Everything about Papyrus totally explained
Papyrus is a thick
paper-like material produced from the
pith of the papyrus plant,
Cyperus papyrus, a wetland
sedge that was once abundant in the
Nile Delta of
Egypt. Papyrus usually grows 2–3 meters (5–9 ft) tall. Papyrus is first known to have been used in
ancient Egypt (at least as far back as the
First dynasty), but it was also used throughout the
Mediterranean region. Ancient Egypt used this plant for boats, mattresses, mats and paper.
Etymology
The
English word
papyrus derives, via
Latin, from
Greek πάπυρος
papyros. Greek has a second word for
papyrus, βύβλος
byblos (said to derive from the name of the
Phoenician city of
Byblos). The Greek writer
Theophrastus, 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. The more specific term βίβλος
biblos, which finds its way into English in such words as
bibliography,
bibliophile, and
bible, refers to the inner bark of the papyrus plant.
Papyrus is also the etymon of
paper, a similar substance.
The plural of
papyrus is
papyri.
It is often
claimed that Egyptians referred to papyrus as
pa-per-aa [
p3ypr-ˁ3] (lit., "that which is of
Pharaoh"), 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 [
w3ḏ],
tjufy [
ṯwfy], and
djet [
ḏt]. Thus, Greek
papyros has no known relation to any Egyptian word or phrase.
Manufacture and use
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 isn't 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 or seashell or round hard wood.
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 and all the vertical fibres on the other. Normally, texts were first written on the
recto, the lines following the fibres, parallel to the long edges of the scroll. Secondarily, papyrus was often reused, writing across the fibres on the
verso (External Link
) Pliny the Elder describes the methods of preparing papyrus in his
Naturalis Historia.
In a dry
climate like that of Egypt, papyrus is stable, formed as it's of highly rot-resistant
cellulose; but storage in humid conditions can result in
molds attacking and destroying the material. In European conditions, papyrus seems only to have lasted a matter of decades; a 200–year-old papyrus was considered extraordinary. Imported papyrus that was once commonplace in
Greece and
Italy has since deteriorated beyond repair, but papyrus is 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.
Codices were an improvement on the papyrus scroll as the papyrus wasn't flexible enough to fold without cracking and a long roll, or scroll, was required in order to create large volume texts. Papyrus had the advantage of being relatively cheap and easy to produce, but it was fragile and susceptible to both moisture and excessive dryness. Unless the papyrus was of good quality, the writing surface was irregular, and the range of media that could be used was also limited.
By AD 800 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 (typically conservative, all papal "bulls" were on papyrus until 1022) and 1087 for an Arabic document. Papyrus was used as late as the 1100s in the
Byzantine Empire, but there are no surviving examples. Although its uses had transferred to parchment, papyrus therefore just overlapped with the use of
paper in Europe, which began in the 11th century.
There have been sporadic attempts to revive the manufacture of papyrus 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 have centres of limited papyrus production.
Papyrus is still used by communities living in the vicinity of swamps, to the extent that rural householders derive up to 75% of their income from swamp goods (Maclean et al. 2003b; c). Particularly in East and Central Africa, people harvest papyrus, which is used to manufacture items that are sold or used locally. Examples include baskets, hats, fish traps, trays or winnowing mats and floor mats. Papyrus is also used to make roofs, ceilings, rope and fences, or as fuel (Maclean 2003c). Although increasingly, alternatives such as
eucalyptus are available, papyrus is still used as fuel.
Documents written on papyrus
The word for the material
papyrus is also used to designate documents written on sheets of it, often rolled up into scrolls. The plural for such documents is
papyri. Historical papyri are given identifying names—generally the name of the discoverer, first owner or institution where it's kept—and numbered, such as "
Papyrus Harris I". Often an abbreviated form is used such as "pHarris I".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Papyrus'.
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