reign of Tsar Ivan IV, better known by his nickname the Terrible. But the real rise of the Russian paper industry came during the reign of Peter I. In particular, in 1703 the first Russian newspaper began to appear, many books were published on various issues of science and technology, which required a lot of paper. To encourage domestic paper production in Russia, the far-sighted Peter I forbade the use of foreign paper in offices.

The first paper machines

A turning point in the development of paper production occurred in the 17th century, when roll machine(from German word roll-"roller, roller") for grinding fibrous materials. This allowed a significant increase in production volumes.

Prior to that, paper was made in a very primitive way - by manually grinding the mass with wooden hammers in a mortar, and then scooping it up in forms with a mesh bottom. The paper made in this way had traces of a grid.

In the middle of the 18th century, a British manufacturer James Whatman 1st(1702-1759) invented a new paper form that allowed sheets of paper to be obtained without any trace of a grid.

So that no traces of the grid could be seen on the paper, he came up with the idea of ​​using for drying not the usual construction of longitudinal and transverse metal rods, but a new kind of grid made of thin fabric. Now, after draining the water and cooling, the paper became dense and was distinguished by great resistance to abrasion, as well as a pleasant rough surface. This paper was appreciated by artists, and it became widely used for creating watercolors and printing lithographs.

Soon this "rough" paper in honor of its inventor began to be called drawing paper.

James Whatman 1st was born in Kent, which at that time was the center of papermaking in England. In 1733, he decided to open his own enterprise with the firm intention of, if not becoming famous, then certainly getting rich.

A successful marriage helped him realize his dream. In 1740, he married a certain Ann Harris and, using his wife's considerable capital, bought a paper mill with a full set of equipment. Then he invited the best British craftsmen to his place and began to make high-quality paper exclusively from rag raw materials.

After the death of James Whatman 1st, his son James Whatman 2nd (1741–1798) inherited the business. Under him, the company became one of the leaders in the world paper production.

Unfortunately, the paper was cast almost by hand, and this greatly slowed down the work. And more and more paper was required.

In this regard, the invention in 1799 by a Frenchman was of great importance. Louis Nicolas Robert(1761–1828) paper machine, which made it possible to mechanize the ebb of paper by using a continuously moving grid.

Robert's machine looked like this: on a wooden frame stood a vat of paper pulp, over which a copper mesh was stretched on two rollers. Paper pulp was fed onto this grid using a scoop wheel made of thin copper strips. The mass spread evenly over the grid. Then the water returned to the vat, and a damp cloth formed on the grid, which was even more compacted between two rollers covered with cloth. Then the still damp paper web was wound on a take-up roller, and then unwound and dried in the air. The productivity of this machine was about 100 kg of paper per day. It allowed the production of 12-meter and 15-meter rolls of paper.

After the appearance of the Robert machine, which almost completely automated the process of making paper, its production volumes increased significantly.

Louis-Nicolas Robert served in the army from the age of 19, participated in the war for the independence of the United States. On his return to France, he went to work in the printing house of Pierre-Francois Didot. This printing house was very large (it employed more than 300 people), and it produced paper for its own needs. In it, Louis-Nicolas Robert created the design of his first paper machine. He applied for a patent on September 9, 1798. At first, Mr. Didot financed his work, but then, in 1799, he agreed with his relative, the Englishman John Gamble, who promised to provide support in the construction of a large machine designed by Robert.

A patent for Robert's machine was issued on January 18, 1799, and the inventor received 3,000 francs for it.

Then Robert's invention was "intercepted" by the ubiquitous British - London publishers, brothers Henry Fourdrinier(1766–1854) and Sealy Fourdrinier(1774–1847). Since 1801 they have been working on the creation of their paper machine. In 1806 they patented their invention, which was given their name - the Fourdrinier machine.

In this machine, paper was formed from rags and cotton into an endless ribbon, or roll. It consisted of the following main parts: mesh, press, drying and finishing.

As a result, by the middle of the 19th century, papermaking had reached the stage of complete automation. By this time, the Fourdrinier machine, having undergone a number of changes, had become a very complex unit that could work continuously, giving very high quality paper at the output.

