PAPYR'OGRAPH. See COPY' NG MActrixr.z. PAPY'RUS i Let.. from (1k. 7-ci,-epos. papy rus). A genus of plants of the natural order Cyperacere. Egyptian Papyrus (Cypervs Papy rus) is a kind of sedge 3 to 10 feet high, with a very strong, woody, aromatic, creeping root, long, sharp-keeled leaves, and naked, leafless, tri angular, soft, and cellular stems, as thick as a man's arm at the lower part, and at their upper extremity bearing a compound umbel of ex tremely numerous drooping spikelets with a general involuere of eight long filiform leaves. The plant is represented in the oldest Egyptian monuments as reaching the height of about 10 feet. The papyrus was used for many pur poses. The more slender stalks were woven into baskets and boxes, while bundles of the thicker stalks formed the material of which light boats were constructed. The fibre was used for mak ing cordage, sails, awnings, and matting. The pith was boiled and eaten by the poorer classes, and the root was dried and used as fuel. The most im portant use of the plant, however, was in the manufacture of a species of paper. For this purpose the pith was cut into strips which were placed side by side on a flat sur face, and over the layer thus formed was laid a second layer of strips at right angles to the first. The whole was then pressed or rolled into a sheet, to which the natural gum of the plant gave a homogeneous charac ter, and the sheet when dried was ready for use. It is possible that artificial paste was sometimes used to bind the fibres. When newly prepared the sheet was white or brownish white; but in the process of time those papyri which have reached the present day have become of a light or dark brown color, and exceedingly brittle. The papyrus or paper of the Egyptians had a great reputation in antiquity, and it appears on the earliest monuments in the shape of long rectangular sheets, which were rolled up and tied with a string. At a very late period the papyrus was no longer rolled, but was cut into square pages which were bound together as are the leaves of a mod ern book. The papyrus sheets and rolls are of very different heights. The tallest specimen is said to be 15?:3 inches high, but most literary manuscripts are from S to 12 inches, with a tendency toward the lower limit. The sheets are far narrower, however, rarely exce-eding 9 inches, while widths of from 5 to 7 inches are common. The strips seem to have been sold in lengths of about 20 sheets. but there is no limit to the length of the rolls, though for literary purposes the Greeks seem rarely to have exceeded 30 feet. The ancient Egyptians made up huge rolls—one is said to be 144 feet long—for burial with the dead, though there is little likelihood that such unwieldy volumes were used by the living. The writing is regularly in columns. parallel to the length of the roll, and of varying width, in lit erary prose rarely exceeding three inches, though in verse they are often wider to accommodate the longer lines of the hexameter. Public documents and private papers are of course bound by no such rules. The use of papyrus paper, or at least of some similar manufacture from vege table fibre, must have arisen at an early (late in Egypt, and the oldest datable specimen can be but little later than B.C. 3600. (For a description of the Egyptian papyri and their contents, see the paragraph on Literature and Science under Eovrr.) The Greeks seem to have known a paper as early as the beginning of the fifth century B.C., though the oldest extant Greek papyrus is perhaps~ the Persians of Thnothens, belonging to the end of the fourth century. With the growth of the Alexandrian Library and the spread of Greek learning the use of papyrus largely in creased, and the manufacture of the paper seems to have developed greatly under the patronage of the Ptolemies. It is only in comparatively recent years that the attention of scholars and explorers has been drawn toward the Greek papyri of Egypt, and that systematic search has been made for them. The great bulk of the enormous mass
of papyri brought to light consiAts of non-literary documents, partly public, such as official corre spondence, laws, petitions, and tax-receipts, and partly private, including wills, contracts, letters, and notes, school exercises, and accounts. These documents are of immense value as enabling us to reconstruct the life and language of the com mon people in the towns and villages of Egypt under Greek and Roman rule. Though the lit erary papyri are relatively few, they are often of great importance as restoring to us works formerly lost. Among the more important are the Orations of Hyperides, the Mimes of Ileron das, the Odes of Bacehylides, the treatises of Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, and the Persians of Timotheus. Of Christian writings the yield has not been large, nor of very striking value. There are a few fragments from the New Testament and the Septuagint, some scraps of apocryphal or heretical writings, and especi ally the interesting leaf from Oxyrhynchus con taining some Login or sayings attributed to Jesus. The first great discovery of papyri in Egypt was made near Arsinoe in the Fayum in 1877. Fifteen years later at Socnopfei ,Nesos, also in the Fayum, another rubbish heap was opened, most of whose contents went to Berlin. While the first mass was chiefly Byzantine, these vere Roman and on the whole in fair preservation. An earlier period, ex tending well into the third century MC., was revealed by the discovery by Flinders Petrie of a series of mummy cases made of old papyri pasted together. Patient labor separated these fragments and brought to light remnants of the lost Anti ope of Euripides. as well as bits of the Gorgias and Plarda of Plato. and many non-literary frag ments. All previous discoveries were surpassed by the work of Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchns in 1S96-97, and to their continued labors at other points in the Fayum, and especially at Tebtunis, a large part of the increase since then is due. Outside of Egypt discoveries of papyri have been almost unknown. In 1753 a great mass of charred rolls were found in the Villa Suburbana at Hercu laneum, and a few of these have been unrolled by means of a very delicate apparatus, hut their con tents have been a disappointment. as they have proved to be philosophical treatises of the Epicu rean school, though the fragments of Philodemus have added somewhat to our knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy. For the hand writing on papyri, see EGYPTOLOGY; PA GEOG RAPHY.
As a matter of scientific interest experiments in the manufacture of paper from the papyrus have been made in modern times by Landolina, Seyffarth, and others, and a small quantity is made at Syracuse in Sicily, though of course merely as a curiosity.
Other spceies of papyrus (Cyp)rus 1'ory/n /03.ms, ('ypt ras tefetuin) are much used in India for mats. Cyperas alternifolius, the umbrella plant or umbrella palm, is a common house plant. It grows to a height of one to three feet, with drooping involucral rays six to eight inches long and less than one-half inch broad.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. On the general subject, conBibliography. On the general subject, con- sult: Wileken. Die yriechisehen Popyrusurkun den (Berlin, 1897) ; Kenyon, Polccography of Greek Papyri (Oxford, 1899) ; Dziatzko, l'uter suchunyen iiber ausgewiihlte Kapitel des antihen Bachlcesens (Leipzig, 1900) ; on the results for Biblical study. Dei.smann, Bible Studies, trans. by Grieve (Edinburgh. 1901). A periodical de voted to this subject is the Archie fiir Paptru.s forsvhnmg and renrandte Gebicte (Leipzig, 1900, et. seq.): and a brief review of the more im portant publications of each year may be found in the Annual ..lrehological Reports of the Egypt Exploration Fund (London, 1 ssI9 et seq.).