papyrus

History is a fragile thing, a vision of the past made mostly of fragments—clay tablets and potsherds, papyrus scraps and bits of bone.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026

LaManna wondered whether the same approach could be adapted to a papyrus scroll.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

Seiler then had the children of friends write passages on fresh papyrus using traditional reed pens and the prepared inks.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

If some ancient inks contained lead, he reasoned, that metal might absorb X rays far more strongly than the surrounding carbonized papyrus.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

He found himself at last pushing through the rustling stiff reeds of the papyrus marsh, with the water lapping almost to his knees.

From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

The mission had previously discovered Greek papyri positioned in similar ways during earlier excavations.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026

And more papyri could still be found on lower floors of the villa, which have yet to be excavated.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 17, 2023

“Ithaca’s architecture makes it really applicable to any ancient language, not just Latin, but Mayan, cuneiform; really any written medium — papyri, manuscripts,” she said.

From The Verge ● Mar. 9, 2022

In another prominent case, the Greens bought about 150 papyrus fragments in 2010–13 from Dirk Obbink, a professor who most probably stole them from the collection of papyri he oversaw at Oxford University.

From Slate ● Oct. 4, 2021

Out of 125 papyri recording contemporary legal cases, fully 20 percent involve personal squabbles between individual Greeks and Egyptians.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro

Historically, biblical writings, Egyptian papyruses and the medical texts of the classical Greeks show that infertility was a common condition and that women were primarily blamed.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 22, 2018

Now, however, German papyrologist Carsten Peter Thiede has startled the rarefied world of biblical scholarship by arguing that the papyruses are actually the oldest extant fragments of the New Testament, dating from about A.D.

From Time Magazine Archive

Inscriptions, papyruses, books time-bind the human species and permit us to hear those few voices and faint cries of our brothers and sisters, our ancestors.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

After Hiram's departure the heir shut himself up in the most remote chamber under pretext of reading sacred papyruses.

From The Pharaoh and the Priest An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt by Jeremiah Curtin

Thou art groping among papyruses, but I have served seven years in the army, and there was almost no day which I did not pass in drill or manœuvres.

From The Pharaoh and the Priest An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt by Alexander Glovatski