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Document Details : Title: Just a Little Rough around the Edges Subtitle: The Use of Pumice on Papyrus Author(s): NONGBRI, Brent Journal: Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists Volume: 61 Date: 2024 Pages: 227-239 DOI: 10.2143/BASP.61.0.3293798 Abstract : Papyrological handbooks published in the second half of the twentieth century suggest that pumice was used in antiquity to smooth the surface of papyrus in preparation for writing. Experimentation with modern papyrus and pumice calls this claim into question. The ancient literary references to pumice and papyrus, when they are properly understood, demonstrate that when pumice was used on papyrus rolls in antiquity, it was not used for the purpose of smoothing the writing surface. Pumice was instead used to smooth the frontes, the top and the bottom of the closed papyrus roll. This fact that was quite well established at the end of the nineteenth century, but it seems to have been largely forgotten over the course of the second half of the twentieth century. |
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