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Archaeological excavations have proved that there was writing in Egypt since at least around 3000 BC, initially using hieroglyphics. It is developed from pictorial notes, the structure is very complex, the writing is not convenient, and in the process of use, in order to adapt to the needs of real life, such as often writing business documents, the writing method continues to evolve.
Priestly script
By the Middle Kingdom period (2040~1786 BC), hieroglyphs evolved into a cursive script, called priestly script. Around the 8th century BC, it was further simplified to a more complete cursive script, the so-called folk script. At the beginning of Roman rule, it evolved into the Coptic script, a variant of Greek in Egypt. With the advent of writing, the ancient Egyptians invented writing instruments, resulting in written documents.
Papyrus was one of the most popular and widely used original writing materials in ancient Egypt. In addition to hieroglyphs, ancient Egyptian characters are mostly used for inscriptions, and priestly characters and folk characters are generally written on papyrus.
In the swamps of the Nile Valley and delta, an aquatic plant, commonly known as papyrus, is abundant. Because it resembles a reed, it is also called Egyptian reed. The papyrus stem can grow 1-5 meters above the surface of the water, and the large leaves growing at the top make it umbrella-shaped.
The fine and soft fibers of papyrus can be used for shipbuilding and filling the gaps between ship boards, sewing sail canopies, weaving mats, mat frame baskets, ropes, and used as stamens for ship lamps. In early construction, the stems of papyrus were also bundled together for use as house pillars. But the role of papyrus is mainly used to make papyrus.
What is commonly referred to as papyrus is not written directly on papyrus, but on processed papyrus.
According to the ancient Roman writer Plini Stahlch (23 or 24~79 AD), the manufacture of papyrus paper requires several processes.
First, the skin of the papyrus stem is torn off, the stem is cut from the longitudinal plane into thin slices, and then the sheets are tightly spread on smooth wooden boards according to the required width; The second layer of this sheet is then placed vertically flat on top of the first layer, soaked in water, beaten and pressurized with a wooden hammer, and then dried in the sun to make it a strong, uniform "net", and the stickiness of the papyrus stem itself gives it strength.
Finally, it is carefully smoothed and polished with ivory, smooth shells or stones, and it becomes papyrus, with the upper layer being the front and the lower layer being the reverse side. It is a pioneer of modern paper. The word paper in modern English evolved from Papyrus.
Gluing several sheets of papyrus paper together creates a long papyrus roll. The paste used to make paper rolls is made of flour, boiling water and vinegar. This paper roll is rolled on a round rod and kept in the form of a paper roll. The height of the scrolls varies from 15 cm to 45 cm, depending on the age of production.
Ancient Egyptian script
Ancient Egyptian books and archives were mainly made of these paper scrolls. Writing is made with sharpened reed rods or feathers as pens, and the ink used is a mixture of gum, water and carbon black (or squid juice). Rolls of paper written into documents are either placed in cylindrical boxes and labelled or labeled to the boxes.
Since ancient Egyptian writing was written from right to left or straight from top to bottom, the scroll was held in the left hand when reading, unfolding it as you looked. The paper roll varies in length, and it can be extended indefinitely. There are rolls up to 30~40 meters long. In 1855, the Englishman Harris discovered a papyrus document in an ancient tomb near Thebes, Egypt, commonly known as the "Harris Papyrus".
It records in great detail all the gifts given to the temples by Pharaoh Ramses III (about 1198~1166 BC), as well as all the property of the largest temple in Egypt, which is a valuable historical material for studying the economic history of ancient Egypt. This papyrus document is made of 79 papyrus bonded together, about 40 meters long, in the shape of a scroll, is the longest manuscript of ancient Egypt and is now in the British Museum in London.
Among the materials used in ancient times, such as papyrus, clay tablets, oracle bones, bamboo sticks, leather, palm leaves, and birch bark, papyrus is certainly the most practical. It has a flexible texture, light weight, and can be made into papyrus rolls, which is easy to write and preserve; Its disadvantage is that it is not strong and durable, and it is susceptible to moisture and fire.
The production and use of papyrus greatly facilitated the formation of written records and documents. Researchers estimate that a small temple in ancient Egypt needed 10 meters of papyrus every month to register its property. During the Ptolemaic dynasty (305~30 BC), at least hundreds of thousands of meters of papyrus were used, because at that time the royal palace and all the large estates and temples had registration books, property catalogs and libraries.
However, due to age, changes in the times, or other reasons, the papyrus documents of ancient Egypt were once forgotten or obliterated by posterity, and were not known to posterity. Since the 19th century, with the efforts of archaeologists, a number of documentary paper scrolls have been excavated, some of which can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom period, especially the Ramses era (1314~1085 BC) of the New Kingdom period.
Some of the documents on the paper scroll were written in the earlier Old Kingdom period (about 2686~2181 BC). There are many extremely important works, both about political activities, popular uprisings, socio-economic conditions, and scientific and cultural knowledge, as well as on private life, which help us to further understand the history of ancient Egypt.
For example, there are two paper scrolls showing the scenes of the uprising of the poor and slaves at the end of the Middle Kingdom, one is the "Ipu Taste Statement" found in the Saqa cemetery near Memphis, the original text has been destroyed, and there are many texts in between, now preserved in the Leiding Museum in the Netherlands, so it is called "Reading Papyrus" (No. 344 Papyrus); The other is the "Neferrehu Prophecy" (Papyrus No. 1116), now in the Leningrad State Museum of the USSR.
