Papermaking crosses into the Islamic world

After the Battle of Talas, papermaking — traditionally via captured Chinese craftsmen, more likely by gradual diffusion — reached Samarkand, then Baghdad, where mills soon supplied an empire's bureaucracy.

Why it matters

Cheap paper met a paper-hungry administration and a translation movement: books, contracts and scholarship multiplied. Europe did not adopt paper at scale for another five centuries — the technology's lag shaped what each culture could build.

Threads

This event sits on Communication and Knowledge.

Related events

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  Under the Abbasids, scholars in Baghdad translated Greek, Persian, Syriac and Sanskrit works into Arabic and pushed the sciences far beyond their sources.

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Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Battle of Talas