| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The Greeks adapted the name and changed it into papure from which the English word "paper" derives. The study of manuscripts written on papyrus, or papyrology, is an essential tool for historians of Classical Antiquity.
To make papyrus, the herbaceous stems of the plant were cut lengthwise and soaked in water long enough for them to begin to rot. Several layers of these strips were laid in different directions (usually perpendicularly) and hammered together while still wet, mashing the layers into a single sheet. Because only one side of the sheet was used, the surface that was written upon was treated with sizing so that the inks would not bleed.
In a dry climateThe climate is the weather averaged over a long period of time. A descriptive saying is that "climate is what you expect, weather is what you get". The IPCC glossary definition is: : Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather”, o like that of Egypt, papyrus is stable; but storage in humid conditions can result in moldThis article is about the fungi. See also the manufacturing process molding. Mold or mould also refers to soil or earth, particularly soil that is loose and suitable for planting. Mold is also a town in Flintshire, in Wales. Note that in British English ms attacking and eventually destroying the material. Imported papyrus that was once commonplace in GreeceGreece formally called the Hellenic Republic (in Greek: ) Hellenike Demokratia , is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. It is bounded on land by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania and ItalyThe Italian Republic or Italy ( Italian: Italia is a country in the south of Europe, consisting mainly of a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. To the north, where it borders France, Switzer has since deteriorated beyond repair, but papyri are still being found in Egypt — extraordinary examples include the Elephantine papyriA Jewish community at Elephantine, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. The dry soil of Upper Egypt and the famous finds at OxyrhynchusOxyrhynchus ( Gr. Omicron;ξυρυνχος Oxyrhynkhos is an archaeological site in Egypt, one of the most important ever discovered. For the past century the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continuously excavated, yi and Nag HammadiNag Hammadi is a village in the middle of Egypt, called Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, about 225 kilometres north-west of Aswan with some 30. 000 citizens. It is mostly a peasant area where goods such as sugar and aluminium are produced. The Nag Ham. The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, containing the library of Julius Caesar's father-in-law, was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but has only been partially excavated.
In Egypt papyrus remained in use until 800 AD, when it was replaced by cheaper paper, which was introduced there by Arabs. In Europe the Holy See continued to use papyrus for official documents until 1100 AD. The technique of papyrus production was eventually lost in modern times and only rediscovered in 1962 by the Egyptian engineer Hassan Ragab .
Papyrus is also the name of a computer font.
Papyrus Australia [www.papyrusinternational.org] is a company that makes paper from Banana trees, using no water, no chemicals and minimal power. It uses the same basic principles as the ancient papyrus, the first attempt to do this on an industrial scale since the bulk of the paper industry moved to the chemical, water and energy intensive pulping process about 500 years ago.