Khartasia : a Database for Asian Papers
Claude Laroque · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · 2013
Since the 17 th century onwards, when imports from China increased, Europe has known about the existence of Asian papers.Collections of documents and paintings on Asian papers preserved in heritage institutions outside of Asia have rarely been technically analyzed.Thus far, existing paleographic studies conducted on these manuscripts have focused on visual observations of the documents, and collection managers still fi nd it diffi cult to determine the characteristics of the papers.Currently the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections in Paris, in collaboration with several institutions in Japan, Korea and China, is conducting a thorough study of Asian papers, with the fi nal goal of providing Western curators, conservators, historians and archaeologists with a better understanding of the properties and characteristics of Asian papers.These research efforts led to the development of a descriptive and analytical methodology for characterizing the various papers by establishing a rigorous protocol for the identifi cation of raw constituents of the papers and by setting up a database to record reference materials, processes and tools.The content of this database (the Khartasia database) is described in this article.1. Overview 2. Elements of the current research 3. Khartasia database 4. Conclusion