quires of paper

Ingredients

paper, Chinese invention

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The paper is organized into codicological units called quires, specifically quires of five sheets (quinios) or four sheets (quaternios) (p. 178). In MS Paris arabe 2346, the manuscript is composed of 380 folia and was bound up from several independent units (p. 185).

Evidence

"As to the shape and physical structure of the book, we have to do with codices written on quires of paper (paper having superseded parchment and Egyptian papyrus after the Chinese invention had been introduced into Iraq in the Abbasid period from the early 9th century), mostly quires of five sheets (quinios) or four sheets (quaternios)."

Remarks

This entry concerns the paper substrate of MS Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, arabe 2346, dated before 418/1027 (p. 185). The manuscript reflects the 10th-century teaching of the school of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī in Baghdad. The author notes that the paper has superseded parchment and Egyptian papyrus by this period following the introduction of Chinese papermaking techniques into Iraq (p. 178). The volume contains an old foliation in zimām (accounting) numerals on the lower right of the verso pages (p. 185).