12/11/2023 0 Comments Ancient egypt scrolls“Working with papyrus today is exciting because we’re reinventing a technology the ancient Egyptians were experts in. “We have a lot to learn from them,” said Price. Like today, the people who lived long ago were continually developing technologies and tools. Papyrus paper wasn’t cheap, and not everyone could read and write. Scribes wrote horizontally, as we do, in sections the size of our modern pages, rolled the scrolls up, and stored them in libraries. “There’s the account by Pliny the Elder in his Natural Histories, but it’s a rather vague account.” Additionally, he never actually went to Egypt.Īfter the papyrus paper was produced, pieces were attached to create scrolls up to 65 feet long. “I’m hesitant to suggest that no one else ever used this technology throughout the Roman Empire,” said Price. “This would suggest that when Egypt was under Roman control, the Egyptians were supplying the entire Roman empire with these goods.”Įventually, papyrus was replaced by parchment (animal skin), but the ancient process was reinvented in the 1960s for the tourist trade in Egypt. “Most scholars agree the manufacturing of papyrus was a technology belonging to the ancient Egyptians,” said Robyn Price, a PhD candidate in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, who helped facilitate the Getty workshop. Papyrus grew on the banks of the Nile, and the resulting paper was exported across ancient Egypt, all the way into ancient Rome. “This allows you to slow down and think about the evolution from nature to the thing that ancient Romans would write on.” “When you learn how labor-intensive this is, you appreciate it more,” said Hogan. She had chosen several tall stalks from the Getty Villa gardens and was now slicing them into thin flat reeds to be soaked and, ultimately, pounded and pressed into paper. The plan is to display it in the Grand Egyptian Museum, now under construction, when it is completed.She was preparing the plant for an upcoming workshop on the topic. It is the first such complete papyrus discovery in over 100 years. The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that it was found as part of a recent archaeological discovery. The only way to create long texts was to roll them up, which is why these ancient documents are scrolls rather than books. Vellum also had the capacity to be folded, making what we think of as books possible. Centuries later it would be replaced by vellum, made from animal skins, that was more durable and easier to write upon. This recently discovered scroll is 52 feet long.Īs an aside, these ancient scrolls were made from papyrus, a sort of heavy paper-like substance created from the papyrus plant, found in Egypt. The difference likely reflected the person's status. The scrolls could range anywhere from a couple of feet in length to over 100 feet. Each one might contain different spells and other information. It was not like the Bible or some fundamental, unchanging religious text. Like any travel guide, you needed to take it with you for it to be of any use. ![]() The old saying “you can't take it with you” was not accepted by the Egyptians. The Book of the Dead provides guides, magic spells, and such to aid you on your journey, hence it's being found in tombs. If you failed, you simply ceased to exist. It is challenging, but not a place of eternal punishment. The underworld is not like the Hell we know, but a place where the soul is tested to see if it is worthy of eternal life. It was really a guide to emerging into everlasting life at the end of a journey all souls must take through the underworld after they die. ![]() That name may sound morbid, and the underworld quite literally hellish, but that is not an accurate portrayal of the ancient Egyptian beliefs. That's a more recent western term for these sort of guidebooks to the underworld. ![]() The scroll is of what we now call the Book of the Dead. This manuscript is a papyrus scroll, found in a tomb in the Saqqara necropolis that served Memphis. The historic capital city is no more, but the necropolis, including its pyramids, are still here to remind us of what it once was. It was found in a necropolis or burial site for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis. A 2,000+-year-old manuscript has recently been deciphered and translated.
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