Paper-like Materials
Claudia Colini, Malgorzata Grzelec, Agnieszka Helman-Ważny
Some of the writing supports in the form of interlocking web of plant fibres cannot be classified as true paper, due to significant differences in their manufacturing technologies. This type of material was obtained upon repeatedly beating with hammers the soaked inner bark of various plants from the genus Ficus (mainly the Amate tree in Mesoamerica and paper mulberry in Oceania and Maritime South-East Asia, for the use of the outer bark of certain trees, see Tree bark). The specific structural difference between paper and paper-like materials lies in the fact that in the latter fibres are never dissolved in water and therefore the formation of new bonds between the fibres never occurs (Helman - Ważny 2022).
Historically, bast paper was used in several locations and called differently depending on the area: from the islands in the Pacific Ocean (Tapa), to Java (Diwuang), to pre-colonial Mesoamerica (Amate) respectively. Tapa cloth was rarely used for writing. Instead it was (and still is) used as a traditional prestigious garment that was often decorated by placing relief designs under the cloth and rubbing the surface with dyes (Wolf Green 1987) (see Garments, Tapestry, and Textile items). In contrast, Amate paper was used in the production of Mesoamerican manuscripts, usually in the form of concertinas, and its surface was whitened and smoothed with chalk (Snijders 2016). This material is still crafted today by members of the Otomí ethnic group in Mexico (Mayer 2012).
Relevant analytic methods include:
- DNA analysis and proteomics to identify the species,
- Microscopy to visualise the structure of the surface and the cells, which can also be used for species identification,
- FTIR and chemometric methods for clustering types (Smith et al. 2019).