Page 56 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

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Papyrus (papyrus/charta)

Papyrus was written on with ink and widely used in the Mediterranean
from at least around 3000 BCE and throughout the Roman and late
antique periods. It was made from the stalk of the papyrus plant
(Cyperus papyrus), a perennial wetland sedge that was cultivated in
Egypt in shallow stagnant water.
The production of papyrus is described by Pliny (NH 13.74–82)
but his account is unclear in detail (Bülow-Jacobsen 2009, 5–9).
Generally, the stalk was peeled and cut into strips which were soaked
and joined to form a sheet. Different parts of the stalk resulted in
different qualities of papyrus. Another layer was put on top with
the fibres running perpendicular to the first one. The sheets were Fig. 33: Augustan era papyrus from Oxyrhynchos (Egypt),
dried and the surface smoothed before use. a letter from Syneros to the imperial slave Chius. P.Oxy.
Single sheets of papyrus were used for various texts including XLIV 3208. Courtesy of The Egypt Exploration Society and
letters, writing exercises and legal documents. It was moreover the University of Oxford Imaging Papyri Project.
one of two main materials used in antiquity for books, along with
parchment. To this end, up to 20 sheets were pasted together and
rolled into a scroll on average 20–30 cm wide and several metres
long. At the centre of the resulting volumen was a wooden stick
called umbilicus or scapus. Volumina were often labelled with small
parchment or wooden labels for easier retrieval from storage and
were transported in designated buckets. Less commonly sheets of
papyrus were folded and bound together to form a codex.

Usually, the layer of fibres running horizontally was on the inside
of the scroll and formed the main side to be written on. It was
inscribed in columns, with the scroll unrolling from left to right or
right to left, or, less frequently, holding the roll vertically (charta
transversa) and writing from top to bottom (Bülow-Jacobsen 2009,
19–23).
Fig. 34: Papyrus-scroll from Herculaneum, scorched during the
Papyrus only survives under specific conditions, such as the dry Vesuvian eruption in 79 CE. Photo by S. Bailey, The Digital Restoration
climate of the Egyptian desert and the Near East (Sarri 2018, 60–64).
Initiative/The University of Kentucky, licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.