When the Egyptians became acquainted with the use of the metals they
began to cut their writings in stone. The text of one of the oldest
chapters of the Book of the Dead (LXIV) is said in the Rubric to the
chapter to have been "found" cut upon a block of "alabaster of the
south" during the reign of Menkaurā, a king of the fourth dynasty, about
3700 B.C. As time went on and men wanted to write long texts or
inscriptions, they made great use of wood as a writing material, partly
on account of the labour and expense of cutting in stone. In the British
Museum many wooden coffins may be seen with their insides covered with
religious texts, which were written with ink as on paper. Sheepskin, or
goatskin, was used as a writing material, but its use was never general;
ancient Egyptian documents written on skin or, as we should say, on
parchment, are very few. At a very early period the Egyptians learned
how to make a sort of paper, which is now universally known by the name
of "papyrus." When they made this discovery cannot be said, but the
hieroglyphic inscriptions of the early dynasties contain the picture of
a roll of papyrus, and the antiquity of the use of papyrus must
therefore be very great. Among the oldest dated examples of inscribed
papyrus may be noted some accounts which were written in the reign of
King Assa (fourth dynasty, 3400 B.C.), and which were found at Sakkārah,
about 20 miles to the south of Cairo.

Papyrus was made from the papyrus plant that grew and flourished in the
swamps and marshes of Lower Egypt, and in the shallow pools that were
formed by the annual Nile flood. It no longer grows in Egypt, but it is
found in the swamps of the Egyptian Sūdān, where it grows sometimes to
a height of 25 feet. The roots and the stem, which is often thicker than
a man's arm, are used as fuel, and the head, which is large and rounded,
is in some districts boiled and eaten as a vegetable. The Egyptian
variety of the papyrus plant was smaller than that found in the Sūdān,