There are also paper rolls such as Abbott paper rolls, Amherst and Meyer paper rolls, and diagrams. The Forest Paper Scroll is a legal document concerning the reigns of Ramses IX, X and XI. The "Moser Files", written on a piece of papyrus, contain accounts of the sale of land and the rental of slave girls in the New Dynasty.
Among the scientific materials, "Edwin Smith Papyrus", "Abil Sover Papyrus", "Berlin Papyrus", etc., these documents are copies of medical originals compiled during the Old Kingdom; Two famous mathematical papyrus, "Moscow Papyrus" and "Lyind Papyrus", handed down from the Middle Kingdom, record the earliest knowledge of arithmetic and geometry of the Egyptians.
Cultural heritage of ancient Egypt
Literature is one of the most important cultural heritage sites of ancient Egypt, such as Papyrus No. 1115 "The Story of the Shipwreck" of the Leningrad State Museum in the Soviet Union and the Moscow Papyrus "Unu - Amun Syria's Travels". The British Museum also has a rich collection of literary papyrus, such as "The Story of Truth and Lies" and "The Story of Horus and Seth".
In the so-called "Turin Papyrus", there is a list of Egyptian pharaohs before the New Kingdom, as well as the year, month and day of their reign, which is an important chronicle and historical document. The rare book "Book of the Dead", written on a long paper scroll, is even more eye-catching. The Book of the Dead, a series of prayers and hymns to the gods offered by ancient Egyptians to the dead, was written, revised and edited over the course of many centuries.
Originally, it was generally written on the wall of the tomb, but from the New Kingdom period, it was written on a paper scroll and placed in the tomb, thus forming the "Book of the Dead". It is believed to guarantee the peace of the deceased in Hades.
A large number of papyrus literature has been carefully studied and published. In this way, in the last two or three decades of the 19th century, "papyrus philology" was formed. This is a special historiographical auxiliary discipline that specializes in papyrus literature.
Papyrus, invented and used in ancient Egypt, was once one of Egypt's main export commodities in ancient times. It was first introduced to Phoenicia, and in order to trade with Phoenicia and develop trade, the Egyptian pharaoh sent an envoy to the Phoenician king with gifts, including 500 papyrus, which shows the value of papyrus.
Syria's trading port of Byberus is also an important distribution center for the marketing of papyrus, and the word papyrus is transformed from Byblus. Later, papyrus was introduced to Greece and Rome through Phoenician merchants, and was generally popular in the Mediterranean coastal areas and was also adopted by the Arabs. In the 7th century BC, the Greeks had officially used papyrus as a writing material.
The scripted manuscripts of the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, as well as the winners of the Olympic Games, have been passed down from generation to generation in papyrus from the earliest days to the 3rd century AD. After the Roman conquest of Egypt (30 BC), it also made extensive use of papyrus as a writing material. In addition to buying high-quality papyrus from Egypt, the Romans also had eight papyrus workshops in the area, but the raw materials were still shipped from Egypt.
At that time, the papyrus used by the Romans was divided into 9 grades, of which the first class papyrus was named after the emperor Augustus; The second level is named after Queen Livia, and the rest of the levels are named after the papyrus workshop. In history, after the Egyptian post-dynasty (about 1085~332 BC), it was successively ruled by the Macedonian Empire and the Roman Empire for a long time, and then merged into the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Empire, but the papyrus tradition was not interrupted, on the contrary, a considerable part of the Greek, Latin and Arabic documents were preserved in the form of papyrus.
By the 3rd century BC, the prestigious Library of Alexandria contained 490,000 paper scrolls by writers, poets, philosophers, historians and other scholars. Unfortunately, this library was destroyed by Caesar's army in 47 BC and destroyed by several wars. The library of the Kingdom of Pergamon, second only to the Library of Alexandria, also contains more than 200,000 paper scrolls.
This also reflects the spread of Egyptian papyrus, which provides conditions for the splendid prosperity of ancient Mediterranean coastal areas, especially ancient Greek and Roman cultures.
Papyrus has been used for almost 4,000 years and is one of the main legacies left by the ancient Egyptians for later civilizations, and later due to the decline of papyrus plant reproduction, and the parchment made by Pergamon in the 2nd century BC gradually became a common writing material in the following centuries, but it did not completely replace papyrus.
Paper replaces papyrus
It was not until the 8th and 9th centuries AD, with the spread of Chinese papermaking to the west and increasing paper production, that papyrus lost its significance as a writing material. From a large number of manuscript documents unearthed in 1877~1879 in Fayong, Egypt and other places, it can be seen that in the 10th century, paper has replaced papyrus as an important writing material in Egypt. However, it is possible that papyrus was still being made in Egypt until 1050 AD. The papyrus document written by Pope Victor II (reigned 1055~1057) in 1057 is said to be the last use of papyrus in recorded history.
However, the inherent shortcomings of papyrus itself make it rot and break in humid climates, or be bitten by moths; Others were burned and charred, and it was impossible to preserve them intact. Some of the surviving specimens are kept in extremely safe conditions, some are also in ruins, such as the Turin papyrus made of 164 pasted pieces, and there are many gaps and damage in this article.
However, a considerable part of the papyrus scrolls that have been preserved and excavated in Egypt are not kept in Egyptian museums, but have been lost to other countries, named after bourgeois archaeologists or the museums of the countries that preserved them.
For example, Edwin Smith Papyrus, Abil Papyrus, Harris Papyrus, etc., are named after bourgeois archaeologists; The Turin Papyrus, Leding Papyrus, Moscow Papyrus, etc., are named after the Turin Museum preserved in Italy, the Reading Museum in the Netherlands and the Moscow Museum in the Soviet Union.