Papyrus is made from the stem of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus.

The outer rind is first removed,

and the sticky fibrous inner pith is cut lengthwise into thin strips of about 40 cm (16 in) long.

Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the fourth millennium BCE.[3][4][5] The earliest
archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian
harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents date from c. 2560–2550 BCE (end of the reign of
Khufu).[4] The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza.[6] In the first
centuries BCE and CE, papyrus scrolls gained a rival as a writing surface in the form of parchment, which
was prepared from animal skins.[7] Sheets of parchment were folded to form quires from which book-
form codices were fashioned. Early Christian writers soon adopted the codex form, and in the Græco-
Roman world, it became common to cut sheets from papyrus rolls to form codices.

Codices were an improvement on the papyrus scroll, as the papyrus was not pliable enough to fold
without cracking and a long roll, or scroll, was required to create large-volume texts. Papyrus had the
advantage of being relatively cheap and easy to produce, but it was fragile and susceptible to both
moisture and excessive dryness. Unless the papyrus was of perfect quality, the writing surface was
irregular, and the range of media that could be used was also limited.

Papyrus was replaced in Europe by the cheaper, locally produced products parchment and vellum, of
significantly higher durability in moist climates, though Henri Pirenne's connection of its disappearance
with the Muslim conquest of Egypt is contested.[8] Its last appearance in the Merovingian chancery is
with a document of 692, though it was known in Gaul until the middle of the following century. The
latest certain dates for the use of papyrus are 1057 for a papal decree (typically conservative, all papal
bulls were on papyrus until 1022), under Pope Victor II,[9] and 1087 for an Arabic document. Its use in
Egypt continued until it was replaced by more inexpensive paper introduced by the Islamic world who
originally learned of it from the Chinese. By the 12th century, parchment and paper were in use in the
Byzantine Empire, but papyrus was still an option.[10]

Papyrus was made in several qualities and prices. Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville described six
variations of papyrus which were sold in the Roman market of the day. These were graded by quality
based on how fine, firm, white, and smooth the writing surface was. Grades ranged from the superfine
Augustan, which was produced in sheets of 13 digits (10 inches) wide, to the least expensive and most
coarse, measuring six digits (four inches) wide. Materials deemed unusable for writing or less than six
digits were considered commercial quality and were pasted edge to edge to be used only for wrapping.
[11]
Until the middle of the 19th century, only some isolated documents written on papyrus were known, and
that museums simply displayed them as curiosities.[12] They did not contain literary works.[13] The first
modern discovery of papyri rolls was made at Herculaneum in 1752. Until then, the only papyri known
had been a few surviving from medieval times.[14][15] Scholarly investigations began with the Dutch
historian Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens (1793–1835). He wrote about the content of the Leyden
papyrus, published in 1830. The first publication has been credited to the British scholar Charles Wycliffe
Goodwin (1817–1878), who published for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, one of the Papyri Graecae
Magicae V, translated into English with commentary in 1853.