In ancient times, characters were written on bamboo slips. How much space does a book occupy?

At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, someone began to carve words on this slate and put it in front of the tomb, which was called the tomb platform. After that, more and more information was engraved on it, which became the biography of the tomb owner and was called the tombstone. In the late Tang Dynasty, Lu Guimeng explained that "monuments also mourn". Bamboo slips are too heavy to fit into books. If you write small words, you can write more words in a limited space, which can reduce the use of bamboo slips or silk books. Ancient articles are very concise, often hundreds of words. For the same reason.

After nine years of Tongzhi (1870), I practiced lower case letters directly, but my kung fu was not in place and my handwriting was not harmonious, let alone my strength. Every soft face, horizontal and vertical, is weak and has no feeling of small letters, so we have to practice from small letters step by step. Because the smaller the regular script, the harder it is to write. On the other hand, ancient paper was very expensive, and people didn't have enough paper men to write, so they had to write as much as possible on limited paper. Miyamoto Ang, a Yangzhou native who was then the magistrate of Sishui County, discovered the monument when he visited Pingyi Collection (the location of discovery is said to be south of the original Pingyi Collection and west of the county seat).

Miyamoto Ang, a magistrate of a county, is also an intellectual. The earliest monument in China is the Zhong Sun Hidden Monument discovered in Yuxian County, Shandong Province. Monument textual research of the Eastern Han Dynasty! Tombstone (AD 175)! The earliest bamboo and wood were from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and bamboo slips were unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi.

Famous posts such as Preface to Lanting, Manuscript for Sacrificing Nephew and Cold Food Post are all ancient Chinese characters. And we have multiplied or even multiplied in copying and even calligraphy competitions. Letters like the book saint are even smaller. What is the reason? Some people have done measurement statistics, and the actual fonts of ancient calligraphers such as Wang Xizhi, Zhang Xu and Huai Su are roughly four centimeters. In ancient times, the handwriting and letters were mainly small characters, and only small characters could reflect the brushwork, which is also commonly known as "ancient method". However, it is also recorded in the early Han Dynasty that Xiao He wrote a flying white book with a broom. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the inscription on the tablet was written in big characters. Therefore, big characters and small characters have always coexisted.