"Papyrus
Papyrus was the most important writing material in the ancient
world. Our word ""paper"" derives from the word ""papyrus,"" an
Egyptian word that originally meant ""that which belongs to
the house"" (the bureaucracy of ancient Egypt). Papyrus is a
triangular reed that used to grow along the banks of the Nile,
and at an early stage of their history the Egyptians developed a
kind of writing material made out of the pith within the stem of
the papyrus plant. At the same time they developed a script that
ultimately provided the model for the two most common
alphabets in the world, the Roman and the Arabic. . The task
of the papyrologist is not only to decipher, transcribe and edit
what is preserved, but also to reconstruct what is lost between
fragments and reconstruct the whole. Most fragments of
literature derive from rolls of papyrus, which could extend up
to 35 feet in length. Papyrus was the most important writing
material of the ancient......
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Approximate Word Count: 503
Approximate Pages: 2 (260 words per double-spaced page) |