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Egypt is a wonderland
of shopping opportunities. Of course, there are the famous bazaars
such as the Khan el-Khalili, but then there are also thousands of
unusual stores scattered about the country, and especially in
Cairo,
though some products are better purchased perhaps from the locale
from which they are produced, such as alabaster in
Luxor. However,
Cairo provides a huge variety of everything from antiques to fine
clothing and especially jewelry. In some shops, you must haggle
while in others the price will be set. Which type of store provides
the best possible deals depends both on the shop itself and the
haggling ability of the buyer an seller. Frequently though some of
the best deals at the best consistent quality is found in stores
with fixed prices. For example, one might haggle over a
mother-of-pearl box in the Khan el-Khalili and wind up paying a
fairly low price but for an inferior products, while in a fixed
price shop, one might end up paying more, but for a far superior
mother-of-pearl box. The purpose for this section is to provide Tour
Egypt readers with information both on how to shop in
Egypt, as well
as to enlighten them on how to tell what makes various products
better or worse from the standpoint of quality. Of course, for those
not traveling to
Egypt, our Virtual Khan el-Khalili, Tour
Egypt's
online shop provides many quality products found in
Egypt at
reasonable prices. Our English word "paper", is derived from the
word "papyrus", an Egyptian word that originally meant "that which
belongs to the house" (the bureaucracy of ancient
Egypt). At about
the same time as the ancient Egyptians moved from prehistory to
history by developing a written language, they discovered the need
for a medium other than stone to transcribe upon. They found this in
their papyrus plant, a triangular reed which symbolized ancient
lower
Egypt. It was light, strong, thin, durable and easy to carry,
and for thousands of years, there was nothing better for the purpose
of writing. The earliest extant documented papyrus comes from
Egypt's 1st Dynasty, but we believe it may have been used as early
as 4,000BC. It's use continued until about the 11th century AD.
Besides its use for producing a medium for writing purposes, papyrus
was also used for mattresses on beds, for building chairs, tables,
and other furniture as well as for mats, baskets, boxes, sandals,
utensils, rope and boats. Furthermore, the papyrus root was a source
of food, medicine and perfume. Papyrus was, and continues today to
be made from the papyrus reed that grows in freshwater marshes along
the river Nile, though today this growth is rare and controlled.
Technically, it is Cyperus papyrus, a part of the sedge family. The
plant grows to a height of about ten feet. After harvesting, the
outer fibers are peeled away and the core of the stalk and sliced
into very thin strips that are as broad as possible. The best of
these strips, from the perspective of quality, comes from the
center. Progressively, thequality of the papyrus strips decline as
the strips are taken further from the center of the yellowish-white
pith. These strips are next soaked in water to remove the sugar
content. Next, the strips are pounded and the water drained away,
after which they are placed side by side, overlapping slightly. A
second set of strips are placed at right angles to the first, again
overlapping slightly. Next, this raw papyrus sheet is pounded once
again, and left under a heavy weight (usually a stone slab) to dry
for approximately six days. The remaining sugar within this
concoction seals the strips together. Finally, after drying the
surface of the sheet is polished to a smooth finish by rubbing (for
example, with a shell or a piece of smooth ivory). Though during
various periods of Egyptian history, this process could be slightly
different, some papyrus continues to be made in a similar manner
even today, for artistic purposes. For example, Pliny, during the
Greek period, describes the process somewhat differently and
included information on the various grades of Papyrus: For practical
purposes, the papyrus was limited to a standard size running 47 cm
in length at the most (29-33 cm on the average), and 22 cm in width,
though by no means was this always so, particularly over
Egypt's
long history. For longer documents, these pages were joined to
create a papyrus roll (scroll). In fact, papyrus sheets were usually
not sold individually, but in rolls (of about 20 sheets), with the
fibers running in the same direction, except for the end sheets,
which were reversed in order to add stringth. However, in later
periods, we also find papyrus books, called codex, which finally
triumphed over the roll. Just like there are many different kinds
and qualities of paper today, the same was true for papyrus. Each
type was used for a different purpose. Very cheaply made coarse
papyrus was used by merchants to wrap items. The finest and most
expensive varieties were reserved for religious or literary works.
