Papyrus

Olivier Bonnerot, Grzegorz Nehring

Papyrus sheets were one of the main, and arguably the most practical, writing supports available in Antiquity. First used in Ancient Egypt, papyrus remained a very popular writing surface in the Greek and Roman worlds all around the Mediterranean Sea due to its practicality. Papyrus sheets were made from the pith of Cyperus papyrus, a tall aquatic plant that used to be very widespread in the Nile Delta, and were rolled up in scrolls. The oldest surviving document written on papyrus is the so-called “logbook of Merer”, which was found in 2013 in Wadi el-Jarf. It is dated from the late years of the reign of Kheops (middle of the 26th century BCE) and records the organisation of the transport of large limestone blocks by boat for the construction of the great pyramid of Gizeh (Tallet 2017). However, the invention of papyrus sheets is even older than that. An anepigraphic papyrus roll found in the tomb of chancellor Hemaka (1st dynasty, c.3000–2900 BCE) is the oldest evidence of the use of such writing support so far (Emery and Saad 1938). Due to the spreading of paper, Egyptian production ceased in the second half of the 10th century CE, and the latest documents on papyrus were written by the Papal Curia in the 11th century CE (Omont 1930; Agati 2017, 58). 

The only written evidence from Antiquity concerning the preparation process of papyrus sheets is by Pliny the Elder in his Historia naturalis XIII (Dimarogonas 1995). Recent experiments have allowed a better understanding of the manufacturing technique (Bausch 2022). The first step consists of cutting the stem of the plant lengthwise, after the green outer rind has been removed, to obtain long thin strips (φίλυραι / philyrai). Several methods for cutting these strips have been proposed by specialists, and it is possible that the exact method varied (Wallert 1989). Strips were then placed vertically next to each other on a wet table, then a second layer of strips was placed horizontally on top of the vertical strips. According to Pliny, oversized strips were then cut at this stage to obtain a rectangular sheet (κόλλημα / kollêma). The sheet was then pressed or hammered flat and left to dry, before being sometimes polished to the desired surface smoothness. Horizontal strips were usually left to overextend the vertical ones on one side, so that several sheets could be easily joined together to create a longer sheet or a roll (τόμος / tomos), in which form the product was then made available for purchasing  (Menei 1993; Menei 2017). 

Relevant analytic methods include: 

• micro-computed tomography (µCT) to read texts on papyri without having to physically unroll rolls or detach stacked layers (Mocella et al. 2015; Mahnke et al. 2020).
• Optical microscopy and backlight tables can be used to investigate fibres and gets insight into the manufacturing process (Wallert 1989)
• FTIR can be used to investigate the presence of organic components on the surface of papyri. Furthermore, chemometric approach applied to FTIR spectra may be able to reveal subtle differences in papyri of different provenience (Chiappe et al. 2019).