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War_Hymn t1_j5tkhnf wrote

Isn't it pretty common knowledge that the development of Egyptian papyrus predates Chinese paper?

It should also be noted that papyrus paper is made in a completely different way to the pulp paper that the Chinese developed. With papyrus, thin strips cut from papyrus reeds are laid flat and crisscrossed in two or more layers to form a uniform sheet. With pulp paper, fiber materials are processed into a pulp and suspended in water before being screened and pressed into a sheet.

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slash2213 t1_j5tou62 wrote

If you read the article you’d see that they think they discovered paper, as in pressed fibers, not papyrus. Though it’s only a tiny piece with no context of what it was used for.

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EsKayNYC t1_j5udt7o wrote

Welcome to Reddit. Get used to opinions without people actually reading the post 😂

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War_Hymn t1_j5vi7p4 wrote

Kind of hard to spot when the author keeps jumping to irrelevant topics through the entire article.

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Quincyperson t1_j5unpbj wrote

Posting links to “news sites” that people aren’t familiar with can have that effect

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Colon t1_j5vaq93 wrote

it existed here to a degree before of course, but it's 110% tiktok culture, spreading insanely rapidly here

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kimthealan101 t1_j5uy4gw wrote

I read someplace about evidence of eqyptians using papyrus as the screen for a fine pulp paper veneer.

Paper is helpful in organizing logs, journals, and books in general. Clay tablets do ok, but the libraries get cumbersome quickly

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FoolInTheDesert t1_j5w8u11 wrote

Are there any studies out there comparing papyrus to paper to see how they age, degrade, etc? Maybe the paper just doesn't last as long so finding examples that are contemporaneous with ancient papyrus would be more difficult. Just a theory!

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War_Hymn t1_j5ztilm wrote

Papyrus will be the loser in that department, as papyrus contains a lot of sugars (it was a major source of sugar in Egypt, up until sugarcane was introduced) that actually helps wetted strips of papyrus adhere to each other when they make papyrus paper. The high sugar content in turn makes it more vulnerable to insect or mold damage, especially in non-arid climates. In Europe, it was rare for a piece of papyrus to last for more than a few decades. On the other hand, we have a Chinese paper copy of the Diamond Sutra that dates back to 868 CE and still in relatively good condition.

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