Birch Bark Manuscript
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Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the outer layer of
birch bark Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus ''Betula''. For all practical purposes, birch bark's main layers are the outer dense layer, white on the outside, and the inner porous layer ( ...
, which was commonly used for writing before the mass production of
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...
. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and appears in various cultures. The oldest such manuscripts are the numerous
Gandhāran Buddhist texts The Gandhāran Buddhist texts are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating from about the 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE and found in the northwestern outskirts of Pakistan. They represent the literature of Gandharan Buddhism a ...
from approximately the 1st century CE, from what is now Afghanistan. They contain among the earliest known versions of significant Buddhist scriptures, including a ''
Dhammapada The ''Dhammapada'' (; ) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.See, for instance, Buswell (2003): "rank among the best known Buddhist texts" (p. 11); and, "on ...
'', discourses of Buddha that include the '' Rhinoceros Sutra'',
Avadana Avadāna (Sanskrit; Pali: '' Apadāna'') is the name given to a type of Buddhist literature correlating past lives' virtuous deeds to subsequent lives' events. Richard Salomon described them as "stories, usually narrated by the Buddha, that ...
s and
Abhidharma The Abhidharma are a collection of Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It also refers t ...
texts. Sanskrit birch bark manuscripts written with
Brahmi script Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as ...
have been dated to the first few centuries CE. Several early Sanskrit writers, such as
Kālidāsa Kālidāsa (, "Servant of Kali (god), Kali"; 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy. ...
(),
Sushruta Suśruta (, ) is the listed author of the '' Suśruta Saṃhiāa'' (''Suśruta's Compendium''), considered to be one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine. It is also considered a foundational text of Ayurveda. The treat ...
(), and Varāhamihira (6th century CE) mention its use for manuscripts. The bark of '' Betula utilis'' (Himalayan Birch) is still used today in India and
Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
for writing sacred mantras. Russian texts discovered in
Veliky Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the ...
have been dated to approximately the 11th to 15th centuries CE. Most of those documents are letters written by various people in a local dialect, Old Novgorodian. The Irish language's native writing system
Ogham Ogham (also ogam and ogom, , Modern Irish: ; , later ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish language ( scholastic ...
, sometimes called the "tree alphabet", was traditionally attributed to the god
Ogma Ogma () is a god from Irish mythology, Irish and Scottish mythology. A member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, he is often considered a deity and may be related to the Gauls, Gallic god Ogmios. According to the In Lebor Ogaim, Ogam Tract, he is the i ...
who wrote a proscription on birch to Lugh, warning him; the text of this proscription can be found in the
Book of Ballymote The ''Book of Ballymote'' (, RIA MS 23 P 12, 275 foll.), was written in 1390 or 1391 in or near the town of Ballymote, now in County Sligo, but then in the tuath of Corann. According to David Sellar who was the Lord Lyon King of Arms in ...
. The first letter of Ogham is ''beith''; ''beithe'' means "birch".


Gandhāran Buddhist manuscripts

Buddhist manuscripts written in the Gāndhārī language are likely the oldest extant Indic texts, dating to approximately the 1st century CE. They were written on birch bark and stored in clay jars. The
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
acquired them in 1994. They were written in Kharoṣṭhī and were believed to have originated from
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
, because similar birch bark manuscripts had been discovered in eastern Afghanistan. Since 1994, a similar collection of Gāndhārī texts from the same era, called the Senior collection, has also surfaced. The British Library birch bark manuscripts were in the form of scrolls. They were very fragile and had already been damaged. They measured five to nine inches wide, and consisted of twelve- to eighteen-inch long, overlapping rolls that had been glued together to form longer scrolls. A thread sewn through the edges helped to hold them together. The script was written in black ink. The manuscripts were written on both sides of the scrolls, beginning at the top on one side, continuing with the scroll turned over and upside down, so that the text concluded at the top and back of the scroll. The longest intact scroll from the British Library collection is eighty-four inches long. The texts were likely compiled by the Dharmaguptaka sect and probably "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in
Nagarāhāra Nagara (), also known as Dionysopolis (), was an ancient city in the northwest part of ("India (Herodotus), India within the Ganges"), distinguished in Ptolemy by the title 'also Dionysopolis'. It also appears in sources as Nagarahara, and w ...
", according to Richard Salomon. The collection includes a variety of known commentaries and sutras, including a ''Dhammapada'', discourses of Shakyamuni Buddha that include the ''Rhinoceros Sutra'', avadānas, and abhidharma texts. The condition of the scrolls indicates that they were already in poor condition and fragments by the time they were stored in the clay jars. Scholars concluded that the fragmented scrolls were given a ritual interment, much like Jewish texts stored in a genizah.


