The Duan Inkslab

To write with a brush, one must prepare one's own ink. Chinese ancestors developed the inkslab or inkstone for this purpose.

The earliest Chinese inkslabs unearthed so fat date from the Han Dnasty utensil for ink-making has been in use in the country for at least 2,000 years.

In a nutshell, the inkstone ( yan or yantai) is a sort of millstone on which water is turned into ink by the rubbing of an ink stick. It is generally made of stone of a smooth and fine-grained variety.

To the fastidious calligrapher, a good inkslab should be made of the stone produced at Duanxi, a suburb cast of the city of Zhaoqing (formerly Duanzhou), GuangdongProvince. Named after the home of the stone, the duan inkslab has a history of over 1,500 years and has always been regarded as a valuable item in the scholar's study.

The stone must go through several painstaking processes before it is turned into the finished slab. These include quarrying, selecting, cutting, polishing and making of the containing box. The most difficult part is the digging-out of the stone, which lies under the KeshanMountain near Zhaoqing.

Quarrymen have to make tunnels at the foot of the mountain, drain them of water and creep in to dig out the right kind of stone – all carried out under exacting circumstances.

Duan inkslabs are valued for their fine and smooth surface which look as if glossy with moisture. They make ink fairly fast and wet the hair of the writing brush evenly; they are also good for keeping leftover ink. A well-chosen piece of stone may also bear fine veins, indistinct but pretty to look at.