The word paper comes from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus, which was formed from beaten strips of papyrus plants. Papyrus was produced as early as 3000 BC in Egypt, and sold to ancient Greece and Rome. The establishment of the Library of Alexandria put a drain on the supply of papyrus. As a result, according to the Roman historian Pliny (Natural History records, xiii.21), parchment was invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum to build his rival library at Pergamum. Outside of Egypt, parchment or vellum, made of processed sheepskin or calfskin, replaced papyrus as the papyrus plant requires subtropical conditions to grow.
Paper is considered to be one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China, as the first standard papermaking process was made in China during the early 2nd century. During the Shang (1600 BC-1050 BC) and Zhou (1050 BC-256 BC) dynasties of ancient China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 352
Approximate Pages: 2 (260 words per double-spaced page) |