Analytische Chemie
The writing materials of the Silk Road book cultures in Turfan – Analysis of inks and pigments
(2014)
Manuscript fragments discovered in the oasis of Turfan and in other sites of present-day China in the beginning of the 20th century by A. Grünwedel and A. von Le Coq, represent one of the most fascinating cultural testimonies of people who both lived there and travelled along the trade routes between East and West. To determine the different materials used for writing and painting the Chinese, Sanskrit, Manichaean, Syrian, Sogdian, Tocharian and Uighur fragments of the Berlin collection, analysis of inks and pigments were conducted using non-destructive methods. The research was funded by the German Research Foundation DFG for a period of three years. The identification of specific techniques of preparation allows manuscript groups and sub-groups to be specified, aiding their cultural assignment. This is important for further cultural studies, for the development of conservation strategies and the identification of forgeries.
In this paper, members of three research teams, namely the Turfan Project of the Berlin BrandenburgAcademy of Sciences and Humanities, the Berlin-based research project on pigments in Central Asianpaper manuscripts, and the Hamburg-based project on the history and typology of Central Asian papermanuscripts, present some of the results of their cooperation. The investigated manuscripts belong tothe Berlin Turfan Collection. On the basis of different examples the contribution of scientific methods tophilological scholarship within a multidisciplinary approach is demonstrated.