Coventina's History Thread: Where does paper come from?

[Coventina]

Paper, as we know it today, is a Chinese invention.

However, I'll get to that in a future thread.

Today, I want to talk about the ancient paper-precursor: Papyrus!

Papyrus, as invented and made in ancient Egypt, predates paper by about 3000 years!

We even call "paper" "paper" because it comes from papyrus!

Ancient Egyptians developed it by hammering strips of the papyrus plant into a unified sheet for writing. The Egyptians even sold it to the Greeks and Romans until around 300 BCE. With their papyrus supply cut off, Greeks and Romans turned to parchment, which is made from the skins of a variety of animals. (More on parchment at a later date as well).

?h=ba4f7059&itok=m4JgFYm0

[niyad]

1. Thank you!

[msongs]

2. went to a paper making workshop once. easy to see why it was so valuable in the early days nt

[electric_blue68]

3. Ty. I think I did paper making workshop, too, decades ago.

[FemDemERA]

4. Thank you for these interesting posts!

[nuxvomica]

5. A lot of papyrus shops in Siracusa, Sicily, when I visited

It was growing wild everywhere. I bought a portrait of Archimedes on papyrus.

[Fla Dem]

6. Thanks, great mini history info.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. I've Been To A Few Papermills

Very loud, very steamy, and an unpleasant fragrance.
But, it's impressive to watch the machinery!
A couple of those sites made the Kraft paper used for cardboard.
(I was working on surfactant systems to accelerate the dewatering of the pulp so less energy was needed to dry the moisture.)

[electric_blue68]

8. I also then watched a video on papyrus. Very cool...

showed flattened reed woven together before either pounding, or putting through a mechanical flattener.