PAPYRUS. The name of a plant and the material made from it, especially that for writing used by the nations of antiquity. One of its names in the ancient Egyptian was P-apu (Select Papyri, Pl. xviii., I. 9.), which passed into Greek and Latin under the form papyrus; by the Hebrews it was called some, which resembles the hieroglyphic g0711 4, and Coptic gAnt, a " book," or " volume." (Lepsius, Todt., lxxii. 162. 9.) The Greeks also called it Byblos (Herod. ii. 92.), or deltas, from the Delta, where it principally grew, and give books this name (Winckelmann, ii. 96, 226, Dresd.). The term biblion, or bible, means in fact, a book or roll of.papyrus. The plant itself, the paper rush, or Operas e'ntiquorum, called herd by the modern Egyptians, dis tinguished by its tall prismatic, or triangular and tapering stem, growing to the height of about 10 feet, surmounted by a downy dower, appears to have been abundant in Egypt at the early period of the 4th dynasty. On monuments of the reign of Chephren, and Cheops, men are represented bearing bundles of this plant (Lepsius, Denkm , ii. 9-11), which they have gathered, or forming it into the light boats by which they crossed the marshes or the Nile (Lepsius, Denkm., ii. 12). The principal site of its cultivation was the alluvial ponds Iota (Lepsius, Denkm., ii. 74). where it is represented raaching the height of 10 feet in the Delta (Lepsius, Denkm., ii. 106 a). As early as the 5th dynasty, it appears in the hieroglyphics, either for the pre peration of a colour for the eyes (Lepsius, ii. 22), or as designating the land of northern Egypt or the Delta, where It particularly grew (lhid. ii. 47); but as the plant has gradually disappeared from Egypt, some naturalists have supposed that it was not indigenous, but introduced from the Niger or Euphrates, where it is still found native, and that it has become extinct for want of necessary culture. It has, however, been seen as late as the 19th century on the borders of the lake Menzaleh, the Phatnitic Uylarus, in Upper Egypt and in Abyssinia. Some think indeed, that the term papyrus comprehended two or three dith:rent kinds of reeds, such as the Cyperus dives, which is still cultivated in Egypt, and that the disappearance of the Cypereut papyrui is owing to the monopoly of the Roman contractors or publicani, who restricted its culture to a few localities. (Strabo. xvii. 650 c.)
According to Pliny, it grew ten feet above, and two in the water, besides striking deep roots into the Nilotic mud, in the poo:s or marshes of the Sebynnitic and Saitic mimes.
The papyrus was one of those plants , which the ancients con rerted to a multitude of uses. Its elegant and light flowers were woven into crowns, and neither the Spartan Agcailaus nor the Mithrea dates VI., of the line of Pontus, disdained to use it for that purpose, its pith or pulp was boiled and eaten. and considered the primitive food of Egypt, the root, on the contrary, was dried and used for fuel, the bark was manufactured into matting, sails, and ropes, bedding, and clothes. The priest used it only for sandals ; and sandals of it remain to the present day in the collections of the British Museum, (Pliny, N. H. xiii. 11, 22; Strabo, xvii. 799. E). Bo:ea were also made of its stems, trimmed and tied at the ends and middle; and in an ark or box of the youthful Moses was placed amongst the standing pools of papyri. At the time of Homer, it was used by the Greeks for rigging (Odys. xxi. 391), and Antigonus used for the cables of his fleet, papyrus grown in Syria. The ancient Greek name for the mate rial was buolos, but it was not applied by prose writers to hooks (Lucan, iii. 222).
The invention of papyrus for boats was attributed to Isis, who searched for her husband Osiris in a bark of this material, which was said to be especially shunned by crocodiles, probably the reason why Moses was exported in an ark of the same material by his mother. These boats are mentioned by Isaiah, Theophrastus, and Pliny. But the most remarkable use of this plant was for the manufacture of paper, Iran, which smears In the hands of scribes on the earliest monuments (Lepidus, Dcnkm., ii. 6. 9. 11.) in (square sheets or long scrolls, sseslit.