Papyrus

Papyrus is a tall reed that grows in the wetlands of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians cut its stems into thin strips, laid them in two layers at right angles, then pressed and dried them into sheets. Glued end to end, the sheets made scrolls.

In 2013, archaeologists led by Pierre Tallet were excavating storage tunnels at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient harbour on the Red Sea coast. They found papyrus rolls about 4,500 years old, the oldest yet discovered.

One of them is the logbook of an official called Merer. He led a crew that ferried blocks of fine limestone by boat from the quarries at Tura to Giza, for the casing of the Great Pyramid of King Khufu. His diary records their working days, a little like a ship’s log. Other sheets list the food and supplies sent to the workers, with amounts received written in one colour and amounts paid out in another.

Papyrus also gave us a word. Through Greek and Latin, papyrus is the ancestor of the English word paper, even though paper itself was invented much later, and far away, in China.

Look closer: Greek had a second word for papyrus, byblos, said to come from the port of Byblos. It lives on in bibliography and Bible.