At a later period, not determinable, the papyrus writing material was no longer made up into roll form but was cut into rectangular sheets of various dimensions, according to the taste of the writer or the special need, and was then bound together somewhat as a modern book. Sometimes, when greater durability was sought, the writer or copyist would insert a leaf of parchment at every five or six leaves of the papyrus. This added greatly to the durability of the book. There are examples of books thus "reinforced" which have resisted the destructive influences of time and use for twelve centuries together. The fragile and extremely perishable character of the papyrus makes it most remarkable that any writing thereon should have survived for centuries; indeed, according to Pliny, a volume two centuries old was considered so exceptional as to be almost incredible. It was the perishable character of this material that made the frequent renewal of manuscripts handled a constant necessity, and hence the occupation of the copyists and the department of reproduction in the libraries were logical. The fragile character of the papyrus led, also, to the frequent use of a wooden case, called a capsa, to protect and preserve the roll. It was under very exceptional conditions only, as in mummy-cases of Egyptian tombs where they escaped the touch of man and, almost, the touch of time as well, and, as hermetically sealed under lava beds at Pompeii and Herculaneum, that the fragile papyrus was sometimes preserved for centuries.
The earliest known papyrus manuscripts date from the time of the twelfth dynasty of Egypt, or from a period of more than two thousand years before the Christian Era began. These oldest existing papyrus documents yet discovered are written in Egyptian—in three characters—in hieroglyphics, the most ancient or the picture-writing of the earliest times (translatable by the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone), in the hieratic, or the writing of the priests of Egypt from the period of the fourth or fifth dynasty (3124–2744 B. C., Lepsius) on to the third or fourth century of the Christian Era, and in the demotic, or the later and popular form of the priestly writing. In general, however, the papyrus period of the Egyptian literature extended from the fourth century B. C. to the fourth century A. D.
The extensive use of the papyrus as writing material is evidenced in the fact that an important commerce therein extended over a large part of the civilized world as early as the third century B. C., and continued to be a source of wealth to the Egyptians for centuries after the Christian Era had begun. In fact the use of papyrus continued, although interrupted greatly by the Saracen conquest and the embargo laid upon its importation into Pergamum by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, until it was superseded by the manufactured paper as it progressively came into use. (Isaac Taylor.)
[X]
PAPER AND ITS MANUFACTURE
It is the conclusion now accepted generally that the Chinese made and used paper for writing purposes from a remote period of the past—from before the beginning of the Christian Era. "The Chinese are credited with the discovery of the art of paper-making by the use of fibers reduced in water to a pulp. Their raw materials were the inner bark of the mulberry tree, bamboo, rice straw, rags, etc."[29]
Paper was distinguished from the papyrus in that the substances from which it was made were not used in their natural state, as the papyrus was, but were manufactured from the raw material which was first reduced to a pulp, then disposed in sheets, and subsequently finished for use. In lapse of time many different kinds of substances were employed as raw material or the basis of the finished product. At the Paris Exhibition in 1889, a paper-maker showed more than sixty webs, or rolls, of paper, each made from a different vegetable fibre: and sample-books have been published which were composed of several hundred leaves, all of different fibre.[30]
It is somewhat the "irony of fate" that no account of the origin of paper has been reliably recorded. Much of the reputed history of the art, or the invention, is only conjectural. The fact is that, however remote the time and place of its beginning, paper first became available to the world of letters in the eighth century. The Arabs, having acquired the art of making it from China (through Chinese prisoners, it is said) brought its manufacture into Arabia in the eighth century and, later, carried it into Europe by way of northern Africa. The comparatively large number of Arab manuscripts, preserved from the ninth century, is evidence of the extent to which paper was adopted and used for their literary, scientific, and religious records.
The Moors by their conquest of Spain in the eighth century brought their civilization and its benefits into western Europe and, at a later time—at about the twelfth century—introduced the manufacture of paper therein. The industry spread, later, from Spain into Italy and Sicily, and came eventually into the hands of the Christians, under whose less skillful manipulations it suffered deterioration in quality. At a still later date, its manufacture extended into southern and western Germany and into the Netherlands, England, and France.