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

Many examples of papyrus rolls we have today come from Egypt. This is where the oldest know papyrus roll was found in the tomb of Hemaka in Saqqara. It dates to around 2900 BC. Papyrus is named after a plant that grew in the swamps of the Nile Delta. The stalks of plants were cut into pieces and their green sheaths were peeled away. Then they would produce multiple layers of strips to glue together in two layers. The papyrus was used throughout the Paranoiac, Greek, and Roman Period.

These papyrus rolls even demonstrated and classified by class. A woman would be holding a wax tablet in her hands to keep records of things in the house, while a man would be holding a papyrus roll showing off his education. The papyrus was meant to be kept and read for years to come, while other writing tools were meant to be read for a moment and then discarded. This shows the placement of not only the different sexes in society but the social classes as well.

The different writing instruments people used influenced the way they wrote and the way they sat. The Egyptian sat on his heels on the ground, holding the roll on his lap and writing. Greeks required a more solid surface to write on such as wooden boards on their laps. Greeks and Romans did not consider a scribe’s work meaningful until they began copying religious work. The Egyptians believed scribes were significant members of society and even depicted a scribe at work in art.

 Books became a symbol. Libraries arose, production increased, and the thirst for knowledge thrived. Booksellers would travel to specific clients, the book became one of the symbols for wealth and knowledge. The codex overruled the papyrus roll after the second century AD. The mediums are different, yet they both share that same basic goal: sharing knowledge. The codex has some practicality over the papyrus rolls. It is more durable and could be opened to any page. With a papyrus roll, however, you have to roll it all the way flat. To be able to see what the roll contained, little pieces of papyrus stuck out. This provided the reader with the name of the title and author.

Comment: It is amazing how this world has evolved. We continue to improve in every way. We went from writing on walls, to papyrus rolls, to making books, and now to writing on the computer. We continue to expand and grow and thrive for success. Times like these make me want to imagine how people will be writing their stories in 50 or 100 years. I know that some people talk about how much more can we advance the technique of text? Well that is probably how the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans felt like. Who knows how much more we can advance!

     

     

Question: The writer talked about how there is little evidence of real books from the Greek or Roman areas. Do you think they lacked in technique in any way from the Egyptians, or do you think we just haven’t discovered it yet? How, in your mind, did Greeks and Romans sell, copy, and exchanged their books compared to Egyptians?