Meet Some Of The Last Papyrus Makers In Egypt Keeping A 5,000-Year-Old Craft Alive | Still Standing

this is one of the last places in the world that makes papyrus paper people in this small egyptian village reinvented the ancient process in the 1970s and the industry thrived selling papyrus art to tourists but today there's little demand for the paper and the plant is nearly extinct in egypt those that remain are determined to carry on this piece of egypt's history we visited el caramos to see how the ancient craft is still standing atef muhammad shahita spends about two hours harvesting papyrus by hand from the single acre he owns it takes a year for a papyrus seedling to grow to this size after it's cut down it grows back in one or two months at one point the village's land was filled with the plant but today there are only 10 acres left ottef carries the plant about a mile to his workshop where he employs seven people they chop the stalks based on the size they want the paper then workers spend the entire day cutting the papyrus into thin strips using a fishing line this method is more efficient than the strips soak in hot water mixed with potassium hydrate for a couple days the chemicals speed up the fermentation process workers lay out the wet papyrus strip by strip each sheet of paper has two layers one vertical and one horizontal to strengthen it then the stack goes into the compressor to dry after that the sheets are sandwiched between pieces of cardboard to soak up any leftover moisture he started out farming the plant and today he works as an artist but [Music] 19 pandemic put a halt on tourism he struggled to find a market he had to close down his shop and lay off his workers just a couple weeks ago now he works out of his home all of saeed's paintings include ancient egyptian motifs to pay homage to papyrus's origin egyptians invented papyrus paper at least 5 000 years ago replacing clay tablets and revolutionizing the written word they used it for things like marriage contracts and shopping lists they also turned the plant into a weaving material for sandals and baskets cheaper paper made from wood pulp or plant fibers eventually replaced papyrus paper and the plant became nearly extinct in egypt by the early 1800s until an art professor and an engineer brought back seeds from other african countries in the 1970s they set up plantations and workshops in el caramus and papyrus became the center of the local economy almost everyone in the village was involved with processing raw materials or making artwork to sell to tourists saeed got into papyrus because his cousin was the art professor who helped revive it he remembers it as a turning point for the village but after the arab spring uprisings in 2011 tourism in egypt crashed the country saw a 63 drop in visitors over the following years through 2016. and the market for papyrus paper nearly vanished a decade later the industry had just started to recover when the pandemic hit saeed has gotten just one order in the past week a painting like this normally sells to tourist shops for 50 egyptian pounds or three dollars bigger and more detailed pieces go for up to 500 egyptian pounds or 32 but with sales down syed has had to work another job to keep his business afloat and he says he'll do everything he can to save the art foreign to keep egypt's history alive and with egypt's tourism industry expected to recover this year saeed is holding out hope for papyrus foreign [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 4,447,884

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Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, papyrus, Egypt, Papyrus paper, Ancient craft, Craft, Craftsman, Egyptian culture

Id: SBdVhvo2UUM

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/HaythamFaisal]

محمود سعد كان عامل عنهم حلقة في برنامج باب الخلق من سنة وشوية كدا