*we've probably already read this.
how 'bout derivatives .. and i meanthe real definition. ..🔅🔆
Papyrus and Ancient Egypt
produced 03//2010
What did people use to write on in the
earliest of times? Papyrus was recorded as the first form of paper that was
processed and used as primary writing material. Cyperus papyrus, of the plant
family Cyperaceae, was originally grown in Egypt. The pith of the stem was
boiled and eaten, but it was mainly used in making papyrus. Papyrus, in all its
forms, was a staple of the ancient Egyptian export trade and has been
documented as being used as early as early as 4000 B.C. (Barthel, M. 1984).
This raw material was grown in the fresh water banks of the Nile, its
production methods were secret, and a written method has never been produced of
exact techniques (American Nurseryman, 2000). Papyrus was used to make an
abundance of items ranging from shoes to ships, but, it’s most valuable use was
paper. Papyrus sheets displayed ancient writings on erasable fragile reeds.
Papyrus was once the lifeblood for ancient Egypt. Remnants of papyrus sheets
include evidence that supports some of the first findings of data collection
from Egypt concerning early mathematics, surgical medical data, and surviving
copies of Biblical texts.
Egyptian numerals and arithmetic used
hieroglyphics to display addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. Rhind
papyrus was found in the ruins of buildings in Egypt around 1842-1797 B.C. The
contents of the Rhind papyrus include arithmetic in area, quantity, and pyramid
problems. According to Scott & Williams (2003), the Egyptians were familiar
with remainders from division and it naturally led them to the concept of
fractions. It was unclear how Egyptians worked out how to write a fraction as a
sum, but J. J. Sylvester (1914-1897) is recognized as presenting the algorithm
for finding the unit fraction expansion of a number between zero and one.
D’Alto (2004),
reflected that during Egyptian times, some ancient
obelisks may have worked like sundials, casting a shadow that tracked the
passage of time. In order to tell time with the
obelisk, it had to be raised outside on a sunny day. Small stones were used to
mark where the obelisk's shadow falls. This method was the earliest form of
ancient time-keeping. De Wire (2000), explained that the Egyptians, who
were excellent astronomers and mathematicians, fashioned wooden and stone
sundials at least as far back as 1500 B.C., possibly to help calibrate their
365-day calendar and to meet the demands of their monumental building
schedules.
Papyrus
scrolls have revealed much about early Egyptians and their medical conditions.
The scrolls were named after its archaeological discoverer or the person who
purchased it. Various papyri and wall paintings from Imhotep, who lived
approximately 2900 B.C., may have written texts of medicine but none of them
survived (Medow, N., 2006). The George Ebers and Edwin Smith papyri are two
revealing papyrus scrolls that provide insight into ailments of the eyes, such
as trachoma, leukoma, and blindness according to what the Egyptians knew during
the period around 2000 B.C. Indian traditional medicine existed since 5000 B.C.
According to Oak, S (2008), the vedas
and shlokas
were recited and passed on from generation to generation, but it was
Egyptian medicine that had the prudence of documenting the teachings on
papyrus.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that
the surgical papyrus of Edwin Smith
(17th century B.C.) was copied from an older manuscript that was
probably written in the time of the Pyramid Age, about 3000 and 2500 B.C.
because it contains words and speech forms that exhibit the characteristics of
the Old Kingdom language. Many scientific facts have been mentioned in this
papyrus for the first time in history. The material on the back consists of
recipes and incantations identical in character to other Egyptian medical
documents. The Edwin Smith Surgical
Papyrus was found to be fundamentally different from any surviving medical
documents of the ancient civilizations found thus far because the treatise is
remarkable and unprecedented. Many of these facts found in this papyrus
pertaining to have been mentioned for the first time in human history (Atta, H.,
1999). This papyrus discloses surgical ailment treatments, human mind bearing
into the mysteries of the human body, and evidence of being the first trauma
texts in the known human history.
The earliest surviving copies of the Old
Testament were not books. They were scrolls made of leather, parchment, or,
papyrus. They papyrus itself was attached to both ends of the rods so that it
may be rolled from left to right because that is how the Hebrew alphabet is
read. The first pre-Christian translation of the Old Testament was the famous
Septuagint (Latin for “seventy”, prepared at the behest of the king of Egypt and
was written on sheets of papyrus (Bartel, M., 1984). Septuagint refers to a
legend in which the high priest of the Temple of Jerusalem chose six famous
scholars from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to convene on an island in
the Nile delta; each finished his own translation of the entire text in exactly
72 days, creating 72 versions using papyrus. The potential for confusion in
translations, misreading, and misinterpretations exist because there was no
distinction between past, present, and future tenses. There were no Hebrew
numerals back then, so Hebrew letters had to be used for the dictation.
Bartel (1984) noted that the resourceful
Greeks of Asia Minor managed to circumvent the Egyptian papyrus embargo by
inventing a far superior writing material called parchment. The first parchment
books were not bound, but simply folded into consecutive sheets like
newspapers. Parchment was made by using undressed animal skins treated with
lime. Like papyrus, a sheet of parchment had the ability to be erased or
recycled. With the decline of secular learning under the late Roman Empire, parchment
was widely used mostly in monasteries. The invention of paper and gunpowder by
the first century A.D. was already known to the Chinese. It was a good five
hundred years before this discovery spread to the Middle East. The Arabs
introduced paper into Europe. Europe is where paper and printing came together
to help turn a theological controversy involving a handful of monkish scholars
into an international religious revolution.
The first findings of data from Egypt
that contained Biblical texts, surgical medical data, and mathematics were all
found on ancient papyrus paper. The graduation from papyrus to modern day paper
involved a very long history. All of the emerging technologies today have made
it possible for this world to graduate from papyrus to digital. Software
development with speech recognition capabilities makes it possible for you
speak what you want written down into a computer. The phrase “write that down”
does not have to exist anymore.
vedas: Sanskrit,
literally, knowledge; akin to Greek eidenai to know —Date: 1734: any of four canonical collections of hymns,
prayers, and liturgical formulas that comprise the earliest Hindu sacred
writings
References
Barthel,
M. (1984). Papyrus and Parchment: What the Bible Really Says.
(pp.17-22.) USA: Bell Publishing Company, Print
Cyperus
papyrus. (2000, November 15). American Nurseryman, 192(10), 82.
D'Alto,
N. (2004, September). Project 'time'for a megalith. (cover story). 6(7),
22-23.
De
Wire, E. (2009, July). Time is but a shadow (cover story). Weatherwise, 53(4)
[Definition
of shlokas] retrieved from http://www.hindunet.org/shlokas/
[Definition
of vedas] retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vedas
Medow,
N. (2006, February). Ancient egyptian records provide clues to ophthalmic care.
Opthamology Times, 31(4), 55-56.
Oak,
S. (2008). From Papyrus to paperless. Journal of Postgraduate Medicine, 54(4),
247-247.
Papyrus
(2002). Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. World Almanac
Education Group, Inc,
Williams,
K., & Scott, P. (2003, November). Egyptian mathematics. Australia
Mathematics Teacher, 59(4), 38-40.
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