What is the difference between the paper written by the ancient Egyptians and the paper you write?
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For graduate students, there are a few English words that are like curses,paper(paper) is one of them. When I was doing my PhD, I used an old Nokia phone, and for a period of time, I set "Have you written your paper today?" as the startup greeting - as soon as I turned on the phone, I could see this greeting, which might have had some motivational effect.
Of course, the meaning "academic paper" is only an extended meaning of the English word "paper"; its basic meaning is "paper," which is the meaning students learn today when they first encounter this word in English textbooks. Etymologically, it comes from Latin "papyrus" and ancient Greek "papyros," and may ultimately come from the name of a plant in ancient Egyptian, and this plant ispapyrus（Cyperus papyrus）。
Papyrus at Kew Gardens in London, UK. Image: Arpingstone / wikmedia
Gift of the Nile
Papyrus belongs to the sedge family. The sedge family is a large family, somewhat similar in form to the grass family, but with one important difference: thestems of sedges are mostly triangular, while the stems of grasses are mostly round. In addition, many sedgesprefer moistureand like to grow in habitats such as watersides, marshes, or meadows.
Of course, if we are being strict, we can easily find many exceptions, but papyrus is typical in both of these features - its stem is triangular, and it is native to the swampy areas of tropical Africa.
Triangular cross-section of a papyrus stem. Image: INSAR / theferns.info
Papyrus by the Nile, photographed in Uganda. Image: Michael Shade / wikmedia
Papyrus has a very wide range of uses: its stems can be used tobuild boats, and this kind of small boat made by bundling many stems together is one of the oldest ship types; its lignified underground stems can be made intocontainerssuch as bowls; the pith in its young stems can even beeaten, suitable both raw and roasted. However, its most famous use is stillmaking papyrusas a writing medium.
A small boat made from papyrus stems. Image: Will De Freitas / theferns.info
The side of civilization
If we omit the details, the process of making papyrus is roughly this: split the stems of papyrus into thin strips, arrange them side by side into one layer, then place another layer perpendicularly on top; press these two layers flat and dry them, and it becomes papyrus, which can be used for writing and painting.
Papyrus can be made into long pages and stored rolled up; this is ascroll(roll), or it can be bound along one side intoa codex（codex）。
like today's books. A woman is demonstrating the process of making papyrus. Image: Aleksey Gureev / theferns.info
Despite being nourished by the Nile, most of Egypt still has a tropical desert climate, with scant rainfall and dry, hot weather.In this dry environment, papyrus is relatively easy to preserve, so it was very suitable as a writing material for ancient Egypt. However, in places in Europe with a more humid climate, papyrus easily became damp and moldy and was damaged, greatly shortening its preservation period, usually to only a few decades.
Even so, compared with expensive parchment, papyrus was stillmore practical and easier to obtainas a writing medium. Therefore, since its invention by the ancient Egyptians, papyrus continued to be used in the ancient Mediterranean world and surrounding areas, and only after the 8th century AD was it gradually replaced by paper from China.Reedandwingceltisare also two plants that must be mentioned; click the names to review >
An ancient Egyptian papyrus. Image: wikmedia
Over these thousands of years, countless papyrus documents were made and then destroyed, dissipating along with the culture they carried into the long river of history,and only very few were able to survive. For example, in the late 19th century, the German Egyptologist Georg Ebers obtained some papyrus documents that most likely came from mummy coffins, now dated to around 1550 BC, which recorded in detail the drug treatments for some diseases. The "Ebers Papyrus" thus became an extremely precious document in the history of medicine.
Another example is that beginning in the late 19th century, more than 5,000 papyrus fragments were successively excavated at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, mainly produced during the period of the ancient Roman Empire. Although most of them are trivialrecords of daily lifesuch as tax receipts, account books, contracts, letters, and horoscopes, there are also manyprecious documents。
In the Oxyrhynchus papyri, people discovered fragments of Euclid's Elements, Aristotle's (or his disciples') long-lost Constitution of the Athenians, most of the long-lost play The Misanthrope by the ancient Greek dramatist Menander, the Oxyrhynchus Hellenica, which records precious historical materials, as well as fragments of the Old and New Testaments and important materials such as Christian deuterocanonical books. These vivid physical objects show us one side of the flourishing ancient Greek civilization.
