In this article, we provide an initial examination of 104 samples of writing paper from the 98 items of the Sino-Nom collection archived by a Vietnamese temple in Bangkok (Canh Phuoc Temple) and held by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. We attempt to gather various forms of quantitative and qualitative information by means of external and surface observation, shape measurement, as well as optical observation and measurement.
In this collection the main fibers used to fabricate writing paper are wood pulp, bamboo, and mulberry. Items containing wood pulp (about 45 percent) can be dated to the end of the nineteenth century or later, while items made of bamboo and mulberry fibers may date back to earlier. Bamboo paper, which in China tends to be used for printed books, is also widely used for manuscripts. Such facts cannot be obtained solely through literary analysis of the documents’ contents; they were collected by expanding the range of information that could be obtained from a historical document. The study of material culture, namely, accumulating and utilizing information on these documents as objects, not only contributes to more concrete and detailed regional and historical research but also provides crucial evidence for the conservation and management of Southeast Asian materials.
