论纸莎草纸的兴衰及其历史影响

On the Rise and Decline of the Papyrus and Its Historical Influence

纸莎草纸的出现是一种进步,表明了人类利用自然之赐,探索新的书写材料的创造力。但纸莎草纸也具有自身不可克服的诸多局限性,其最终被羊皮纸和纸所代替,更是一种历史的必然和进步。然而,纸莎草纸毕竟曾经是多达六种语言文字符号的载体,记录了包括古埃及、古希腊、古罗马和阿拉伯帝国弥足珍贵的历史信息,从而使其成为人类历史上最早的、应用时间最长的、最重要的纸质传播媒介。因此,无论是研究近东和欧洲古代文明史,还是研究人类传播媒介史,都离不开对纸莎草纸及其所承载的文献进行的研究,它是古代文明留给后人的一笔宝贵的文化遗产。

The papyrus is indispensable in the course of the development of human communication media, which symbolizes the creativity of human on exploring writing material. With lots of insurmountable disadvantages, the papyrus is substituted by parchment and paper at last. However, as the earliest and longest-used papery media, papyrus records important historical information of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Arabian Empire with six kinds of language symbols at most. Therefore, the research on ancient civilization history of Near East and Europe, as well as the research on the history of human communication media, should be based on the study on papyrus and the materials it records. The papyrus could be regarded as important cultural legacy bequeathed by ancient civilizations.