By Xinyi Li, EDITOR

Ancient books play an important role in maintaining the long-standing Chinese civilization of over 5,000 years. However ancient books, mostly in the paper, were inevitably fragmentary in various ways in the long river of time. Therefore, it is of vital necessity to repair them!

In Chongqing, there are only 8 experts who possess the skill to repair ancient books. They draw the attention of the public again because the repairing skill appeared on the list of the 6^th batch of Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The works before repairing

The Origins of Repairing: It Stems from the Ming Dynasty, and Flourished during the Sino-Japanese War

47-year-old Xu Tong has been engaged in repairing ancient books for over a decade. As the inheritor of the traditional skill, what she faces every day are the ancient books with scars everywhere.

Xu said that ancient book repairing is not a skill that rises in recent years. Its history can trace back to the time before Tang Dynasty. At that time, the binding form of the ancient books was basically in the volume manner. Since the Ming Dynasty, the bottleneck overcame in the production of bamboo paper and block printing technology promoted. Sichuan Basin became one of the most important centers of paper-making and printing in China. As the downstream industry of paper-making and printing, the industry of ancient books repairing also flourished in Chongqing areas.

Xu and the one piece of finished works

With a special history of second capital for eight years, the bookshop street has gradually formed in areas around Minsheng Road. Later on, domestic top art colleges and universities moved in Chongqing, and many great masters held art exhibitions of Sino-Japanese war in Chongqing, thus attracting domestic famous mounting masters, such as Liu Shaohou, to move to Chongqing.

All things above provide opportunities of flourishing and absorbing for the skill of repairing ancient books in Chongqing.

Repairing Skill: It Takes Over 20 Steps to Repair an Ancient Book

It sounds easy to repair a book, but in fact, it is pretty complex. Generally speaking, it takes over 20 steps to repair an ancient book. There are three stages of repairing ancient books: preparation, repairing and recovering. Only in the preparation stage, there are 7 processes including analysis, check, dismantlement, uncovering, paper matching, dying, cleaning and paste making.

Tools for repairing ancient books

The most difficult process among them is the uncovering. The ways of repairing depend on the damage degree of ancient books and reason of damages. Sometimes, special techniques may be adopted based on different situations. Generally speaking, in order to recover the original appearance of the entire book, the width of the scrips used to fill the holes ranges from 0.25cm to 0.35cm. It is extremely hard to cut the paper with a width of several millimeters.

“Ancient Books Doctors”: They Heal the Wounds on Chongqing Ancient Books

According to the statistics from Chongqing Library, with the efforts of all ancient books doctors, there are 104 ancient books with 10,453 pages have been repaired such as Luo Chengxiang’s imperial examination papers (Qing Dynasty) and Miao Fa Lian Hua Jing (Ming Dynasty), as well as 4,658-square-feet stone rubbings including The Qi Fo Sheng Jiao Xu in Ming Dynasty and Zhuan Calligraphy (remaining) Anguo Temple Monument (Tang Dynasty).

One piece of works after the process

Meanwhile, the repairers also apply the skills to repair ancient books to the repairing of the historical pieces of literature of rear area in the Sino-Japanese war with Chongqing characteristics, and they have succeeded in repairing 181 maps in the period of Republic of China such as Situation during Anti-Japanese War. They still have a great number of ancient books in the warehouse waiting for repair.

Source: CQCB