When, in the first century AD, Pliny wrote about papyrus in his Natural History, it already had been the most common writing material in the ancient world for three millennia (indeed, the word "paper," itself, derives from the Latin, papyrus). In Book XIII, he describes how papyrus is made, "since our civilization or at all events our records depend very largely on the employment of paper," and it is the thing upon which "the immortality of human beings depends." Native to the Delta marshes of Egypt, the tall papyrus reeds were cut and peeled, and the fibrous pith split into thin strips, which were laid on a flat, wet surface, first vertically and then horizontally. Pressed or pounded together, the crushed fiber of the two layers bonded to form a sheet of papyrus, which was dried in the sun and polished smooth with ivory or shell. The best quality papyrus came from the center of the stalk, which Pliny categorized as Regia or Augusta, and increasingly inferior grades from the outer layers. The size of the sheet was determined by the length to which the horizontal strips could be cut and still remain strong. Wide sheets were considered best, a sheet of XIII digiti. As well as width, which in the Roman period normally was four to nine inches, papyrus was esteemed for its fineness, thickness, whiteness, and smoothness. Pliny goes on to say that Claudius had the outer layer made with stronger fiber, keeping the best grade only for the writing surface and, on that account, it had come to be preferred. Individual sheets were overlapped and pasted together to form a long roll, or charta, a term that came to signify any form of paper, whether written or unwritten. It was the inner, horizontal layer that was used for writing. The outside of the roll usually was left blank, although Pliny did bequeath to his nephew, Pliny the Younger, one hundred-sixty rolls on which both sides had been written (opisthograph). The manufactured papyrus roll, says Pliny, comprised no more than twenty sheets (about fifteen feet). The book roll or volumen (from volvere, to roll), on the other hand, could be as long or short as needed, but tended to average thirty to thirty-five feet (sufficient to contain a single book of Thucydides). The standard way of reading it was to unroll (explicare, to unfold) the scroll with the right hand, while winding the portion that had been read back up with the left. To give the roll stiffness and to prevent bending, it was wound around a wooden or ivory rod, or around rollers, forming a cylinder that could be handled by the projecting knobs on the ends. Often, too, another sheet of papyrus (protocol) was attached at the front to protect the roll when wound. A tag or titulus, written on a separate piece of paper and affixed to the roll, identified its contents.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:28:53 +0000
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