Quality depended upon a number of factors. Where the papyrus plants
were grown, the age of the plants, the season when they were
harvested, and most importantly, the layer of pith used in
manufacture were all factors that affected the quality of the
finished product. The finest papyrus was made using the innermost
pith layers and was said to have come from the Delta region. A
typical roll was usually constructed of papyrus sheets of varying
quality. The best sheets would be used for its ends, since they
received the most wear and tear, and lesser quality sheets for its
inner sections. To add additional strength and help prevent fraying,
at the end margins, a strip of papyrus would be glued along the ends
of the roll. In some cases, each end of the scroll would be wound
around a stick (called an umbicus) which had attached cords to keep
the roll from unraveling. The various varieties and sizes of papyrus
were often named in honor of emperors or officials. This
information, particularly during the Roman and Byzantine periods,
was written on the first sheet of a roll and was called a protocol.
Additionally, the protocol often included the date and place of
manufacture of the papyrus. Generally, the protocol would be cut off
before using the roll. However, for legal documents, this practice
was forbidden by the Laws of Justinian. The practice of adding a
protocol to a finished papyrus roll continued into Islamic times. Usually, the ancient Egyptians and
others only wrote on one side of the papyrus, with the sheet
oriented so that the fibers ran horizontally (recto). Rarely was
there actually graphics applied to papyrus, particularly outside
ancient religious matter. Egyptian rulers realizing the importance
of Papyrus, made its production a state monopoly, and guarded the
secret of Papyrus jealously. Soon, Egyptians were even exporting
their papyrus "paper", though outside of
Egypt, not much of it has
survived. This is due to the climate of
Egypt and a few parts of
Mesopotamia, where the dry climate is conducive to such
preservation. However, Papyri have also been found in Asia and
Europe. Few fragments of papyri from the classic period have been
found in Greece, though dozens of drawings of rolls and papyri
appear on vases of the same period. Of course, there was a
concentration of papyrus in the debris of ancient towns and the
necropolises of
Egypt. In the external history of the discoveries
the most noteworthy feature is that so many of the papyri have been
dug up with the spade from Egyptian rubbish-heaps. The fact that so
many of the papryi are found among the dust-heaps of ancient cities
is a valuable indication of their general significance. The
multitude of papyri from the Fayoum and a few other locations, do
not, as was at first supposed, but simply the everyday trash of
ancient civilization. Furthermore, in
Egypt, papyrus was recycled in
the form of mummy car tonnage. In the mummification process, the
ancient Egyptians first prepared the corpses and wrapped them in
linen. Then they covered the deceased with pieces of car tonnage
covered with plaster and painted in bright colors. This car tonnage,
at least in certain periods of Egyptian history, consisted of
several layers of papyrus usually discarded by administrative
offices. Actually, the largest percentage of papyrus that has
survived was written during the Greco-Roman Period of Egyptian
history and afterwards, from about the late fourth century BC until
the middle of the seventh century AD. Most of this text is written
in Greek. After the conquest of
Egypt by Alexander the Great, almost
all administration of
Egypt was largely conducted in Greek, and this
remained so even after the Romans took control of
Egypt. In fact,
Greek continued to be used for this administrative purposes even
after the Arab conquest in 642 AD. However, there also remains
considerable text written in Coptic, Latin and Arabic on papyrus as
well as some Hieratic and more commonly, Demotic Egyptian. The
ancient subject matter recorded on papyrus can be extremely varied,
and can include literature, religious texts, magical texts and even
instrumental music. Religious topics recorded on Papyrus can include
subjects related to ancient religions both in
Egypt and outside, as
well as biblical, including early Christian text. That biblical
literature was originally written on papyrus (rather than on
parchment) is evident from archaeological finds and textual
analysis. In wadi Murbaat (near the Dead Sea) a papyrus has been
