Paper in Eighth-Century Kucha: Discovery of Cotton Fibres within Chinese and Kuchean Documents

Abstract

This paper presents our discovery that already around the middle of the first millennium, cotton fabrics were used in the Tarim Basin in early mediaeval paper. Cotton mix paper was, however, not exclusive to Kucha. Our research suggests that both the cotton and the paper were produced locally, as evidenced by the straw and grasses found in situ. Accordingly, the Garrison of Kucha (恤糎漃督府, the official Tang name) and the Anxi Great Protectorate already supplied their own paper before the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763). The earliest datable Turfan paper fragment was written in Kharoṣṭhī in 386 CE, but there were also traces of a Sogdian letter. This suggests that Sogdian merchants and immigrants played an important role in the spread of Chinese paper and papermaking technology to the Tarim Basin.