The success of the Fourdrinier brothers was overwhelming. In 1810, Louis-Nicolas Robert came to his senses and even tried to sue the enterprising British, but to no avail. As a result, he had no choice but to watch with bitterness until his death the triumph of those who only slightly improved his own invention.

From 1827, paper machines began to be produced in the United States.

In 1856 an Englishman Edward Haley received a patent for the invention of corrugated cardboard. This invention immediately migrated to America, where a patent was registered for the use of this new packaging material. And then a machine was created for making two-layer corrugated cardboard and winding it into rolls.

The first example of such a corrugating machine looked very primitive: its corrugated shafts, for the manufacture of which two old cannon barrels were used, were set in motion by hand. And heating was first carried out through gas burners, but then, due to the frequent fire of paper, it was replaced by steam heating.

1851 paper making machine

In 1857, the United States began to make toilet paper, and also discovered a method for making paper from cellulose and wood pulp (crushed to the level of wood dust). But the very first cardboard box was made in the USA in 1895.

paper today

In the 20th century, paper became widespread, and now it is not only a recognized information carrier, but also an excellent packaging material. As well as an excellent finishing material (wallpaper), a means of payment (paper money), a filter, etc. Baby diapers, hospital sheets, napkins, disposable towels are made from paper ... Everyone can continue this list for as long as their awareness and imagination allow . Now there is such a great variety of types of paper (from thick cardboard to the thinnest cripples) that it is simply impossible to imagine what modern society might look like if it did not exist ...

LEONARDO DA VINCI. INVENTIONS AHEAD OF THE TIME

Legacy of Leonardo

The thought of being great Leonardo da Vinci(1452–1519), the illegitimate son of a simple notary from the provincial Florentine town of Vinci, was not a man, but an alien from other worlds, arose among many - his talent was so multifaceted.

They say that his teacher, the famous artist Andrea del Verrocchio, saw one of the works of his 15-year-old student and stopped painting forever. Of course, this is just a beautiful legend, but, really, if Leonardo left behind only one mysterious smile of the Gioconda (the portrait of Lisa Giocondo, or Mona Lisa, was painted by him around 1503–1505), this alone would be enough for that to make it history.

Leonardo da Vinci (self-portrait)

Leonardo's archive is about 7,000 pages of large and small format ... What is there just not there! As you know, Leonardo da Vinci was engaged in research in the field of mathematics, physics, chemistry, medicine, anatomy and astronomy. In addition, he left behind a lot of drawings and drawings of the mechanisms and apparatus invented by him.

Many of his ideas were far ahead of their time and were brought to life only a few centuries later: it has now been proven that it is Leonardo da Vinci who owns the “copyrights” for scuba gear, parachute, helicopter, car, machine gun and many other things, without which it is impossible to imagine modern civilization.

Diving suit Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci was very fond of the sea, and this passion of his resulted in many sketches of devices for studying underwater life. However, he was not the first who was interested in the possibility of a person for a long time to be under water. It is believed, for example, that as early as 332 BC. e. the great conqueror Alexander the Great himself descended into the water in a kind of glass vessel, which became the prototype of a diving bell. Much later, the Genoese scholar Leon Battista Alberti(1404–1472) seriously planned to raise sunken Roman ships from the bottom of the Italian Lake Nemi.

However, Leonardo da Vinci went much further than just plans: he created a real underwater suit (diving suit), which was made of thick leather, had glass lenses for the eyes and even a special vessel for urination. A reed tube was attached to the suit, which led to a floating dome that was on the surface of the water. This system allowed the diver to breathe.

The set of equipment also included ballast bags with sand (for diving) and a large chest pocket, which, when filled with air, made it easier for the diver to surface. In addition, the diver had to have a long rope, a knife and a horn, with which he could signal the end of work under water.

And to speed up swimming, Leonardo developed special gloves with membranes, which eventually turned into the now widely known flippers.