Sanskrit and Brāhmī manuscripts

The bark of '' Betula utilis'' (Himalayan Birch) has been used for centuries in India for writing scriptures and texts in various scripts. Its use was especially prevalent in historical
Kashmir Kashmir ( or ) is the Northwestern Indian subcontinent, northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term ''Kashmir'' denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir P ...
. Use of bark as paper has been mentioned by early Sanskrit writers such as
Kalidasa Kālidāsa (, "Servant of Kali"; 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on Hindu Puranas and philosophy. His surviv ...
(),
Sushruta Suśruta (, ) is the listed author of the '' Suśruta Saṃhiāa'' (''Suśruta's Compendium''), considered to be one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine. It is also considered a foundational text of Ayurveda. The treat ...
(), and Varahamihira (6th century CE). In Kashmir, early scholars recounted that all of their books were written on Himalayan birch bark until the 16th century. A fragment of a birch bark scroll in Sanskrit, in the
Brāhmī script Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as ...
, was part of the British Library Gandhara scroll collection. It is presumed to be from North India, dating to sometime during the first few centuries CE. Birch bark manuscripts in Brāhmī script were discovered in an ancient Buddhist monastery in Jaulian, near
Taxila Taxila or Takshashila () is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the ...
in the Punjab in Pakistan, and dated to the 5th century CE. The Bakhshali manuscript consists of seventy birch bark fragments written in Sanskrit and Prakrit, in the
Śāradā script The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbouring ...
. Based on the language and content, it is estimated to be from the 2nd to 3rd century CE. The text discusses various mathematical techniques. A large collection of birch bark scrolls were discovered in Afghanistan during the civil war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, possibly in the Bamiyan Caves. The approximately 3,000 scroll fragments are in Sanskrit or Buddhist Sanskrit, in the Brāhmī script, and date to a period from the 2nd to 8th century CE. The Bower Manuscript is one of the oldest Sanskrit texts on birch bark in the Brāhmī script. It includes several texts covering subjects including a medical treatise and proverbs. It was discovered in
Kucha Kucha or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; , Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; ) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklam ...
(currently in
Aksu Prefecture Aksu PrefectureThe official spelling according to is located in mid-Western Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and 2.714 million inhabitants at the 2020 census whom 715,319 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made up of Aksu urban district. T ...
in
Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...
, China), an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the northern
Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...
, and is estimated to be from around 450 CE. The Gilgit Manuscripts were Buddhist texts discovered in the Gilgit area of Pakistan in 1931 and include various sutras, including the
Lotus Sutra The ''Lotus Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: ''Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram'', ''Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma'', zh, p=Fǎhuá jīng, l=Dharma Flower Sutra) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. ...
, along with folk tales, medicine, and philosophy. They are dated to approximately the 5th to 6th centuries AD, and were written in Buddhist Sanskrit in the
Śāradā script The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbouring ...
. Manuscripts containing the Devīkavaca text, a hymn praising the goddess
Durga Durga (, ) is a major Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga's legend centres around combating evils and demonic ...
, were thought to protect the person who carries them from evil influences like an amulet or charm. An example of one of these texts in
Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...
script from
Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
is held at
Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of over 100 libraries Libraries of the University of Cambridge, within the university. The library is a major scholarly resource for me ...
(MS Add. 1578). Birch bark is still used in some parts of India and Nepal for writing sacred
mantra A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...
s. This practice was first mentioned or 9th century CE, in the Lakshmi Tantra. In Indian sculpture, a birch bark manuscript is easily identified by the droop. A palm leaf manuscript is stiff.


