Map of papyrus ancient egypt8/8/2023 ![]() Around 1930, papyrus conservator Hugo Ibscher produced white papyrus sheets with plants from the Botanical Garden in Berlin, later attempts were conducted with mixed success by Gunn and Lucas with plant material from Sudan or Gunn’s garden in Cairo. The excavations of the famous tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the findings of important papyri as the Papyrus Smith and the Papyrus Ebers led to broad public interest in ancient Egyptian culture in the late nineteenth century, which in turn led to attempts to reproduce papyrus sheets as found, e.g., in the depot of the Technical Museum in Vienna in the form of a demonstration board depicting papyrus production and model papyrus sheets, produced with plant material from Sicily in 1905 (Technisches Museum Wien 2021). ![]() James Bruce described the results of his own attempts at the end of the eighteenth century: ‘Even the best of it was always thick and heavy, drying very soon, then turning firm and rigid and never white’(Bruce 1804). Efforts to recreate this ancient art of papyrus manufacture in modern Europe were anything but straightforward. ![]() However, production declined around 1000 CE because of the advent of paper made in Asia (Nielsen 1985). Papyrus was one of the principal media for communicating information, including art and transcendent religious ideas, for approximately 4000 years. These three meaning aspects of the word are illustrated in Fig. According to current understanding, the term ‘papyrus’ denotes both the papyrus plant and the writing material, and also the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph that depicted a papyrus roll. 2500 BCE (Diringer 1982 Bronk Ramsey et al. The first written papyri date back to the Fifth Dynasty, ca. This evidence provides an important witness to the appearance of this writing material in history, around the First Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, because the creation of a hieroglyphic representation presupposes the existence and dissemination of the material (Ekschmitt 1964). At about the same time, the hieroglyph representing papyrus is first attested (Petrie 1927 Graefe 2001). 1951), was found in the Hemaka tomb in Saqqara, Egypt. The oldest surviving papyrus, which is blank and approximately 5,100 years old (Braidwood et al. This knowledge, as well as its physical carriers, must be preserved for future generations to enjoy and use. They have shaped our understanding of Egyptian, ancient Greek, Roman, Coptic and Arabic cultures by conveying concepts, images and other information about ancient literature, philosophy, religion, mathematics, medicine, astronomy and daily life through literary and religious texts, medical and other scientific treatises, personal letters, mercenary contracts, culinary recipes and much more (Černý 1952 Nicholson et al. 1951), papyrus sheets are among the earliest written sources in human history. Dating back as far as 5,100 years (Braidwood et al. Papyrus sheets are produced from the pith of the papyrus ( Cyperus papyrus L.) sedge, which was common in the shallow water of the Nile Delta in Ancient Egypt. Linguistic and art historic evidence indicates that such a step would not have made sense in antiquity, since it was desired to produce white papyri. We assume that this additional treatment was introduced to obtain yellowish papyrus sheets meeting optical expectations of modern spectators. The inclusion of an alkaline step in ancient papyrus manufacture is discussed but dismissed, since the alkali-treatment causes a huge decrease in lignin content, that was not found for the analysed ancient specimen. The analytical data clearly show the involvement of a strong alkaline treatment followed by chlorine bleaching for commercial papyri, as expressed by higher pH values, altered lignin structures, and chlorinated lignin compounds. ![]() The lignin data in the native pith and commercial sheets were compared to 10 ancient samples from the Papyrus Museum Vienna. Two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, derivatization followed by reductive cleavage, and pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry were complemented with microscopy and tests for surface pH and sodium content. Material characterization was performed with a focus on the potentially color-bearing lignin. To study if this is accurate, commercially available papyrus sheets were compared to ancient papyri and papyri produced according to Pliny’s historic description. Modern Egyptian papyrus producers claim that their sheets possess ‘the same physical and chemical properties as ancient papyri’. Therefore, papyrus production had to be rediscovered. Papyrus, produced from the white pith of Cyperus papyrus L., has been used for millennia as the major writing support by ancient cultures, but there was no continuous papyrus production until modern times.
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