Growing Papyrus (Papyrus) For Decorating Apartment Interiors

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Ancient papyrus can decorate the interior of your apartment

According to the horoscope the following plants correspond to the sign of the zodiac Pisces (February 20 - March 20): palm tree "fish tail"; ampelous ficuses (dwarf, rooting); spreading cipeus ("umbrella plant"); orchids; fragrant geraniums (capitate, tomentose, strong-smelling); tolmia Menzies; the fat woman is lyciform; plectrantus; aquarium plants (Vallisneria spiral, Canadian Elodea, hornwort, aquatic kabomba, Cryptocoryne); papyrus.

Among the plants that have been successfully used by humans since very ancient times, it is quite natural to call papyrus from the group of aquatic (one might even say, aquarium) plants, where it came not by accident. His homeland is the swampy banks of the Nile. Once they were all in the impenetrable five-meter thick thickets of this plant. Even NI Vavilov, in his "5 continents", admired the thickets of papyrus that he saw during his expeditions (1926) bordering the Jordan River, which flows into the Dead Sea.

By now, papyrus has practically died out in the vicinity of Egypt. Even at the end of the domination of the Roman Empire there, he "went" below - in the zones of tropical Africa, forming unusual papyrus marshes - in the basins of the Niger and Congo rivers, in the area of Lake Chad, in the upper Nile. This phenomenon is associated with the pollution of the main North African river and severe climate change.

This amazing perennial plant is considered coastal: it needs coastal silt, since part of its roots, extending from the main woody rhizome, play the role of an anchor in this soil, and it releases another from the coast to float into the water itself - a whole forest of swaying white roots that seem thick (hand-thick) ropes. It is not for nothing that its name "papyrus" in translation from the Egyptian language means "gift of the river".

It, like its "relative", the sedge well known in our region, belongs to the Sedge family. It has a triangular thick stem, leafless stems to the very top (up to 4-5 m high and up to 7 cm thick). And only on it long and very narrow (like knives) leaves in the form of dense bundles open with an umbrella. During the flowering period, an inflorescence appears above the leaves in the form of an umbrella-fan with many spikelets covered with scales. By the way, the flowers themselves are also very similar to the flowers of our sedge. The stems, having powerful cavities inside, are as if filled with air, therefore they do not sink in water.

Papyrus played a huge role in the lives of many hundreds of generations of ancient Egyptians. Various dishes were prepared from it: for example, the roots, which taste like almonds, were eaten both roasted and raw. By the way, these same rhizomes are still the favorite food of hippos.

Papyrus was used to build light rafts and small boats (canoes), ropes and ropes were made. In addition, it was used for caulking large ships, it was used for mats, baskets, fabrics, as well as for the material for making sandals, which only representatives of the priestly class had the right to wear for many centuries.

However, he played the most important role in the development of writing. It is thanks to him that many scientific information has come down to our time through the priests of Egypt, who perfectly mastered the exact sciences. Apparently, the development of writing was in direct proportion to the use of papyrus as "paper". The Greek word "papyros" (from which the Latin name "papyrus" was later formed) meant both the plant itself and the durable, high-quality "paper" made from it - papyrus.

The most ancient manuscripts made on papyrus are more than 5 thousand years old (beginning of the 3rd millennium BC). In the Louvre there is a statue of the royal scribe Kai (mid-3rd millennium BC), who holds a scroll of papyrus in his hands. Several great papyri have come down to us, for example, the Great Parisian Magic Papyrus, the Carlsberg Papyrus and others. One of the most ancient fragments of a papyrus scroll, found in the tomb of the nobleman Hemak, a contemporary of the kings of the First Dynasty (Saqqara), is now kept in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The technology of making papyrus turned out to be lost in the centuries, only a hundred years ago, Dr. Ragab solved the secret of its production. And now the network of workshops he created for the production of papyrus is scattered throughout Egypt. There, experts receive the papyrus itself and reproduce paintings, both copies of ancient paintings and works of modern art.