Plane, helicopter and parachute Leonardo

The conquest of the air element interested Leonardo da Vinci no less than the development of the sea element. In particular, he developed an open cockpit glider, equipped with a control system for the pilot and driven by movable wings.

To create this “aircraft”, the master began to study the anatomy of a dragonfly and its behavior in the air, then he came up with a flapping wing - in essence, it was a mechanism for “repelling” from the air. In fact, with the help of an ingenious system of transmission ropes and levers, Leonardo's apparatus ("machole") had to "row" through the air, as it were, using the muscular strength of a person.

Calculations made by Leonardo da Vinci showed that the wing length of, for example, a duck is numerically equal to the square root of its weight. Based on this, he found that to lift a car with a person (total weight of about 140 kg) into the air, wings 12 m long are needed.

Unfortunately, attempts to reproduce the flapping wing created by nature did not lead to success, and the tireless Leonardo turned to gliding flight. As a result, he came up with the design of a glider with fixed wings: the device was attached to the back of a person, allowing him to sort of balance in flight. To do this, the ends of the wings had to be bent with cables, which also made it possible to change the direction of flight.

The aircraft of Leonardo da Vinci. 1490

And also a brilliant inventor, obsessed with the idea of ​​flight, came up with a device that in our time is considered to be the prototype of a modern helicopter. This device was called the "air screw".

The essence of the invention was as follows: Leonardo da Vinci proposed to make a metal edging with a coating stretched over it from thin linen soaked in starch. Thus, a propeller with a radius of about 5 m was obtained. This propeller had to be set in motion by four people walking around the axis and pushing the levers.

“I think that if this screw mechanism is soundly made and quickly spun, then it will find support in the air and fly high into the air,” wrote Leonardo.

However, modern scientists argue that this design could not take off in any way, that the muscular strength of four people is not enough to “screw” it into the air. Moreover, even after taking off, it would begin to rotate around its axis, and flight would still become impossible.

Nevertheless, this idea of ​​Leonardo da Vinci is still one of the most famous, and one can only regret that in the XV-XVI centuries there were no engines yet.

In the meantime, Leonardo da Vinci became the inventor of the first parachute. He described it like this: "If you have enough linen sewn into a pyramid with a base of 12 yards, then you can jump from any height without any harm to your body."

This entry is dated between 1483 and 1486. And the world's first parachute jump from a balloon (more on this will be discussed below) was made on October 22, 1797 in the Monceau Park in Paris, and this happened more than 300 years after Leonardo's invention ...

Leonardo da Vinci, in the end, never managed to create a working model of an aircraft. In his dreams, he was simply too ahead of his time. However, in 2002, the great Leonardo's "hang glider" was recreated in the UK: an apparatus assembled exactly according to the old drawings of the great inventor was successfully tested in the sky over Surrey. Experimental flights were carried out by the then world champion in hang gliding Judy Liden, and she managed to lift Leonardo's invention to a height of 10 m, holding out in the air for 17 seconds. And this meant only one thing - the device, outwardly resembling the skeleton of a bird, could actually work ...

But the "parachute" Leonardo da Vinci, created exactly according to his drawing, was successfully tested in practice in 2000: the British paratrooper Adrian Nicholas descended on it from a height of 3,000 m and remained safe and sound.

Military-technical developments of Leonardo

Despite his peaceful disposition, Leonardo da Vinci also paid attention to military-technical developments. For example, he proposed making armored chariots that would not be afraid of enemy fire. In shape, they looked like upside-down soup bowls - a kind of "turtle", covered with metal sheets and armed with a cannon.

The engine of this prototype of a modern tank was supposed to be the horses inside, but later the master abandoned this idea - because the animals could panic in an enclosed space, and this would lead to trouble. Therefore, to set this entire structure in motion, Leonardo proposed using the muscular strength of a crew of eight people.

However, it was another brilliant fantasy - nothing more. In real conditions, the efficiency of such machines would be practically zero. With their weight and hand-foot traction, these "turtles" could not move long distances, especially over rough terrain.

