and Tibetan medieval birch bark letters from Tuva. In India, Sanskrit manuscripts on birch bark, a number of Buddhist texts on birch bark are known.
Diploma on birch bark
Sanskrit letter on birch bark
«The connection of trees – birch, beech, hornbeam with the terminology of writing indicates the technique of writing and making materials for writing in ancient Indo-European cultures. The emergence of writing and writing is the basis in these cultures for the use of wood and wood material, on which signs or nicks were applied using special wooden sticks. This writing technique, characteristic of a number of early Indo-European cultures, reflects, obviously, a typologically more archaic degree of writing development than carving signs on stone, or putting them on clay tablets, or on specially treated animal skin.»
I must say that it is difficult to imagine that a simpler, more affordable, maneuverable and less laborious letter on birch bark was more archaic (or primitive) than an inconvenient, bulky letter on clay tablets or inscriptions on stone. Indeed, if there were both clay and birch bark from the early Indo-Europeans, they would hardly have switched from writing on birch bark to using clay tablets for business correspondence or for business records.
In addition, the question arises why birch bark, as a material for writing, was preserved precisely in the East Slavic and Indian ethnic range. If you follow the findings of T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, the Slavic and Indo-Iranian branches of the Indo-European community dispersed even on the territory of their supposed common ancestral home in Asia Minor (where there are practically no birches). The Pre-Slavs went to Eastern Europe, and the Indo-Iranians moved to Iran (where birch is not common) and Hindustan, where only in the Himalayas at an altitude of 2500—4300 m. grows «useful birch», «Jacquemont birch» and, finally, the birch of the section of acuminatum lives – a tree 20—30 m. high with very large leaves. But these trees are not widespread in India and are considered endonomics of a very narrow range.
Birch in the Himalayas
But in the Indian tradition, birch bark is not just writing material, but sacred material: on birch bark (and only on birch bark) a record was made of marriage in the higher castes, and without this record on birch bark, marriage was not considered valid. This situation could not develop in areas where birch is almost not widespread. Birch bark could become material only where birch has been one of the main forest-forming species for many millennia – in the forest strip of Eastern Europe. It makes sense to pay attention to the following circumstance. T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov emphasizes that birch bark was used for writing in the most ancient Indo-European cultures and was preserved in such quality among the Eastern Slavs and in India until the 16th century.
But the ancestors of the East Slavic peoples and Aryan peoples of North-West India diverged in the middle of 2 thousand BC Nevertheless, birch bark, as a material for writing, was preserved precisely among the Eastern Slavs and Indians.
It follows from this that birch bark was still on their common ancestral home as a material for writing. But then the conclusion is also natural that long before the middle of 2 thousand BC the ancestors of the eastern Slavs had writing and the predecessors of the Novgorod and Pskov birch bark letters were older than them for many millennia. It is also interesting that in the North Russian tradition birch bark and in the 19th century (as in India) was precisely sacred material for writing.
This is evidenced by the story of an outstanding ethnographer of the 19th century.
S. V. Maksimov about the birch bark book, which the Archangel old man-Pomor, ready to give any other manuscript, decorated with miniatures, Old Believers book, did not want to sell him for any money.
S. V. Maksimov notes that this book, «written by half-mouth» on birch bark, «finely and successfully stripped and assembled, stitched in quarters… The written was disassembled as conveniently as the written on paper, the letters did not spread out, but stood straight, one beside the other: another paper makes letters worse…
the book was somehow twisted into simple, birch bark, planks… (to write such a book) sticky soot is made from burnt birch peel, which, when diluted on the water, gives decent ink at least those that can leave a very noticeable mark on their own, if they are wiped over the top layer. The eagles and wild geese, which are many on the tundra and which are difficult to fly away from the well-aimed shot of the usual hunters, give good feathers always conveniently peeling over the layers of birch bark, which can be turned into pages and on which you can write soon and, perhaps, clearly, «writes S. V. Maksimov.
The sacred nature of birch bark, as a material for writing, is evidenced by the customs preserved in the Russian North almost to the present day. So A. A. Veselovsky in his «Essays on the History of the Life and Work of Peasants of the Vologda Province» describes the rite of «unsubscribing,» in which the healer, when whispering, writes a note and puts it into the wind and it becomes easier for the patient. «They write a petition on birch bark and it is carried away by «wind-father».
From the same series, it is customary to write conspiracies and letters to the devil – «bondage» – on birch bark, and the text is not written (in the literal sense of the word), but is applied by soot in the form of erratic strokes, oblique crosses, winding lines, etc. All this testifies to the now anciently forgotten, supplanted Cyrillic alphabet, the ancient Slavic writing system. Perhaps her relics are mysterious signs on the manure of northern Russian icons and the so-called «ornaments» painted by Dionysius on the arch of the portal of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin in the village of Ferapontovo.
Oak (Quercus) (map No. 2), a genus of deciduous or evergreen trees, rarely shrubs of the beech family. The leaves are alternate, simple, cirrus, lobed, serrated. The fruit is a single-seeded acorn, partially enclosed in a cup-shaped woody bun
Oak grows slowly. Photophilous. Some species are drought-tolerant, quite winter-hardy, and less demanding on soils. About 450 species in the temperate, subtropical and tropical zones of the Northern Hemisphere. In the USSR – 20 wild species in the European part, in the Far East and the Caucasus; in culture 43 species.
English or summer oak (Q.robur) – a tree up to 50 m high. It survives up to 1000 years. Distributed in the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus and almost throughout Western Europe. In the northern part of the range, it grows along river valleys, to the south reaches the watersheds and forms mixed forests with spruce, and in the south of the range – pure oak forests; in the steppe zone it is found along ravines and gullies. One of the main forest-forming species of broad-leaved forests of the USSR. Rock or winter oak (Q.petraea), found in the west of the European part of the USSR, in the Crimea and in the North Caucasus. Georgian oak (Q. iberica) grows in the eastern part of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia; in the alpine zone of these regions, large anther oak (Q.macranthera) grows. The main species of the valley forests of the East Caucasus is the long-legged oak (Q. longipe). An important forest-forming species in the Far East is Mongolian oak (Q.mongolica), a frost-resistant and drought-resistant tree.
Wood has high strength, hardness, durability and beautiful texture. Used in shipbuilding, underwater structures, as does not give in to decay; it is used in furniture, carpentry, cooperage, building houses, etc. Some types of bark (Cork oak – Q.suber) give cork. Bark and wood contain tannins used to tan leather. The dried bark of young branches and thin trunks of oak oak is used as an astringent in the form of a water decoction for rinsing in inflammatory processes of the oral cavity, pharynx, pharynx, as well as lotions in the treatment of burns. Acorns go to feed for pigs.
Cork Oak