Envelopes in Themiclesia

Envelope colours in Themiclesia conveyed a range of meanings regarding and above the message that it enclosed. The material and colour of the envelope, ribbon, and seal clay used to close it were all significant in the practice of sealing letters.

Envelope

Prior to the 6th century, paper was not widely used in Themiclesia, and text was written on bamboo strips or wood chips. In either case, a piece of string or leather would be used to keep the strips or chips strung together in the proper order. They would then be stacked or rolled together and placed into a cloth envelope. The envelope was folded in half from a single bolt of fabric, whose dimensions determined how long the envelope could be. Themiclesian bolts were typically 2.2 Themiclesian feet or 45 cm wide, so the letter inside could be a maximum of 22.5 cm long, with some material left to pinch together and close the envelope. The width of the bolt was standardized, since cloth was a currency at market. The squareness of the envelope was also valuable, since it was essentially a small piece of cloth that could be put to other uses or trade. In some contexts, the envelope would be returned to the sender if a reply was made, but otherwise the inherent value of the envelope was considered a token of goodwill from the sender.

Official letters were critical to transmission of information between locales and government agencies, and their envelopes were standardized in the interest of expedience and classification.

Colour	Sender	Content
Green	Emperor	Statutes, honours
Red	Emperor	Rescripts and other documents
Blue	Bureaucrats	Memoranda to the emperor
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example