It is believed that in 1495 Leonardo da Vinci first formulated the idea of ​​a "mechanical man", in other words, a humanoid robot. As conceived by the master, this device was supposed to be a mannequin dressed in knightly armor and capable of reproducing a range of human movements.

First mechanical device, vaguely reminiscent of what was proposed by Leonardo, designed in 1738 by the French mechanic Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–1782). It was an automatic flute player, inside of which the inventor placed springs and bellows that conducted air into various parts of the mechanism in such a way that lips and fingers moved along the flute.

Another military-technical innovation of Leonardo was to equip a conventional cannon with a lifting block, which made it possible to change the angle of fire and thereby increase its lethality. Later, this idea was applied in the drawings of multi-barreled guns, which, unlike the usual extremely slow-loading guns of that time, could well become a terrible weapon on the battlefield (this was the prototype of a machine gun or Katyusha for salvo fire).

Developing new military equipment, Leonardo da Vinci did not forget about traditional types of weapons, endlessly upgrading them. In particular, he created models of huge crossbows (up to 24 m wide), including double ones, as well as powerful catapults for throwing stones.

In addition, Leonardo came up with the simplest prototype of a submarine, a ship with paddle wheels, a boat with a pedal drive.

Leonardo's car

One of Leonardo's most stunning drawings is an ancient development of the "car". Da Vinci's self-propelled wooden cart was three-wheeled. It had to move with the help of a complex spring mechanism and a system of gears, transferring the stored energy of flat springs to the wheels.

The two rear wheels had differentiated drives, that is, they could rotate independently of each other. In addition to the front wheel, there was one more - a small, swivel one. It was connected to a steering wheel, with which it was possible to steer the cart.

Moreover, when “deciphering” the outwardly not always clear drawings of Leonardo (after all, so much time has passed), modern researchers managed to find even a brake invented by the master, which, according to experts, is almost as important for the progress of the automotive industry as the creation internal combustion engine.

Bicycle by Leonardo da Vinci

Initially this vehicle measuring 1x1 m was intended for the entertainment of the royal court. This idea was born by Leonardo da Vinci in 1478, and only in 1752 (that is, after 274 years) did a Russian self-taught mechanic Leonty Lukyanovich Shamshurenkov(1687-1758) was able to assemble in St. Petersburg a "self-running carriage", that is, a four-wheeled carriage set in motion by the muscular strength of two people (more on this will be discussed below).

Note that Leonardo's "car" was also recreated in 2004. The scientists of one of the museums in Florence brought da Vinci's idea to life, and, to their great surprise, it worked exactly as the ingenious "homo universalis" (universal man) of the Italian Renaissance assumed.

Wheeled Castle Leonardo

The fertility of Leonardo da Vinci really cannot but impress. To the above, it is enough to add that he developed the prototype of a modern drill, a rotating crane, a glass grinder, a mechanical pedometer (a device for measuring the distance traveled), a paper cutting machine, a two-wheeled bicycle, and even ... a semblance of an excavator.

Nevertheless, oddly enough, only one invention of the master received practical implementation and recognition during his lifetime. It was the so-called wheel lock for a pistol. The device worked like this: a spring was started with a special key, which, after pressing the trigger, set in motion a wheel with a notch and lowered a trigger with flint on it; as a result of the resulting friction, a spark was struck, which ignited the powder charge.

Shotgun ring lock. Russia. 16th century

By the middle of the 16th century, this mechanism, which replaced the unreliable wick, gained popularity among the nobles, especially those who served in the cavalry. Moreover, the wheel lock for a pistol invented by Leonardo da Vinci was so perfect that it continued to be used well into the 19th century.

Scuba gear, tank, hang glider, car, helicopter, parachute… This list could go on and on.

Unfortunately, the amazing inventions of the great Leonardo da Vinci remained virtually unclaimed for centuries. In practice, all this was invented much later by other people, as if anew and without relying on the brilliant fantasies of the great Florentine. And what if those in power at one time had listened to his words? How would the history of Europe and all mankind have developed? Perhaps Tsar Ivan the Terrible would already be moving around Moscow by car, and the Battle of Borodino would have been won with the help of tanks and aircraft ...