Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1989

Publication Title

Archiv für Papyrus-forschung

Volume

35

Pages

15-23

Publisher Name

De Gruyter

Abstract

Of the statuary that has survived from Egypt's ancient dynasties, a familiar pose, whose prototype dates back to the Old Kingdom, is that of the scribe, sitting cross-legged with a papyrus roll spread open between his knees. Through Egypt's Ptolemaic and into its Roman period, although the scribe's position and posture may have changed, his use of the papyrus roll remained as before. But, beginning in the second century of Roman rule in Egypt, a new book form, the codex, identical in general design to the modern book, began to be developed and its use began to spread. Papyrus continued to provide the raw material for the pages of these codices; but where previously texts were (normally) written on a papyrus roll, from which they were on completion cut away, now blank-page "books" came to be fashioned, and writing followed the cutting up of the papyrus roll and the arranging of its sheets into book form.

Comments

Author Posting. © Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 1989. This article is posted here by permission of Walter de Gruyter GmbH for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Archiv für Papyrus-forschung, Volume 35, 1989.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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