I’m always very interested to see renderings of papyrus rolls in ancient art, whether it is in fresco, manuscript illumination, or carved stone. When it comes to stone reliefs or statues, one needs to be careful to make sure that the papyrus roll is actually ancient and not a Renaissance addition (hands with papyrus rolls are frequently later additions to fill lost pieces). And ancient carvings of papyrus rolls can often be disappointingly impressionistic.

But I recently saw a carved artifact that shows papyrus rolls with a surprisingly high level of detail. The depiction occurs on the lid of a sarcophagus in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens:

There is a lot going on in this artifact. I quote from the museum’s didactic tag:

“Attic sarcophagus in the form of a couch. Pentelic marble. Found in Athens. The sarcophagus was used twice. A reclining married couple was originally depicted on the lid, which has the form of a mattress. When economic difficulties dictated its reuse at a later date, the male figure was cut back and replaced by a group of papyrus scrolls (byblos), and the female head was replaced by a head of a man. The second use of the sarcophagus dates from 230–240 A.D.”

It is the large group of papyrus rolls that were re-carved, apparently in the third century, that caught my attention (I’m not sure what is the basis for the very precise date of “230–240 A.D.”).

I checked Theodor Birt’s classic book on the depiction of papyrus rolls in art, and he of course also took note of the fine carving of these papyrus rolls:

“The large sarcophagus in the Athens Museum (inv. 1497) is like a marble illustration of Pliny’s account of the manufacture of papyrus: On its lid, a reclining male figure leans with his shoulder against a massive bundle of papyrus rolls, the outer edge of which alone contains no fewer than 18 rolls. These rolls depict the composition of the papyrus in horizontal and vertical strips, rendered with great care. On the rolls located on the back side of the lid, only the vertical strips are visible; on those on the front, both are visible. It was not possible to take a photograph due to the lighting in the room.”¹

But the rendering may be even more clever than Birt describes. The rolls that show fibers oriented in both directions do not show overlap. Rather, they seem to depict the closed roll, showing the point of attachment of the protokollon. Recall that papyrus rolls were made up of a series of sheets (kollemata), with each sheet (kollema) pasted to the next with a slight overlap (kollesis) The writing would be along the horizontal fibers of the roll, and the roll was rolled up with the horizontal fibers on the inside and the vertical fibers on the outside. But the outermost kollema of the closed roll, the protokollon (“first sheet”), would be reversed in its fiber orientation.

Thus, the outermost kollema of the roll, the protokollon, would have horizontal fibers on the outside and vertical fibers on the inside, while all other sheets would have vertical fibers on the outside. If the width of the protokollon was less than the circumference of the closed roll, the kollesis between the protokoolon and the second kollema would be visible. I think that is what we are seeing in the relief of these closed rolls. Here is a model papyrus roll next two one of the carved rolls:

Horizontal fibers on the outside on the left, then vertical fibers on the right where the second kollema is attached. The level of attention to detail here is almost unbelievable. But, as in the depiction of sets of tablets, artists sometimes seem to have taken great care in trying to get the details as correct as possible in their chosen medium.

1. T. Birt, Die Buchrolle in der Kunst (Teubner, 1907), 227: “Der große Sarkophag im Athenischen Museum Nr. 1497 ist wie eine marmorne Illustration zu dem Fabrikationsbericht des Plinius: auf seinem Deckel lehnt sich eine liegende männliche Gestalt mit ihrer Schulter an ein gewaltiges Rollenbündel, das allein an seiner Außenseite nicht weniger als 18 Rollen zählen läßt. Diese Rollen zeigen die Komposition des Papiers in Quer- und Vertikalstreifen mit redlichem Fleiß ausgeführt. An den auf der Rückseite des Deckels befindlichen Rollen erkennt man nur die Vertikalstreifen, an den auf der Vorderseite beide. Eine photographische Aufnahme war bei der Beleuchtung des Raumes nicht ausfahrbar.” ↩︎