The earliest known papyrus manuscript dates to about 2900 B.C. But it wasn’t until Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C. that demand for papyri boomed. The vast territories under Greek—and soon Roman—rule required heaps of paperwork to administer, and no land produced papyrus like Egypt, where the swamp-dwelling plant flourished in full sun on the banks of the Nile. To turn Cyperus papyrus into a writing surface, Egyptians sliced its long triangular stalks into thin strips, moistened them with river water, then pressed a horizontal layer across a vertical one. The plant’s natural
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