How it began
Paper reached Central Asia along the Silk Road well before it was made there. Letters on paper written in Sogdian to Samarkand merchants have been dated to 313 CE, and Chinese paper was a trade good in the city by the early 8th century. A papermaking industry began in Samarkand around the 8th century, at about the same time as the mills of Baghdad.
The popular story credits Chinese papermakers captured at the Battle of Talas in 751, who are said to have taught the craft to save their lives. Historians now treat that story as probably legendary, because paper found in the region is older than the battle.
How it works
The paper is made from the inner bark of young mulberry branches. The bark is stripped, boiled for hours until soft, and pounded to pulp by wooden stamps driven by a water wheel. The pulp is stirred into water, lifted out on a sieve to form a sheet, dried and pressed.
The last step is what set Samarkand paper apart. Each sheet is burnished with a stone or shell until smooth. The craftsman who revived the method explains this by writing habits: Chinese and Japanese paper was written on with a brush, while Central Asian scribes used a pen and needed a slick surface. Historically Samarkand also made rag paper, which was preferred for religious texts.
How it spread
Samarkand paper was a luxury good across the Islamic world. Many Persian and Arabic manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries were written on it, and in the 16th century Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty, wrote that the world's best paper came from Samarkand. In the 15th century the Kashmiri sultan Zayn al-Abidin gave land grants to papermakers from Samarkand to start an industry there, which became known for Kashmiri paper.
What lasted
Paper from Samarkand displaced papyrus and came to be preferred over parchment for Qurans and miniature painting, because it was lighter and easier to store. The Samarkand and Baghdad industries were early steps in the movement of papermaking from China into the Islamic world. Local production declined after the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the 19th century and the arrival of industrial paper, and the method was lost.
Where it stands today
The craft was revived by Zarif Mukhtarov, a ceramist who took up the question after a 1995 UN conference on lost culture in Uzbekistan. He spent five years testing cotton, rags and flax before settling on mulberry bark, and in 2001 began building a water-powered workshop at Koni Ghil, a village about 5 km from Samarkand where many mills once stood. In 2014 it employed 10 people and drew about 5,000 visitors a year. Samarkand paper remains a small craft industry tied to tourism.
