Pounded to a Pulp We live in a time when writing notes is very
easy to do. If you want to write someone, all you have to do is
take a piece of paper from a notebook or pad and write your note
with a pen, pencil, or marker. But sending a note has not always
been so easy. In fact, ancient men and women once used clay,
wood, or stone to write their notes. People who used clay,
stone, and wood had some challenges. Clay can break easily,
stone can be very heavy, and wood can be difficult to write on.
For these reasons and others, people began to look for better
ways to send notes. In the land of Egypt, around the banks of
the Nile River, a hollow reed named papyrus grows. Ancient
Egyptians would harvest the plant, slit it down the middle, and
roll it out flat. After gluing many of the reeds together, the
workers would take a rock and smooth the surface of the papyrus
so that it could be used just like paper we write on today.
Papyrus was light, easy to write on, and did not break if it was
dropped. In fact, many o