“The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome"

• The production of the papyrus roll was centered in Egypt, where papyrus was cultivated and produced. It was used through the Pharaonic, Greek, and Roman periods. The plant was cut into strips, which were then laid side by side and pressed to adhere and dry. They were then polished and sold as rolls.

•  Papyrus roll “books” were exclusively produced and consumed by an educated elite. More temporary writing mediums were used, such as wax topped wood blocks. These temporary and erasable writing mediums were used for administrative and receipt style writing. However, papyrus rolls were used for literary production, reserved for those who were of the intellectual and upper class. The quality of the scroll depended on the consumer. Some consumers treated the scrolls as luxury goods. These scrolls were made of high quality papyrus and showcased the latest popular handwriting. Other scrolls were written on the backside of receipts, and were intended for a serious readership genuinely concerned with content.

• The codex finally overtook the papyrus roll in the second century AD. The authors compare the two mediums to explain the practicality of the codex book over the papyrus scroll. The book lay flat, and can be opened to the same page without the need to unroll the whole book. Also, one the book can utilize bot sides of the page. Lastly, it is more sturdy and durable than the scroll.

Comment: I remember my American Lit professor telling us that Jack Kerouac wrote the first version of On the Road on a scroll, because he wrote so fast that constantly switching the pages of a typewriter was limiting. I think this is an interesting modern example of the benefits of scroll writing. I wonder if scribes held this same view of a scroll as “never ending”. I think that it was very possible for these individuals to have grievances toward the shift to a codex, because of this shift in the writing process itself.

Question: How much easier is the production of papyrus compared to cotton or wood pulp paper considering ancient technologies? What kind of trade impacts would have been made if papyrus wasn’t needed from Egypt?