Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Papyrus

The Word ( Paper ) was Derived from the ancient Egyptian pronunciation ( Papuro ) that is its Royal meaning ( Where it was making the paper a Royally monopoly ) .


Papyrus is an old type of paper made from Bulrush , It's a long plant of the Family Aljimp ( Cyperus Papyrus ) that is its stalks was stretch the top and related section with a triangular shape and its flowers was a tent shape and its rise from 5 to 9 meters .





According to the detailed description of the PLINY THE ELDER which he left us in his book " Natural History " , the papyrus was made from the stalk of the plant which is under water and that can reach its width up to width the human hand . After removing ; The stalk was divided into segments of longitudinal stretching to almost a meter or three feet then the segment put over the other in perpendicular shape . After that ; the segments were flooded in Nile water then dried under the sunlight , polished , settled the resulting paper edges so that the paper length does not exceed 25 to 30 cm OR 10 to 12 inches To become ready for writing and drawing .






And if the text was long ; have been pasted several pages of this type so formed a tape length ranges from 6 to 10 meters or 20 to 33 feet . In rare cases the one tape was extends to 40 meters OR 131 feet , and sometimes more than it . It was the tape of this type wraps around the promises of wood or ivory was named " Oomvallos " by the Greeks and " Umbilicus " by the Romans .


The first use of Papyrus was in ancient Egypt especially in the Nile Delta , later moved in ancient times to Palestine and Sicily , Use the paper was in all regions of the Mediterranean, and some parts of Europe and southwest Asia , And reached to us from Greco and Roman relatively large number of texts written on papyrus, and most of these texts found in Egypt .







According to one of Geographers of the fourth century AD that the papyrus was producing at that time only in Alexandria and its suburbs . of course Alexandria was the harbor that the ships came from Mediterranean countries for the supply of this precious material . In fact, it was the economic prosperity of Alexandria since its creation stems from the trade papyrus .

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