How Did Ancient People Carry Letters on Papyrus?
When we think of people moving writing on papyrus, we probably think of one of the ‘bucket’ shaped cases from ancient statues of orators and paintings at Pompeii. These had a handle or straps so they could be carried like a lunchbox or worn like a backpack. A whole treatise could fill dozens of books (ie. scrolls), which could last for a century or two if they were treated carefully, so someone who wished to transport a lengthy work needed a case or capsa (logeion). This is probably not how people transported everyday letters and correspondence!
Papyrus was usually made up into rolls by gluing sheets side by side with wheat paste. For everyday purposes a whole roll of 20 or more sheets was far too much. At least in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, most letters, contracts, lists, and other everyday paperwork are written on offcuts. This let the scribe use exactly the necessary amount of papyrus rather than be limited to the fixed size of a page. A disadvantage was that ordinary texts did not make nice even piles of sheets all the same size.
Ancient ink was a pigment-binder mix like modern watercolours, and it could be erased with a wet sponge (Dioscorides 5.183 recommended one ounce gum to three ounces soot in the first century CE). So documents were often folded, bound with a string, and sealed with clay. This prevented someone from opening and editing the document without leaving a trace (a summary could be written on the outside of the bundle). Folding can cause papyrus to crack, but an ordinary contract or grant did not have to survive for centuries like a book of Herodotus. You can see the seal and the exterior label on this papyrus contract from Ptolemaic Egypt.
Some of the Aramaic documents from the Persian occupation of Egypt were found folded in six with their seals intact. Small documents could also be rolled up. I think that either rolling or folding would be a fine way to prepare short writings on papyrus to be carried around. Once rolled or folded, they could fit in any small bag or box, not just a cylindrical case with a lid. Bags were popular for storing paper documents in 16th and 17th century Europe, and Plutarch says that a messenger travelling to Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse carried letters in his wallet next to some leftover meat from a sacrifice (Life of Dion 26.5-10). Whatever the format, a container for the equivalent of a few pages could be much smaller than a container for hundreds of modern pages.
At least one of the Aramaic letters from Egypt was carried from the Tigris to the Nile. Unfortunately, I don’t have time or the books to see whether it was folded.
I don’t know how Roman capsae were made. The Romans had tanned leather, but birch bark and bent wood would also be excellent materials. Small capsae could be carved or turned from solid wood like Trimalchio’s boxwood peppermill and the turned wooden boxes from Hjortspring. Different materials could be combined, such as a lid with a bentwood frame covered in leather.
Further Reading
Historic Connections makes some nice reproductions of Egyptian papyri (but I am not a specialist) https://historicconnections.webs.com/manuscripts.htm
A reenactor in the Netherlands makes copies of Roman capsae http://www.jvrjenivs.nl/2018/11/22/hello-world/
Barbara McManus has a Roman statue of an orator with a capsa and a mural from Pompeii with a capsa, a bag, and a writing tablet. You can find more Roman paintings and sculptures like these in Elizabeth A. Meyer, “Writing Paraphernalia, Tablets, and Muses in Campanian Wall Painting,” American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 113, No. 4 (October 2009), pp. 569-597 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20627619
There is a short illustrated overview of papyrus culture in the Roman empire in David Sider, The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005)
Aeneas Tacticus chapter 31 (aeneastacticus.net) has lots of circumstantial details about how people carried writings on papyrus, such as, in a bundle or baggage, or hidden in the folded shoulder of a tunic (perhaps he means the kind of tunic where the neckline is a fold, and there is double cloth over the breast?)
Edit 2024-02-28: in his famous ‘advertisement,’ Martial uses the word scrinium for a scroll-case which you don’t need if you buy a parchment codex (book 1, chapter 2)
(scheduled 17 August 2023, updated September 2023)
