The role of Arabs in the introduction of paper into Europe

On this day in Amalfi we explored many interesting things, the first place we went was a paper mill where we learned how paper used to be made in Amalfi before the "high-tech" era of paper making.  It was very interesting to see how they took cloths and crushed them into little pieces, bleached them, soaked them, and finally combined them together to create a sheet of paper.  This relates to what our article was primarily based around, the introduction of paper into Europe.

Throughout history there has been many many different ways that things have been recorded, from clay tablets created by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia.  To paintings and carvings into rocks that can be found all over the world.  China invented what we see as real paper today, they would use plant fibers, rags, tree bark, or fish nets to do it. 

So how did this spread to Europe?  There are many different hypothesis about how it made its way to Europe, a lot of people believe that it arrived somewhere around 710 A.D. through trade routes but the main hypothesis in the article has a much more interesting story.  Chinese and Arabs had arguments over land and had a battle called, "Atlakh near Talas" where in 751 A.D. Arab soldiers captured Chinese soldiers making them POW's (Prisoner of War).  The POW's happened to be paper makers and were forced to teach the Arabs the way.  From here they gained a monopoly on the paper making art and began trading with northern Africa and Spain then eventually the craft traveled all over Europe.

Pretty soon the production of paper was all over the middle east, and all over Europe.  My favorite quote from the text was that, "The question "Where was paper made?" was not as good of a question as "Where was paper not made?""