LateInTheAfternoon t1_ivey1pl wrote on November 7, 2022 at 2:05 PM

Reply to comment by tatramatra in How did people store their writings in Ancient Greek and Rome? by petalised

Papyrus, while not exactly cheap, was not expensive either. Sure, a long roll would cost you, but shorter formats would have been easily affordable to most. Most of the extant papyri fragments testify to this, as ca 90 % are letters, archival notes, records, accounts, and contracts. Every day use objects in other words. Vellum and parchment on the other hand were much more expensive.

tatramatra t1_ivezb3m wrote on November 7, 2022 at 2:15 PM

In Egypt for sure. In Greece, no. And then even in Egypt it was in every day use by higher ups. Common people did not even know how to write.

There is reason why people were busy looking for alternatives. If papyrus was inexpensive every day item for most, people would not use sheets of leather laboriously made by tinning out skins of animals instead.