1mass noun A material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing or painting on and also for making articles such as rope.
‘the text was preserved, probably on papyrus’
as modifier ‘a papyrus scroll’
- ‘The ramps were built out of clay, wood and papyrus.’
- ‘The ancient Egyptians either engraved the hieroglyphs in the stonework of their temples or painted them on the walls of the burial chamber or inscribed them with a reed pen on rolls of papyrus, the antecedent of our paper.’
- ‘The documents of the early medieval period in Italy take the following shape: no more than about fifty documents survive from the sixth and seventh centuries, nearly all on papyrus, and nearly all from Ravenna.’
- ‘He noted down on a papyrus or an ostraka a full record of the grain measured so that a definite tax liability could be determined.’
- ‘Documents written on papyri were found in some pyramid temples, especially at Abusir.’
- 1.1count noun A document written on papyrus.
‘a remarkable papyrus recently acquired by the British Museum’
- ‘The Anonymus Londinensis papyrus points to an ancient confusion about the historical Hippocrates' pathological doctrines.’
- ‘The dates are calculated from ancient lists, especially the Turin royal papyrus, and from various other sources.’
- ‘A papyrus from Ancient Egypt cites juniper berries as an ingredient for a medicine to treat tape worms and juniper is still widely used by the pharmaceutical industry today.’
- ‘The papyri contain remarkable information written by Philodemus describing the arguments of his teacher Zeno with the Stoics.’
- ‘One of the oldest surviving mathematical writings is the Rhind papyrus, named after the Scottish Egyptologist A Henry Rhind who purchased it in Luxor in 1858.’