To make "paper" from the stems of papyrus-reed, take the lower, thicker part of the stem and remove the upper rigid part, which may well later be used to make baskets or sandals or chests intended for storing the same papyri. Then the juicy, loose core of the stem is cut into longitudinal thin strips (no more than half a meter long), which are scraped out and smoothed a little. They are laid out tightly in a row (edges towards each other) on a smooth surface, for example, on a hard board, and moistened with water. On this layer of strips, the next row of the same strips is laid on top (but already across).

The strips thus laid are then placed under a press, for example a flat stone. A few days later, a sticky substance is released from the laid strips of the plant under the weight of oppression, which holds them together tightly. The resulting compressed sheet was kept in the sun for some time, all the irregularities along its edges were cut off, dipped in a special solution (such as paste) or carefully (thin layer) covered with it so that the ink would hold and not spread, and then dried again.

After that, the sheet was carefully smoothed, as a result of all these operations, thin dense yellowish sheets, remotely similar to our paper, if stored for a long time, or if it stays in the sun for a long time. As modern masters of the production of papyrus paper note, its color (light yellow or dark, almost brown) does not depend on the time of existence of this material, but on the period spent under pressure (after 3-4 days of this process, light papyrus is obtained if it will be pressed more than this period - dark).

Usually the scrolls were made as wide as our usual book, and they were 6-7 meters long (the longer ones were inconvenient to use: “a big book is a big evil,” once said the Alexandrian librarian, poet Callimachus). But sometimes separate "paper" pieces were glued together into huge scrolls: for example, the Great Harris Papyrus is over 41 meters long!

For many centuries, the ancient Greeks used the Egyptian papyrus, having learned this art from the Egyptians. Therefore, it does not seem surprising that the Greek word "byblos" ("book") comes from the name of the Phoenician city of Byblos, a large trade center through which scrolls of "fresh" papyrus came from Egypt to Greece.

On papyri, the lines were lined with a lead wheel, written in hieroglyphs with the help of black and red ink "priestly", as the Greeks called it, writing. By the way, this ink was prepared from cuttlefish juice or "ink nuts" - growths on oak leaves. This font was used both for creating literary works and for writing scientific works, using reed sticks, split in the form of a brush.

The text was written on them in columns the width of a long line of poetry, so more than a thousand lines were placed in the scroll. The beginning and end of the scroll were glued to sticks in order to hold them. They held the scroll with their right hand, unrolled it with their left and, while reading, rewound it gradually from the back stick to the front one. If you see some image of an ancient man with a scroll, note: if he holds in his right hand, the book has not yet been read, in the left, it has already been read.

The Hermitage contains brown scrolls (up to 40 m long) with letters that partly resemble drawings. These papyri (some up to 5 thousand years old), which are scrolls tied with laces, were found in the sarcophagi of the Egyptian pharaohs. Now there are on display two small pieces of papyrus (by the way, next to the mummy) depicting the afterlife judgment of Osiris and the afterlife fields (4th century BC).

We didn't call the reed papyrus a houseplant for nothing. It can be successfully grown both in an aquarium (of course, a solid-sized container is needed here) by roots in water, and on soil in a flower pot (kept in compliance with certain requirements), or in a combination of these conditions, that is, create an atmosphere of tropical micro-Africa …

The plant is planted in a pot with ordinary sod-peat soil (with a layer of sand 5-7 cm at the top), which is half put in water. Like any other plant, he loves to be looked after and fed with a solution of organic well-fermented fertilizer or a complete mineral mixture. As such a top dressing, experts consider the composition of the following components to be optimal: calcium nitrate - 1 g, potassium nitrate - 0.4 g, magnesium sulfate - 0.4 g, 10% ferric chloride solution - 4 drops. They also suggest using birch ash.

Since in Africa he experiences a seasonal drought, then, following this biological "mood", in early December, the pot is taken out of the water and moderately watered (fed) from the pallet. In February, the soil in the pot is changed, if possible, and watered with a 0.2-0.3 percent solution of cow or horse manure. When keeping a plant, its light and heat love is taken into account. Dried leaves are usually trimmed carefully.