A papyrus scroll from ancient Egypt's 18th Dynasty (1550 BC-1295 BC) exhibited at the British Museum, including spells recited by priests at funeral ceremonies. Image: Liu Su
The unbearable weight of paper
Ironically, such a group of papyrus documents that can be called the "Dunhuang manuscripts of Egypt" are, in the eyes of some extreme Chinese nationalists, actually all forged by Westerners, with the aim of proving that the entire ancient Greek civilization was also later forged by Westerners.
Although serious scholars often ignore this nonsense from Russian street literature, there is another issue that also somewhat involves patriotism, and it is the focus of debate in the history of science and technology -Is papyrus paper?
According to the relatively mainstream view,papyrus is only a paper-like product, but not true paper. True paper needs to meettwo basic technical requirements: first, the papermaking raw material must be broken down into pulp so that the fibers in it are dispersed from one another; second, a tool called a "mould" must be dipped into the pulp, and when it is lifted out, a layer of fiber adheres to it (the technical term is "sheet forming"); peeling off this layer of fiber and drying it in the sun produces paper. Although today's papermaking technology is already very advanced, it still follows these two techniques.
The main steps of papermaking. Image: awagami.com
Historical records show that the "Marquis Cai paper" presented by Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 105 AD was the earliest true paper to meet these two technical requirements. Therefore,the long-popular view that "Cai Lun invented papermaking" is actually correct。
However, out of the mentality in Chinese circles studying the history of science and technology that "if not first, contend to be first; if first, contend to be older," they insist on treating some "ancient paper" from before Cai Lun that was clearly not made by the sheet-forming method (some may not even be paper) as paper,forcibly expanding the definition of paper, and pushing China's papermaking technology back to the Western Han or even the Warring States period. This brings up a serious problem: since the definition of paper can be changed at will, then would not papyrus be even more qualified to be regarded as paper than those Chinese "ancient papers"? In that case, would China then no longer be the country that first invented papermaking?
The capitulum of papyrus. Image: Pete Oxford / naturepl.com
In fact, whether in the papyrus era or the true paper era, one thing is the same: most paper ultimately is nothing more than used to record some trivial, ephemeral, self-comforting things. We today are essentially no different from the people of Oxyrhynchus one or two thousand years ago.
This article is the 254th article of the 4th year of Species Calendar, from Species Calendar author @Liu Su.
Calendar Girl's Big News!
Before officially revealing
Species Calendar 2019
the release date and theme
In order to let everyone learn more about Species Calendar
A few days ago, Calendar Girl invited
editors, illustrators, and authors
to sit in and take everyone's ques(ti)ons (teasing)
The one sitting in today is me
Calendar Girl
First, a complaint: everyone's questions are really
too hard to an(bā)swer (guà)!
Onlookers
Does Calendar Girl really not have a sex life?
Species Calendar 2019 is about to come out, and I'm busy as can be, so how would I have time to think about that! (Besides, I'm still a baby)
Calendar Girl
Onlookers
How did Calendar Girl cure her usual typos?
Well, it never got better... I can only be careful and check several more times (all for the chicken legs!)
Calendar Girl
Onlookers
How does Calendar Girl's team complete a Species Calendar article?
Max out the persuasion skill points and sell the species to the author (commission the article)
Chase after the author every day to urge the manuscript, and in the meantime use skills such as acting cute, threatening death,bribing with yogurt、offering myself in marriageand other manuscript-urging techniques
Finally receive the manuscript, and the editorsfight it outto decide who will edit it
The editor who wins asks the authorbattleto finalize the article details
In this way, an article complete in color, aroma, and taste is finished.
Calendar Girl
Onlookers
Yesterday we talked about the various manuscript-delay (táo) ing (zhài) poses of the authors, so how does Calendar Girl deal with them?
Like this...
Calendar Girl
Onlookers
Calendar Girl, did you commission the articles too late, so the authors did not have enough time?
Naive! I clearlyfromas soon as the New Year calendar came outstarted digging holes (strike that) commissioning articles! The commissioning time depends on whether the species is at the beginning or the end of the year. For the species at the very end of the year, preparations started more than a year in advance!
Calendar Girl
Onlookers
So when does next year's calendar come out? I want to know my birthday species so badly!
Tomorrowwe'll tell you when the new calendar comes out~ As for your birthday species, you'll know once you get the Species Calendar!
Calendar Girl
Tomorrow we'll officially reveal
Species Calendar 2019release date
Friends, remember to come guess the theme tomorrow!
Calendar Girl's avatar today
Cyperaceae Eleocharis dulcis (Chinese water chestnut)