East Slavic manuscripts

On July 26, 1951, during excavations in
Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...
, Nina Fyodorovna Akulova discovered the first Russian birch bark manuscript in a
stratigraphic layer Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrat ...
dated to around the year 1400. As of 2018, a total of 1,222 items have been discovered in 12 cities, of which 1,113 were found in Novgorod. In Russia, outside of Novgorod, the others were found in
Staraya Russa Staraya Russa (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located on the Polist, Polist River, south of Veliky Novgorod, the administrative center of the oblast. Its population has steadily decreased over ...
(49),
Torzhok Torzhok () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Tver Oblast, Russia, located on the Tvertsa River along the federal highway M10 highway (Russia), M10 and a branch of the Oktyabrskaya Railway division of the Russian Railways. The ...
(19),
Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...
(16),
Pskov Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=Ru-Псков.oga, p=psˈkof; see also Names of Pskov in different languages, names in other languages) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov O ...
(8),
Tver Tver (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers. Tver is located northwest of Moscow. Population: The city is ...
(5),
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
(4),
Ryazan Ryazan (, ; also Riazan) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 C ...
(1), and
Vologda Vologda (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the river Vologda (river), Vologda within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. Population: The city serves as ...
(1). Outside of Russia, the rest were found in
Mstsislaw Mstislaw or Mstislavl is a town in Mogilev Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Mstsislaw District. In 2009, its population was 10,804. As of 2024, it has a population of 10,019. History Mstislavl was first mentioned in the ...
(2) and
Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...
(1) in Belarus, and in Zvenyhorod (3) in Ukraine. Of the birch bark documents unearthed in Russia, 90% were found in Novgorod and 97% were found in the same historic region as Novgorod. In Russian, the study of birch bark letters is informally known as ''berestologiya'', from the word ''beryosta'' for the outer birch bark. Less than 3% of medieval Novgorod has been systematically excavated, and Valentin Yanin, the head of the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition, estimated that more than 20,000 remain to be discovered in Novgorod alone. Although the birch bark letters do not contain explicit dates, archaeologists have been able to date them with an accuracy of 10 to 15 years using methods including
stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
and
dendrochronology Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...
. They can be dated even more precisely if historical names or events are mentioned. The late discovery of birch documents, as well as their amazing state of preservation, is explained by a deep culture layer in Novgorod (up to eight meters, or 25 feet) and heavy waterlogged
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
soil which prevents the access of
oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
. Serious excavations in Novgorod started only in 1932, although some attempts had been made in the 19th century. Although their existence was mentioned in some East Slavic
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s (along with a mention of Slavs writing upon "white wood" by
Ibn al-Nadim Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq an-Nadīm (), also Ibn Abī Yaʿqūb Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Warrāq, and commonly known by the '' nasab'' (patronymic) Ibn an-Nadīm (; died 17 September 995 or 998), was an important Muslim ...
), Over two hundred
stylus A stylus is a writing utensil or tool for scribing or marking into softer materials. Different styluses were used to write in cuneiform by pressing into wet clay, and to scribe or carve into a wax tablet. Very hard styluses are also used to En ...
es have also been found, mostly made of
iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
, some of
bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...
or
bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...
. Andrey Zaliznyak distinguished the manuscripts in Novgorod from "supra-dialectal Old Russian". Other manuscripts in Novgorod have also shown distinct north Russian dialect forms. As
Church Slavonic Church Slavonic is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. The ...
was used in liturgical and religious writing, while a supra-regional variety was used for trade, it is unclear to what extent Novgorodians at the time would have considered them to have been separate languages or distinct registers of a single language. In addition, there is some variation in birch bark letters due to a lack of standardization that is seen with modern literary languages. Some texts are also written with a mixture of Church Slavonic and Old Novgorodian, but others are written in a pure vernacular. The language found in the birch bark manuscripts represents the closest approximation to the vernacular Old Russian language. According to Yanin and Zaliznyak, most documents are ordinary letters by various people written in what is considered to be a vernacular dialect. The letters are of a personal or business character. A few documents include elaborate obscenities. Very few documents are written in Church Slavonic and only one in
Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
. The school exercises and drawings by a young boy named Onfim have drawn much attention. Since the manuscripts were written by laypeople and consist of casual notes, it has been suggested that there was widespread literacy across large segments of urban society in medieval Russia; according to one estimate, 20% of the urban male population in Russian city-states were literate around the mid-13th century. The contents of the birch bark writings included not only religious writings but also document death of princes, conclusions of peace, dignitary arrivals, folk verses and local proverbs, even casual doodles. While legal related matters include accusations, witnesses and the procedure of evidence, payments and fines, theft, fraud as well as wife-beating. One mundane personal writing reads "Sell the house and come to Smolensk or Kiev; bread is cheap; if you cannot come, write to me about your health". One of the smallest birch bark letters found is no. 79, which is no larger than 6 x 1.5cm, while no. 397 is 4.6 x 2.6cm. On the opposite side of the scale, no. 519 is 47.2 x 16cm. Of those where the texts have been preserved in their entirety, most are no more than 20 words long, with a few exceeding 50 words. The longest one, found in Moscow (Moscow 3), contains 52 lines and about 370 words. The second longest, no. 531, is 166 words. The majority of surviving birch bark letters have missing text, with only a quarter of the entire corpus having complete texts.


