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Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

author:Mr. Lao Yi talks about history

Author: Lao Shi

  1. raw material

Papyrus or "papyrus" is a specialty of Egypt. Even if it spread throughout the empire, it was still only produced in Egypt. Papyrus is also not very productive, because its raw material, Cyperus papyrus, is a pure wild plant that grows in Egyptian swamps, and the Egyptians have never tried to grow it (of course, it is also found in Congo and Kenya, which looks like the picture).

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

Papyrus in a swamp

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

Cross-section of papyrus (important for how it is subsequently made)

Strabo said this in the 2nd century AD while traveling through the swamps around Alexandria (Geography 17.1.15):

The sbyblos will grow with many (the earth thinks), if the lower days of the Delta are many, with hands, or with improvements or energy: ... In the land of many natures, it does not break the honors of those who attacked the rent.

"Papyrus doesn't grow much here (near Alexandria) (because no one grows it). But there are many in the southern part of the delta. There is a class of poorer, and the better is the hieratica breed... It is forbidden to grow this crop in most areas because of this scarcity and they also set higher prices"

As Egypt continued to be developed, the swamps became less and less wild papyrus, and it was not mentioned again after the 19th century. After the construction of the Aswan Dam, the swamps were further reduced and wild papyrus was once thought to be extinct.

It wasn't until 2000 that Mamdouh Serag rediscovered wild papyrus somewhere in the delta, and in 2016, Rooney also discovered wild papyrus near Sharimsha. So, now we already have the real Cyperus papyrus. You can buy it now at a flower shop. And for a long time, it was only Egypt that tried to trick tour groups, which were advertised by Hassan Ragab in 1962 as the so-called "modern papyrus".

II. How to make paper

In fact, from the Middle Ages to the present, everyone's attempts to restore papyrus have not stopped. For the process of making papyrus, the ancient text is only Old Priny

A passage from Natural History 13.74-82. He himself had never been to Egypt or seen the papyrus making process with his own eyes. As with many other stories in Natural History, Pligny Sr.'s interpretation is only a second-class dealer. The paragraphs are long, and in summary, Plini divides papyrus making into the following steps:

1. First cut the wagashi and spread it out into as long strips as possible

2. After that, spread the pieces of paper on a soaked board and interweave them layer by layer. Plini emphasizes trying to keep the longest length (without trimming too much) after each strip is sharpened

3. After weaving layer by layer, press and dry so many layers of papyrus to become a piece of paper. And a scroll is to paste a piece of paper. (Pliny says that a scroll generally does not exceed 20 sheets.)

4. But the papyrus itself still has many rough and raised fibers, which will be smoothed with ivory or shells

5. Finally, glue the papyrus into a scroll, usually pasted with flour paste (similar to our paste), and the edges that stick out at the end will be very silky (Prini says it is as silky as wool)

Although it may seem simple, scholars make a difficult mistake in the first step: how can you cut the papyrus and maximize the surface area? Prini's original words are diviso acu, "cut with a tip". This gave birth to Hendriks' 1980 "Pliny, Historia Naturalis XIII, 74-82 and the manufacture of papyrus". He followed the Pyramids Papyrus Institute's practice by using modernly grown papyrus, and in order to maximize the surface area, he peeled and peeled the papyrus layer by layer, and stretched the skin to become the largest in the same way as chipping an apple. Of course, his result, as TeeTee said, is unsatisfactory, rough texture, and uneven thickness, which is completely different from ancient papyrus.

However, after him, Papyrus Restoration took on a new move, and it was generally felt that Hendriks was doing something wrong:

  1. Wild Papyrus found that modern experiments can really be the same as in ancient times, using wild raw materials (if you come to Paris, go to the reception of the Collège de France and you will see several wilted plants...). It is the wild papyrus introduced by my mentor, which has suffered these little lives, and the poor mountains and bad waters of France are not suitable for them at all)
  2. With new textual discoveries, in the 10th century AD, Ibn Al-Baytar quoted his botany teacher and gave a more specific method of production
  3. People abandoned the way Hendriks were made. Because of his layer-by-layer peeling method, it is obviously very troublesome and not suitable for large-scale production. Daniel Delattre (an expert on Italian Herculaneaum papyrus) returned to the old practice of cutting papyrus into petals, and stressed that it must be wet and not dried (Hendriks did not do this). Because modern archaeological discoveries have found that there must be water, otherwise the papyrus is easily oxidized, and the paper made is not white. And the papyrus shrinks massively
  4. The glue that Pliny said may not be bonding different papers, but bonding different layers of papyrus. Because although in a humid environment, there is adhesion between each layer of papyrus, but once it dries, it will weaken. And the 20 sheets that Pliny said are not made of 20 sheets of paper to make a scroll, but 20 layers of papyrus to make thick paper.

Following this approach, the Sorbonne University

UFR des sciences de la vie has done very successful experiments (pictured)

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

The first step is to cut the tender parts of the inside of the papyrus into fine slices

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

In the second step, stick the strips on a wet cutting board

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

In the third step, these layers are woven horizontally and vertically and glued together with a "paste"

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

Step 4: Flatten into paper and dry in the sun

And unlike our paper, the papyrus side is horizontal, so it is consistent with the direction of the text, and it is better to write, and the general text is only written on this side. The other side is rougher, the reverse side, and generally only the signature of letters and documents is written on this side.

III. Why didn't the Romans use papyrus anymore?

In fact, the main reason is because Egypt was occupied by the Arabs after 642 AD, and the origin was gone, and it was difficult for the Romans to touch papyrus. We have a lot of papyrus in Arabic, but the Arab Empire used Chinese paper for the Arab Empire.

The argument that scrolls were replaced by codices is not necessarily valid. First of all, after all, later generations of parchment rolls are animal skins, and papyrus is much cheaper than it. And in fact, there are very, very many cases of papyrus being made into flip-page books, and as the page-turning book gradually replaced the scroll because of convenience after the second century BC, we also obviously found that papyrus was made into a page-turning book a lot more. Therefore, the main reason is that the Roman Empire (or the Byzantine Empire) lost this place of origin.

------ have archaeological excavations & how many have been unearthed?

The answer, of course, is yes, as of 2011, about 43,000 copies of Greek and Latin straw paper have been found. There are currently many compilations of straw paper (such as DDBDP, HGV.). ), but basically each university and research institute is doing it themselves, and there is no compilation that integrates all the cursive paper like CIL or IG.

We are not yet able to fully reconstruct the process of making papyrus.

At present, the highest degree of restoration is the straw paper made by Hendriks and H. Ragab, but it is barely able to be used for writing, and there is a big gap between the texture and thickness and the real thing.

(Compare with the photos taken on the lightbox.) These two are restored straw papers by Hendriks and H. Ragab

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

This is the physical object of archaeological excavations

Restoration of the origin and production techniques of Egyptian papyrus used in ancient Greece and Rome

The black bar in the middle is the overlapping part produced by the gluing of two sheets of straw paper together, which is significantly different from the thickness caused by process problems in the previous two pictures (image quoted from Bagnall, 2011)

In the words of Roger S. Bagnall, "Anyone who touches these pieces of paper will know that something is wrong."

All papyrus is made of plants and the C14 assay confirms the generation. So you don't really need to worry about the authenticity of the unearthed paper.

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