Paper & paper making, ancient and modern

by Richard Herring

The manner of reading such rolls may be gathered from a passage extracted from Hartley’s “Travels in Greece,” which serves also to elucidate the peculiar scriptural expression of their being “written within and without.” You began, (says he) to read by unfolding, and you continued to read and to unfold, till, at last, you arrived at the stick to which the roll was attached; then you turned the parchment round, and continued to read on the other side of the roll, folding it gradually up until you completed the writing, thus were they “written within and without.”

Papyrus, from which the term paper was derived, is the name of a celebrated plant, once extensively used by the Egyptians for making various articles of utility, such as baskets, shoes, cordage, and the like. Some writers state that of this plant the little ark was made, in which the parents of Moses exposed him upon the banks of the Nile, and of this it was that the most ancient paper was manufactured. Not as would now be customary, by first reducing it to a pulp, nor, indeed, in any way as resembling modern paper, except that in both, vegetable fibre is the basis. That a plant once so useful, and for ages in Egypt so commercially valuable, should have totally disappeared, being altogether unknown to modern botanists, appears scarcely credible; yet so it is. For the ancient descriptions of the papyrus, as a flag or bulrush, with a triangular stem that could barely be spanned, and which grew to the height of ten feet, or even considerably more, in the immense marshes occupying a large part of the surface of lower Egypt; a leafless wood, as it were, or as one writer describes it, a forest without branches, the bare stem being surmounted only by a head of long, thin, straight fibres, is certainly quite irreconcilable with the nature of the plant which now bears that name, and of which one of the stoutest growth has been very kindly furnished me by Sir W. J. Hooker, from the Royal Gardens at Kew.

In the prophecy of Isaiah a very remarkable prediction occurs with reference to this plant. “The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.” Doubtless, we may believe that this prophecy has literally received its fulfilment.

With reference to the mode in which the paper was manufactured from this plant, two distinct opinions have been handed down to us. One, that the epidermis being removed, the spongy part was cut into thin slices, which were steeped in the waters of the Nile, or in water slightly imbued with gum; after which two layers were placed one above another, carefully arranged in contrary directions, that is, lengthwise and breadthwise, which, after being dried, were finally smoothed and brought to a fit surface for receiving writing, by being rubbed with a tooth or piece of polished ivory.

Another method said to have been adopted in preparing this material, was simply that of separating the thin concentric coats, or pellicles of the plant which surrounded the stock, by means of a needle or pointed shell (on an average about twenty from each stalk), and afterwards extending them longitudinally side by side on a table, a similar layer being placed across them at right angles; in which state they were moistened with water, and while wet put under pressure, being afterwards exposed to the rays of the sun, and finally polished as in the former case, with some hard substance, such as a tooth or shell, not merely for the purpose of improving the surface, but to prevent its absorbing the ink. The saccharine matter with which the whole juice of the plant is said to have been impregnated, being usually sufficient to cause the adhesion of the strips together.

So great was the importance of this manufacture at some periods, that Gibbon informs us of one Firmus, who raised the standard of revolt in Egypt against the Emperor Aurelian; that he boasted he would maintain an army solely from the profits of his paper trade. At another time, in the reign of Tiberius, there happened such a scarcity of paper, from causes that are not mentioned, that the Senate, in order to prevent a riot, were obliged to appoint commissioners to distribute paper to the applicants according to their respective demands.

Papyri vary much more in length than in breadth, and upon this fact I would dwell, as decidedly favouring the conception that the outer coat merely was employed in preparing the writing material. Indeed, in every specimen which I have examined, I have found the slips of which it is composed rarely exceeding twelve or fifteen inches even lengthwise. Whereas, if they had been produced from the pithy part of the stem, after being cut into slices, there would have been no difficulty whatever in manufacturing the paper of the entire length, which, as I have already stated, sometimes exceeded ten feet.

The breadth of papyri seldom exceeds eighteen inches, sometimes they are not more than four inches in width, which I imagine to have been determined by the length of the outer coats or pellicles taken from the plant; the length, of course, being carried to any extent, simply by fastening one sheet to another. The largest specimen of which I have heard is one at Paris, measuring thirty feet in length. The most interesting which we possess in this country is one which may be seen in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, which appears to have been written in Latin in the year 572, upon a roll of papyrus, eight feet and a half long, and twelve inches wide. It is a deed relating to the sale of a house and land at Ravenna.

Though papyri found on mummies are often in a good state of preservation, it is necessary to be very careful in handling them. The roll, owing to its being pressed under the swathings of the mummy, being completely flattened, and from the unvarying high temperature of the tomb to which it has for so long a time been subjected, is frequently so dry and brittle, that if any attempt be made to unroll it without previous precaution, small pieces will continually fall off. Still, the durability of this writing material is one of its best qualities. It can, in some instances, be rolled and unrolled after the lapse of many centuries without any detriment to it; but the complete preservation of such specimens is generally to be attributed to their being kept from the air either in wooden or earthen vessels, frequently in the interior of the Idol to which the mummy was once wont to present his offering, which is usually of some grotesque, or even hideous form, altogether unworthy of mention as representing any created thing, either upon the face of the earth, or in the waters beneath. Not long since I was shown one, containing a roll of papyrus, which had been roughly carved out of wood, somewhat resembling an overgrown cat in a sitting posture. And this so called god, as appears to have been customarily the case, was taken from the tomb, where it stood over the mummy, with two very beautiful vases, which at one time contained fragrant oils, believed to be acceptable to the Idol, placed in front. The papyri thus curiously preserved, usually contain an account of the rank or station which the dead once filled, and occasionally some description of the particular rites and ceremonies observed with reference to the worship.