木に墨書すること : 中世木簡の用例
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概要
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Documents written on wood, because of such properties as durability in the face of inclement weather, ease of re-use by surface planing, and greater portability, have been heretofore understood as playing only a supporting role to documents written on paper. In this essay the author investigates 1)wooden documents used in the promulgation of laws, 2)those recording village compacts and the completion of memorial celebrations, 3)those used in relation to commercial activities, 4)those used in witchcraft and prayer, 5)other miscellaneous uses and 6)the method for writing wooden inscriptions. As a result of his study, the author concludes that many of the general ideas held about wooden documents, such as their relative unimportance compared to paper due to the latters higher cost, in fact prove to be unfounded prejudices. Rather the act of writing on wood was often times performed for the purpose of reaching and informing more people over a wider area than mere paper documents could ever do. Also wood was used in situations where paper just would not serve the purpose, for example, in order to indicate measures of distance and volume. That is to say, at times wooden documents played a much more important informational role than their paper counterparts. With respect to the classification of wooden documents, size, use/purpose, and the level of relation to or support of paper documents are all legitimate ways of dividing them up. Also, because function, use and size are very often closely related, more refined classification may be necessary ; but this remains outside the scope of the present paper, which was written merely to emphasize the importance of wooden documents as historical source materials through the exposition of some interesting examples.
- 財団法人史学会の論文
- 1984-11-20