Papyrus
Papyrus is an early form of
paper made from the
pith of the papyrus plant,
Cyperus papyrus, a wetland
sedge that grows to 5 meters in height and was once abundant in the
Nile Delta of
Egypt. Papyrus is first known to have been used in
ancient Egypt , but it was also widely used throughout the
Mediterranean region, as well as inland parts of
Europe and south-west
Asia.
Encyclopedia
Papyrus is an early form of
paper made from the
pith of the papyrus plant,
Cyperus papyrus, a wetland
sedge that grows to 5 meters in height and was once abundant in the
Nile Delta of
Egypt. Papyrus is first known to have been used in
ancient Egypt , but it was also widely used throughout the
Mediterranean region, as well as inland parts of
Europe and south-west
Asia.
Etymology
The
English word
papyrus derives, via
Latin, from Greek p?p????
papyros. It is interesting to note that Greek has a second word for
papyrus, ß?ß???
byblos . The Greek writer
Theophrastos, who flourished during the 4th century BC, uses
papuros when referring to the plant used as a foodstuff and
bublos for the same plant when used for non-food products, such as cordage, basketry, or a writing surface. This latter usage finds its way into English in such words as
bibliography,
bibliophile, and
bible.
Papyrus is also the etymon of "paper", a similar substance.
It is often claimed that Egyptians referred to papyrus as
pa-per-aa [
p3y pr-?3] , apparently denoting that the Egyptian crown owned a monopoly on papyrus production. However no actual ancient text using this term is known. In the
Egyptian language papyrus was known by the terms
wadj [
w3?],
tjufy [
?wfy], and
djet [
?t]. Thus in reality, Greek
papyros has no known relation to any Egyptian word or phrase.they are also still madew today in egypt.
Manufacture and Use
A sheet of papyrus is made from the stem of the plant. The outer rind is first stripped off, and the sticky fibrous inner
pith is cut lengthwise into thin strips of about 40 cm long. The strips are then placed side by side on a hard surface, with their edges slightly overlapping, and then another layer of strips is laid on top at a right angle. The strips may have been soaked in water long enough for
decomposition to begin, perhaps increasing adhesion, but this is not certain. While still moist, the two layers are hammered together, mashing the layers into a single sheet. The sheet is then dried under pressure. After drying, the sheet of papyrus is polished with some rounded object, possibly a stone.
To form the long strip that a scroll required, a number of such sheets were united, placed so that all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll's length were on one side, all the vertical fibres on the other. Greek texts were written on the
recto, the lines following the fibres, parallel to the long edges of the scroll. Secondarily, expensive papyrus was often reused, writing across the fibres on the
verso .
In a dry
climate like that of Egypt, papyrus is stable, formed as it is of highly rot-resistant
cellulose; but storage in humid conditions can result in
molds attacking and eventually destroying the material. Imported papyrus that was once commonplace in
Greece and
Italy has since deteriorated beyond repair, but papyri are still being found in Egypt; extraordinary examples include the Elephantine papyri and the famous finds at
Oxyrhynchus and
Nag Hammadi. The Villa of the Papyri at
Herculaneum, containing the library of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus,
Julius Caesar's father-in-law, was preserved by the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius, but has only been partially excavated.
In the first centuries BC and AD Papyrus scrolls gained a rival as a writing surface in the form of
parchment, which was prepared from animal skins. Sheets of parchment were folded to form quires from which
book-form codices were fashioned. Early Christian writers soon adopted the codex form, and in the Græco-Roman world it became common to cut sheets from papyrus rolls in order to form codices.
By 800 AD the use of
parchment and
vellum had replaced papyrus in many areas, though its use in Egypt continued until it was replaced by more inexpensive paper introduced by Arabs. The reasons for this switch include the significantly higher durability of the hide-derived materials, particularly in moist climates, and the fact that they can be manufactured anywhere. The latest certain dates for the use of papyrus are 1057 for a papal decree and 1087 for an Arabic document. Papyrus was used as late as the 1100s in the
Byzantine Empire, but there are no known surviving examples.
There have been sporadic attempts to revive the during the past 250 years. The
Scottish explorer
James Bruce experimented in the late
eighteenth century with papyrus plants from the
Sudan, for papyrus had become extinct in Egypt. Also in the eighteenth century, a
Sicilian named Saverio Landolina manufactured papyrus at
Syracuse, where papyrus plants had continued to grow in the wild. The modern technique of papyrus production used in Egypt for the tourist trade was developed in 1962 by the Egyptian engineer Hassan Ragab using plants that had been reintroduced into Egypt in 1872 from France. Both Sicily and Egypt continue to have centres of limited papyrus production.
References
- .
- Bierbrier, Morris Leonard, ed. 1986. Papyrus: Structure and Usage. British Museum Occasional Papers 60, ser. ed. Anne Marriott. London: British Museum Press.
- Cernı, Jaroslav. 1952. Paper and Books in Aancient Egypt: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at University College London, 29 May 1947. London: H. K. Lewis. .
- Leach, Bridget, and William John Tait. 2000. "Papyrus." In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 227–253. Thorough technical discussion with extensive bibliography.
- Leach, Bridget, and William John Tait. 2001. "Papyrus." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford. Vol. 3 of 3 vols. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 22–24.
- Parkinson, Richard Bruce, and Stephen G. J. Quirke. 1995. Papyrus. Egyptian Bookshelf. London: British Museum Press. General overview for a popular reading audience.
See also
- Papyrology
- For Egyptian papyri:
- Other papyri:
...
- The papyrus plant in Egyptian art
External links
- : Homepage of the company founded by Dr. Hassan Ragab.
-
- : Learn how Egyptian papyrus is made