found from the 7th century BC, and another one, dating from the 4th
century BC, has been found above Jericho. These findings support the
scholarly claim that the "books" mentioned in the Bible (Jer 36;
15,16; Ezek 2,8-3,3) were actually written on papyrus. Over 800
scrolls have been found in Qumran (The Dead Sea Scrolls), of which
more than 60 (8%) are papyrus scrolls. However, a large body of
papyrus documentation exits on administrative matters such as
official tax accounts, private documents from tax receipts to
letters, court documents and others. In fact, these texts illustrate
life in ancient
Egypt under Greek and Roman rule in all its aspects,
and the study of this body of information is called papyrology. The
first recorded purchase of papyri by European visitors to
Egypt was
in 1778. In that year a nameless dealer in antiquities bought from
some peasants a papyrus roll of documents from the year 191 - 192
AD., and looked on while they set fire to fifty or so others simply
to enjoy the aromatic smoke that was produced. Since that date an
enormous quantity of inscribed papyri in all possible languages, of
ages varying from a thousand to nearly five thousand years, have
been recovered from the magic soil of the ancient seats of
civilization in the Nile Valley. From about 1820 to 1840 the museums
of Europe acquired quite a respectable number of papyri from Memphis
and Letopolis in Middle
Egypt, and from This, Panopolis, Thebes
(modern
Luxor), Hermonthis, Elephantine, and Syene (Aswan) in Upper
Egypt. Not many scholars took any notice of them at first, and only
a very few read and profited by them. The next decisive event, apart
from isolated finds, was the discovery of papyri in the province of
El-Fayoum (Middle
Egypt) in 1877. To the north of the capital, Medinet el-Fayoum, lay a number of mounds of rubbish and debris,
marking the site of the ancient "City of Crocodiles," afterwards
called "The City of the Arsinoïtes," and these now yielded up
hundreds andthousands of precious sheets and scraps. Since then
there has been a rapid succession of big finds, which have not
ceased even yet: we are still in a period of important discoveries.
The job of the papyrologist can be considerably difficult. By far,
the majority of the some 50,000 papyri published since 1788 (out of
an estimated 400,000 preserved in collections around the world) are
very fragmentary. Hence, the work of a papyrologist not only
involves deciphering, transcribing and editing this material, but
also reconstructing very complex puzzles. Most fragments of
literature have come from rolls of papyrus, which could extend up to
some 35 feet in length. For a while, papyrus actually disappeared
from the Egyptian landscape after the invention of paper.The Egyptian placed an embargo on exporting papyrus at the end of
the 7th century AD led the way to parchment, and later on to
'modern' paper, the successor to the papyrus. 'Ground' paper (the
predecessor of modern paper) was invented in China in the second
century AD, but reached western Asia only after the Muslim conquest
of Turkistan in 751 Hence, Arabs introduced a process for making
pulp paper, which they learned from Chinese prisoners. Though this
new paper was less durable then papyrus, it was also easier and far
less expensive to make. Gradually, the Egyptians abandoned the
production of {Papyrus paper and neglected the cultivation of their
papyrus plantations. Eventually, papyrus itself disappeared from the
Egyptian landscape. Papyrus making was not revived until around
1969. An Egyptian scientist named Dr. Hassan Ragab reintroduced the
papyrus plant to
Egypt from the Sudan and started a papyrus
plantation near
Cairo on Jacob Island. He also had to research the
method of production. Unfortunately, the ancient Egyptians left
little evidence about the manufacturing process. There are no extant
texts or wall paintings and archaeologists have failed to uncover
any manufacturing centers. Most of our knowledge about the actual
manufacturing process is derived from its description in Pliny the
elder's Natural History and modern experimentation. Dr. Ragab
finally figured out how it was done, and now papyrus making is back
in
Egypt after a very long absence. Notation: Modern Egyptian
papyrus art is available in our on-line store for
Egypt lovers, the
Virtual Khan el-Khalili. See also Tricks of the Trade: Purchasing
Fine (modern) Papyrus Artwork
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