Only once one had mastered the basics of writing was one allowed to practice on a papyrus scroll. These were often used by schoolboys for their letters and exercises" (200). David notes that "the most common and cheapest writing materials were ostraca and pieces of wood. The scribes of ancient Egypt spent years learning their craft and, even if they were from wealthy families, they still were not allowed to waste precious material on their lessons. The image of the Egyptian scribe hunched over his papyrus scroll is accurate, but long before he got his hands on that scroll, he would have spent literally years practicing writing on potsherds, chunks of stone, and pieces of wood. Written works often appear on pieces of wood, stone, or ostraca (shards from clay pots). All of the extant papyri are from temples, government offices, or personal collections of wealthy or at least well-off individuals. Not only was the manual labor in the fields and marshes costly, it took skilled workers to methodically beat and process the plant without destroying it. Although papyrus is closely associated with writing in general, it was actually mostly used only for religious and government texts because manufacturing costs were fairly expensive. The sheets, now joined into rolls, were then transported to temples, government buildings, the market or exported in trade. This was the "recto" that would be written on first. After drying in the sun the full strip was rolled up with the horizontal fibers on the inside. Then the individual pages were stuck together in the same way to form a standard roll of twenty pages sometimes the rolls were stuck together as required to provide an even longer writing surface. These were arranged side by side and crosswise in two layers and were then beaten into sheets. In the first stage, the stalk of the plant was sliced into pieces and the pith was cut out and beaten with a hammer to produce wafers. (201)Įgyptologist Rosalie David adds to the description, detailing the stages of this process of forming the plants into sheets: The recto was preferred but the verso was used for documents as well, allowing two separate texts to be included on a single papyrus. Immense rolls of papyrus could be made by joining the single sheets.The sides of a papyrus where the fibers run horizontally are the recto and, where the fibers run vertically, the verso. The two layers were then pressed and allowed to dry. A solution of resin from the plant was laid down and a second layer of papyrus was put into place, horizontally. The stem of the papyrus plant was cut into thin strips which were laid side by side in perpendicular fashion. This symbol is a bouquet of papyrus (associated with the Delta of Lower Egypt) bound with a lotus (the symbol of Upper Egypt). Papyrus also served as a political symbol through its use in the Sma-Tawy, the insignia of the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt. It also played a part in religious devotion as it was often bound together to form the symbol of the ankh and offered to the gods as a gift. Papyrus was used as a food source, to make rope, for sandals, for boxes and baskets and mats, as window shades, material for toys such as dolls, as amulets to ward off throat diseases, and even to make small fishing boats. The papyrus of Egypt is most closely associated with writing - in fact, the English word 'paper' comes from the word 'papyrus' - but the Egyptians found many uses for the plant other than a writing surface for documents and texts. Papyrus still exists in Egypt today but in greatly reduced number. These plants once were simply part of the natural vegetation of the region, but once people found a utilitarian purpose for them, they were cultivated and managed in farms, harvested heavily, and their supply depleted. Stalks reached up to 16 feet tall (5 m) ending in small brown flowers which often bore fruit. Papyrus buds opened from a horizontal root growing in shallow fresh water and the deeply saturated Delta mud. Papyrus is a plant ( cyperus papyrus) which once grew in abundance, primarily in the wilds of the Egyptian Delta but also elsewhere in the Nile River Valley, but is now quite rare.
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