Cell Wall Deterioration of the Tripitaka Koreana Wooden Plates

팔만대장경판의 세포벽 열화

Tripitaka Koreana were made during Coryo Dynasty from 1236 to 1251 A.D. Buddhist scriptures were engraved on 81.340 wooden plates. Some plates were varnished with Rhus lacquer, but most of them were uncoated. Macroscopically, most of the plates appeared intact due to the storage in a well-ventilated wooden house. Because, they were irregularly used for printings with ink, it can be assumed that they were repeatedly exposed to ink-water and drying processes. The present were made to examine the changes of wood cell structures occurred during long-term aging deterioration processes in these dry archaeological wooden plates. Light, scanning and transmission electron microscopes were employed for this study. Wedge-shaped cracks and delamilations were found from the lumen side toward the compound middle lamellae and they progressed toward primary or secondary walls. A large amount of hypae in vessels and the degradation of vessel-ray pit walls by the fungal hyphae were observed. When compared to the recent wood, the birefringence of wood fibers was considerably lower or completly disappeared, suggesting the degradation of crystalline cellulose in these wood samples. The degradation of the cell wall could be also revealed the calculation of crystallinity with X-ray diffraction and the size of crystalline region was estimated.