Silk bound ancient manuscript

Philippa Sterlini and Andrew Megaw, paper conservators in the Library Conservation Unit have been busy treating a fragile sixteenth century manuscript. The volume they have been working on is one of 22,877 books of the Yongle dadian - a Chinese encyclopaedia and one of the longest works of non-fiction ever written.

The manuscript, elegantly written in black and red calligraphy, is in its original imperial yellow silk binding. It was gifted to Aberdeen University by benefactor James Russell Brazier who spent most of his life working for the consular service of the Chinese government. Phillippa and Andrew consulted extensively with colleagues from the Bodleian Library, Library of Congress and the British Library, where some of the other volumes of the same work are held.

Some of the text had to be meticulously pieced together from the 'confetti' of Chinese characters. Andrew repaired the original 16th century binding sufficiently to preserve it and the text it protects.

Although the intervention was minimalist in its approach, the work took many months to complete because of the extreme fragility of the water-damaged paper. It is now stable in as near as possible its original condition, although it is not suitable for a great deal of handling. To ensure that readers will have increased access to this recently rediscovered text, modern technology was used to colour microfilm each leaf while the volume was in a disbound state, and to produce a digital version of the complete volume.

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