| Paper of fine quality. |
Paper of fine quality.The best kinds of papyrus paper are close in texture, with a smooth surface, very pleasant to write upon with a reed pen, and adapted to receive miniature paintings of great refinement and delicacy of touch. To prevent the ink spreading or soaking into the paper, it was as a final process sometimes soaked in size made of fish-bones or gum and water, exactly as modern linen paper is sized. The colour of the papyrus is a pale brown, very pleasant to the eye, and excellent as a background to the painted decorations.
| Fibrous texture. |
Fibrous texture.When it was first made, papyrus paper must have been extremely durable and tough owing to its compound structure with two or more fibrous layers placed cross-wise. The parallel fibrous lines of the pith are very visible on the surface of papyrus paper; and these regular lines served as a guide to the scribe when writing, so that when papyrus was used it was not necessary to cover the page with ruled lines to keep the writing even, as had to be done when the manuscript was on vellum.
In a papyrus manuscript the pages of writing are set side by side, across the roll, with a small margin between each page or column.
| Greek examples of papyrus rolls. |
Greek examples of papyrus rolls.A small terra-cotta statuette[[19]] of about the fifth or fourth century B.C. found at Salamis in Cyprus in 1890, shows a Greek scribe writing on a long papyrus roll placed on a low table before which he is sitting.
Among Greek vase paintings of the same date a not uncommon subject is the poetess Sappho reading from a papyrus roll. A fourth century vase with this subject in the Central Museum in Athens shows Sappho holding a manuscript on which the following words are inscribed (supplying missing letters and correcting blunders)
ΘΕΟΙ ΗΕΡΙΩΝ ΕΠΕΩΝ ΕΡΧΟΜΑΙ
ΑΓΓΕΛΟΣ ΝΕΩΝ ΥΜΝΩΝ.