Papyrus paper

Our topic of the day was papyrus paper.  We learned how a papyrus plant was made into paper.  It seemed like a lot of work to me and here is how they did it from Wikipedia.

Papyrus is made from the stem of the plant. The outer rind is first stripped off, and the sticky fibrous inner pith is cut lengthwise into thin strips of about 40 cm (16 in) long. The strips are then placed side by side on a hard surface with their edges slightly overlapping, and then another layer of strips is laid on top at a right angle. The strips may have been soaked in water long enough for decomposition to begin, perhaps increasing adhesion, but this is not certain. It is also possible that the two layers were glued together.^[6] While still moist, the two layers are hammered together, mashing the layers into a single sheet. The sheet is then dried under pressure. After drying, the sheet of papyrus is polished with some rounded object, possibly a stone or seashell or round hard wood.^[7]

I don't know, it just seems like a lot of work for a sheet of paper.  Anyway, I purchased a few sheets of papyrus, real papyrus from Egypt, at the last homeschool convention.  I bought a package that had 6 sheets of paint your own papyrus paper with pre-drawn ancient Egyptian symbols on them.  We opted out of painting them since there was such detail in the pictures and instead we used sharpies and fine tip markers.  Here are a few of them.

Isis is the goddess of  motherhood, magic, and fertility.  She is also the mother of Horus.

The eye of Horus is the symbol of protection, royal power, and good health.

The scarab bettle became an ancient Egyptian symbol
 for rebirth.

Bastet was the goddess of cats, and the daughter of the sun god Ra.    Bastet is the sacred cat, and her name means  devouring woman. 

These were really fun.  The papyrus paper was really strong and well made.  It had a lot of texture to it.  I can now see why they invented the scrolls since papyrus paper seems to naturally curl up and inward.