Page 58 - Manual of Roman Everyday Writing Volume 2: Writing Equipment

58| MANUAL OF ROMAN EVERYDAY WRITING
Important find sites are Egypt’s desert oases such as Oxyrhynchos,
and the towns and villages of the Fayum and the Nile valley. Under
certain circumstances it has survived outside these areas. Important
finds illustrate the variety of purposes papyri were used for. In the
so-called Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, the eruption of Vesuvius
preserved more than 1800 papyri from a private library that are
entirely scorched but can be unrolled and read with the appropriate
technology. They contain literary and philosophical texts (Sider 2010).
Another important find is the Babatha cache, a bundle of 35 legal
documents found in a cave in the Judean Desert, all related to the
life and finances of Babatha, a woman who lived in Roman Iudaea
in the 2nd century CE and possibly died during Bar Kokhba’s revolt
(Lewis et al. 1989). The use of papyrus (amongst other things) in
the Roman military is demostrated by finds in Dura Europos on
the Euphrates (Syria) from the Roman occupation dating to the
mid-2nd to mid-3rd century CE with the documents of the Cohors
XX Palmyrenorum (Welles et al. 1959).
Outside Egypt, papyrus was always imported and may not have been
the most readily available writing material. That it was nevertheless
used in places as far from Egypt as Hadrian’s Wall is shown by
fragments of papyrus found with the Corbridge hoard dating to
the period between 122–138 CE (Häussler and Pearce 2007, 225).
Fig. 35: Relief on a sarcophagus from Neumagen (Germany)
showing a school setting and pupils using papyrus scrolls, late
2nd century CE. Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, inv. 9921. ©
GDKE/Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, photo by Th. Zühmer.
VOLUME 2: WRITING EQUIMENT | 59
Further reading and images:
Bülow-Jacobsen 2009, 4–9, 19–25; Sarri 2008, 60–64; Turner 1980; a useful
resource is the Duke Checklist of editions
Also see: fig. 2 (Pompeii still lifes); fig. 14 (baker and wife).
Selected ancient literary evidence:
The earliest Roman reference to papyrus might be a fragment of Ennius
cited by Servius (Aen. 8.361). Pliny the Elder (NH 13.74–82) desccribes the
production of papyrus. Cicero (Q. fr. 2.14 [15b].1) mentions fine paper (charta).
Martial has papyrus as gifts twice: Mart. 14.10 (large sheets); Mart. 14.11
(for letters). Horace (Epist. 2.1.111–113) notes how everyone in Rome who
writes poetry, including himself, asks for calamus, charta and scrinia first
thing in the morning.
Parchment/vellum (membrana/pergamena)
The word parchment derives from the name of the Greek city
Pergamon. In antiquity it was believed that parchment was invented
there in the first half of the 2nd century BCE, as related by Pliny
(NH 13.70). However, Aramaic parchment documents have been
dated to the 4th century BCE and animal skin was already used in
Pharaonic Egypt (Bülow-Jacobsen 2009, 11).
Parchment is different from leather in that it is untanned. The skin
of calves, goats or sheep was cleaned, freed from hair and treated
with chalk, then stretched and dried, thinned and the surface
smoothed. Parchment was first referred to as membrana which
was also used for leather. The word pergamena is first attested in
Diocletian’s Edict on Prices (301 CE).
Parchment was written on with ink. Apart from papyrus, it was one
of the main materials used for books in antiquity. A few examples
of parchment volumina are known, with pages sewn together and
then rolled (Bülow-Jacobsen 2009, 23–25). They contain parts of