Finnic manuscripts

The birch bark letter no. 292 from the Novgorod excavations (unearthed in 1957) is the oldest known document in any Finnic language. It is dated to the beginning of the 13th century. The language used in the document is thought to be an archaic form of the language spoken in Olonets Karelia, a dialect of the
Karelian language Karelian (; ; ; ) is a Finnic language spoken mainly by the Karelians, Karelian people in the Russian Republic of Karelia. Linguistically, Karelian is closely related to the Finnish language, Finnish dialects spoken in eastern Finland, and some ...
.


Writings made in the Soviet Union

There are birch bark letters written in the 20th century, most notably by victims of the repressions of the
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
Stalinist Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism in ...
regime. People in Soviet forced settlements and
GULAG The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
camps in Siberia used strips of birch bark to write letters to their loved ones back home, due to inaccessibility of paper. In 2023 birch bark letters from Siberia Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, applied to include birch bark letters from Siberia (1945–1965) in the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
"
Memory of the World UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...
" Register.Baltics, Poland, Ukraine submit gulag birch bark letters to UNESCO register
/ref> During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, propaganda newspapers and leaflets published by guerilla fighters were sometimes printed on birch bark due to shortage of paper.


See also

*
Bryggen inscriptions The Bryggen inscriptions are a find of some 670 medieval runic inscriptions on wood (mostly pine) and bone found since 1955 at '' Bryggen'' and its surroundings in Bergen, Norway. It has been called the most important runic find in the twentieth c ...
, documents of the same age found in Bergen, Norway * List of Russian archaeologists * Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing * See the Old Novgorod dialect article for samples of some texts * Onfim – boy from medieval Novgorod, famous for his birch bark drawings *
Palm-leaf manuscript Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and spread to ot ...
* Russian archaeology *
Wiigwaasabak A ''wiigwaasabak'' (in Ojibwe syllabics, Anishinaabe syllabics: , plural: ''wiigwaasabakoon'' ) is a birch bark scroll, on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people of North America wrote with a Ojibwe writing systems#Anishinaabewibii'iganan, writ ...
– birch bark scrolls of the Ojibwa people * Yukaghir birch-bark carvings


References


Sources

* * * *


External links


Gandhari.org
Complete Corpus, Catalog, Bibliography and Dictionary of Gāndhārī texts
The Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project at University of WashingtonUniversity of Chicago Novgorodian Scrolls

956 Russian birch bark documents with modern translationsDevīkavaca
at
Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of over 100 libraries Libraries of the University of Cambridge, within the university. The library is a major scholarly resource for me ...

''Stemmen op Boombast''
monograph by Jos Schaeken on the Novgorod ''beretsy'' (free download) {{Authority control Archaeological corpora Birch bark Brahmic scripts Early Buddhist texts Gandhara Novgorod Republic Old East Slavic inscriptions Sanskrit texts Slavic culture