Cyperus papyrus is of great historical importance, as it served the ancient Egyptians as a raw material to make several products. It used to make fabrics, rugs and cords. Papyrus eaten, medicines made, baskets, furniture and even boats made. The root and stem of the papyrus eaten like vegetables, and the stem used to build the house. But he is best known for making writing paper out of him. After all, the Egyptian letter was the ancestor of the most ancient alphabet in Africa. The word paper derived from the Egyptian word for papyrus.
Papyrus grows along river banks. This aquatic plant is similar to a reed, its leaves also grow from the stem. The papyrus has a straight, strong stem that grows to about 4 meters. In ancient times, papyrus was an organic component of the Egyptian landscape, and today the traveler can only see papyrus in the Cairo Botanical Garden.
It believed that making paper from papyrus began as early as 4000 BC. When making papyrus, only the lower part of the papyrus taken and cut into several thin strips. From the cut stems of papyrus, a core isolated, dividing it into thin long strips. These strips laid in close rows on a smooth board and moistened with water. On the first row, another row spread, but already across. Scratched, smoothed, put under a press and dried in the sun. To the resulting strip, other strips glued and sometimes, in order to better adhere to the ink, they dipped in paste and dried again.
As a result of such labor, a dense, slightly yellowish papyrus obtained, which for many centuries replaced paper and preserved the thoughts and feelings of people in mysterious letters. This technology for making papyrus used to this day. The sheets of papyrus used as they are or made rolls of them – when a sheet of papyrus covered to the end, then another was glued to it. The book got longer and longer. For storage, it wrapped in a tube – a scroll. In one museum there is a papyrus scroll, which is more than forty meters long.
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