it seems hardly credible that the Cyperus papyrus could have sufficed for the many uses to which it is said to have been applied and we may conclude that several plants of the genus Cyperus were comprehended under the head of byblus or papyrus—an opinion which is supported by the words of Strabo, who mentions both inferior and superior qualities. The Cyperus dives is still grown in Egypt, and is used to this day for many of the purposes named by ancient writers.
The widespread use throughout the ancient world of the writing material manufactured from the papyrus plant is attested by early writers, and by documents and sculptures. Papyrus rolls are represented in ancient Egyptian wall-paintings; and extant examples of the rolls themselves are sufficiently numerous. The most ancient Egyptian papyrus now known contains accounts of the reign of King Assa (3580–3536 B.C.). The earliest literary papyrus is that known, from the name of its former owner, as the Prisse papyrus, and now preserved at Paris, containing a work composed in the reign of a king of the fifth dynasty, and computed to be itself of the age of upwards of 2500 years B.C. The papyri discovered in Egypt have often been found in tombs, and in the hands, or swathed with the bodies, of mummies. The ritual of the dead is most frequently the subject. Besides the ritual and religious rolls, there are the hieratic, civil and literary documents, and the demotic and enchorial papyri, relating generally to sales of property. Coptic papyri mainly contain Biblical or religious texts or monastic deeds. Papyrus was also known to the Assyrians, who called it “the reed of Egypt.”
The early use of Papyrus among the Greeks is proved by the reference of Herodotus (v. 58) to its introduction among the Ionian Greeks, who gave it the name of διφθέραι, “skins,” the material to which they had already been accustomed. In Athens it was doubtless in use for literary as well as for other purposes as early as the 5th century B.C. An inscription relating to the rebuilding of the Erechtheum in 407 B.C. records the purchase of two papyrus rolls, to be used for the fair copy of the rough accounts. The very large number of classical and other Greek papyri, of the Ptolemaic and later periods, which have been recovered in Egypt, are noticed in the article on Palaeography. The rolls found in the ruins of Herculaneum contain generally the less interesting works of writers of the Epicurean school.
Papyrus also made its way into Italy, but at how early a period there is nothing to show. It may be presumed, however, that from the very first it was employed as the vehicle for Roman literature. Under the Empire its use must have been extensive, for not only was it required for the production of books, but it was universally employed for domestic purposes, correspondence and legal documents. So indispensable did it become that it is reported that in the reign of Tiberius, owing to the scarcity and dearness of the material caused by a failure of the papyrus crop, there was a danger of the ordinary business of life being deranged (Pliny, N.H. xiii. 13).
The account which Pliny (N.H. xiii. 11–13) has transmitted to us of the manufacture of the writing material from the papyrus plant should be taken strictly to refer to the process followed in his own time; but, with some differences in details, the same general method of treatment had doubtlessly been practised from time immemorial. His text, however, is so confused, both from obscurity of style and from corruptions in the MSS., that there is much difference of opinion as to the meaning of many words and phrases employed in his narrative, and their application in particular points of detail. In one important particular, however, affecting the primary construction of the material, there can no longer be any doubt. The old idea that it was made from layers or pellicules growing between the rind and a central stalk has been abandoned, as it has been proved that the plant, like other reeds, contains only a cellular pith within the rind. The stem was in fact cut into longitudinal strips for the purpose of being converted into the writing material, those from the centre of the plant being the broadest and most valuable. The strips (inae, philyrae), which were cut with a sharp knife or some such instrument, were laid on a board side by side to the required width, thus forming a layer (scheda), across which another layer of shorter strips was laid at right angles. The two layers thus “woven”—Pliny uses the word texere in describing this part of the process—formed a sheet (plagula or net), which was then soaked in water of the Nile. The mention of a particular water has caused trouble to the commentators. Some have supposed that certain chemical properties of which the Nile water was possessed acted as a glue or cement to cause the two layers to adhere; others, with more reason, that glutinous matter contained in the material itself was solved by the action of water, whether from the Nile or any other source; and others again read in Pliny's words an implication that a paste was actually used. The sheet was finally hammered and dried in the sun. Any roughness was levelled by polishing with ivory or a smooth shell. But the material was also subject to other defects, such as moisture lurking between the layers, which might be detected by strokes of the mallet; spots or stains; and spongy strips (taeniae), in which the ink would run and spoil the sheet. When such faults occurred, the papyrus must be re-made. To form a roll the several sheets κολλήματα, were joined together with paste (glue being too hard), but not more than twenty sheets in a roll (scapus). As, however, there are still extant rolls consisting of more than the prescribed number of sheets, either the reading of vicenae is corrupt, or the number was not constant in all times. The scapus seems to have been a standard length of papyrus, as sold by the stationers. The best sheet formed the first or outside sheet of the roll, and the others were joined on in order of quality, so that the worst sheets were in the centre of the roll. This arrangement was adopted, not for the purpose of fraudulently selling bad material under cover of the better exterior, but in order that the outside of the roll should be composed of that which would best stand wear and tear. Besides, in case of the entire roll not being filled with the text, the unused and inferior sheets at the end could be better spared, and so might be cut off.
The different kinds of papyrus writing material and their dimensions are also enumerated by Pliny. The best quality, formed from the middle and broadest strips of the plant, was originally named hieratica, but afterwards, in flattery of the emperor Augustus, it was called, after him, Augusta; and the charta Livia, or second quality, was so named in honour of his wife. The hieratica thus descended to the third rank. The first two were 13 digiti, or about 912 in. in width; the hieratic, 11 digiti or 8 in. Next came the charta amphithcatrica, named after the principal place of its manufacture, the amphitheatre of Alexandria, of 9 digiti or 612 in. wide. The charta Fanniana appears to have been a kind of papyrus worked up from the amphitheatrica, which by flattening and other methods was increased in width by an inch, in the factory of a certain Fannius at Rome. The Saitica, which took its name from the city of Sais, and was probably of 8 digiti or 538 in., was of a common description. The Taeniotica, named apparently from the place of its manufacture, a tongue of land (ταινία) near Alexandria, was sold by weight, and was of uncertain width, perhaps from 438 to 5 in. And lastly there was the common packing-paper, the charta emporetica, of 6 digiti or 438 in. Isidore (Etymol. vi. 10) mentions yet another kind, the Corneliana, first made under C. Cornelius Callus, prefect of Egypt, which, however, may have been the same as the amphitheatrica or Fanniana. The name of the man who had incurred the anger of Augustus may have been suppressed by the same influence that expunged the episode of Callus from the Fourth Georgic (Birt, Antik. Buchwesen, p. 250). In the reign of the emperor Claudius also another kind was introduced and entitled Claudia. It had been found by experience that the charta Augusta was, from its fineness and porous nature, ill suited for literary use; it was accordingly reserved for correspondence
only, and for other purposes was replaced by the new paper.