PAPYRUS

In Botany, a Cyperaceous plant found in the districts of many tropical countries, but especially in the valley of the Nile, and whose soft cellular flower-stem afforded the most ancient material from which paper was made. Among the ancients the term papyrus formed the general appellation for all the different plants of the genus Cyperus, which was extensively used for making mats, baskets, boats, and many other purposes; the species confined to the manufacture of paper being usually designated cultivatedCyperus papyrus,in the Sebennyticor Byblos. nome;The latter though was'other particularly parts of the Delta also produced it, and probably even some districts in Upper Egypt. The paper made from it differed in quality, being dependant upon the growth of the plant and the part of the stalk whence it was taken. Tbe proce of the manufacture is minutely described by Pliny in his Hist. Jfat. xiii., 11, 12. The period at which paper began to be manufactured from the papyrus Is involved in great obscurity;but there can be little doubt that Pliny was greatly in error when he a igned it a date posterior to the reign of Alexnnder the Great; for we meet with papyri (see above) of the most remote Pharaonic periods, the same mode of writing on which is shown from the sculptures to have been common in the aire of Sitphis or Cheops, the builder of the treat pyramid, more than 2000 years before the Christian [s. 902]