Paper · a Light

A paper mill in Baghdad changed what a book cost

Papermaking was invented in China. It reached Central Asia through Samarkand, and around 794, during the reign of Harun al-Rashid, a paper mill was set up in Baghdad, credited to his vizier al-Fadl ibn Yahya. Paper was cheaper than parchment and harder to erase than papyrus, which made it good for both scholarship and government records. Within a generation the state chancery had moved to paper, booksellers filled a street of their own, and the copying of books became an ordinary trade rather than a luxury craft. The translation movement and the libraries that followed rested on a Chinese invention passed westward, and on a mill by a river.

Baghdad · c. 794 CE