Long before it filled our notepads and books, paper was an idea locked up inside the tall, slender, and sturdy stalks of a grass-like plant that grew abundantly along the muddy banks of the Nile in ancient Egypt. Papyrus was crucial to the Egyptian way of life. From boats and baskets to sandals and ropes, it was used in the manufacture of all kinds of objects. Somewhere along the way, Egyptians discovered that its sticky and fibrous inner pith could be cut into thin strips, set into layers, and dried to produce sheets, giving birth to the earliest form of paper known to humans.

Unlike earlier writing materials like clay tablets, papyrus paper was lightweight, flexible, and easy to store. It revolutionised the way knowledge was recorded. Work logs, tax records, legal contracts, religious texts, illustrated stories … all manner of things began to get documented instead of being committed to human memory. Diary of Merer, one of the world’s oldest known papyri, is believed to be the work log of an Egyptian official that records his role in building the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu, the largest of the three giant pyramids at Giza.