From antiquity, around 3000 scrolls survived with texts ranging from treaties to medical knowledge to classical texts. The emporitic papyrus was useless as writing material so the papyrus was used for envelopes or merchandise wrapping paper by dealers.
#Papyrus background skin#
The taenotic papyrus was made from papyrus that was near the outside skin and was not sold by its quality, but rather by its weight. The saitic grade of papyrus was eponymous with the city where the papyrus was manufactured and consisted mainly of scraps, making the papyrus felt like bark. He, in order to make better quality papyrus, added a third layer, making the papyrus finer. The manufacture place was in Rome ran by Fannius, who was a grammarian. The amphitheatric grade originated from the name of its manufacture place. For example, the hieratic grade came from the center of the plant and was mostly used for religious texts. The different grade of papyrus stemmed from the different parts of the plant being used and where the sheets were manufactured. The difference in quality of papyrus allowed the variants to be used for different things. The quality was measured by fineness, firmness, whiteness, smoothness, and variation in breadth.
The quality of a scroll was reliant on the grade of papyrus used and the scribe's own work. Different Grades of the Papyrus Scrolls Scroll with Greek text. The end of the papyrus stalk could be used as a tie to secure a scroll for storage. Writing on the verso or vertical side was unusual, but was still acceptable. A scroll was usually only written on one side unless the scroll was reused, becoming a palimpsest or a piece of writing material where the original writing was washed off and new writing was made. The side that was written on was the horizontal side, which was called a recto, where the fibers were parallel to the length of the roll and lines of writing. In determining which side of the papyrus was the verso or recto, the kollese is was vital. The sheets were pasted in a way that the left side of a sheet was always over the right in any kolleseis or join. The beginning of the roll began with the protokollon or unwritten sheets and often ended with an umbilicus, which was a wooden stick unattached used for unrolling. Also, a Greek roll did not exceed more than 11 meters (36 feet). With that in mind, the longest Ancient Egyptian roll was around 40 meters (131 feet). However, a scribe possessed the ability to determine the length of the roll by cutting off or adding individual sheets to their desired length for the text. Ī conventional roll was sold as twenty sheets pasted together. Different Parts of a Scroll Rolled-up Scroll. In order to create a roll, the sheets were glued together with a paste made from flour that dissolved in boiling water and mixed together with vinegar. On individual sheets, any rough spots were rubbed smooth using ivory and shell, so writing surface was not as scaly.
After the sheet was formed, the sheet was left to dry in the sun. The layers were then pressed forming sheets. The strips were then pounded with a mallet to remove the excess water.
Then, the ends of the strips were squared off to form neater borders of the two layers. The papyrus strips were then flattened onto a board, wet from the Nile. The process began from the act of separating the entire triangular stalk into very thin, but broad strips. The only place to obtain any papyrus was from Egypt as papyrus could only be manufactured from fresh papyrus.Ī construction of two layers of papyrus fibers, which were laid perpendicularly to each other, made up a papyrus sheet. And so much of what is known about the process comes from Pliny’s account. However, many scholars reconstructed knowledge of the process through the analysis of Pliny’s somewhat misinformed description and modern-day experimentation. The knowledge of the production of a papyrus sheet is unknown as the Egyptians never recorded the process. As a result, the modern-day papyrus in Egypt came from Paris. On the other hand, when the papyrus plant was no longer cultivated as writing material, the act caused the extinction of the species, Cyperus Papyrus L., in Egypt. Since 3000 BC, the plant was native only to Egypt and considered the major distributor to the rest of the Mediterranean world. However, the material taken from a papyrus plant predominately composed the scrolls of the ancient world. Ī scroll was a roll constructed of material that ranged from papyrus to parchment. This post will provide you with an overview that will leave you with a general idea of the different aspects of the scroll from production to importance.
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