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My name is Katep and I am the son of a scribe. My father is well educated and regarded with respect. He is a Royal Scribe at the court of the Pharaoh. The government officials require him to write their reports and sometimes their thoughts. He is often sent out into the country to record the volume of the grain harvest or to tally the Pharaoh’s herds of cattle. Other scribes become priests at the temple and they have the sacred task of writing down the magical formulas that guide the dead safely to the gates of the underworld. My father however, says that his favorite pastime is writing down the stories he remembers from his own childhood. I love to hear the tales that he reads aloud to me under the stars while the waves of the river Nile lap the shore.

I want to be able to write like my father and use the different colored inks he treasures. To be able to unroll a papyrus scroll and read the symbols that I had so carefully penned in all their beauty and meaning seems an enormously distant goal. But my father assures me that if I continue with my studies I will certainly see that day.

My father wants me to appreciate the tools of “our” trade and has arranged for me to work in the afternoons with the papyrus makers. This shows the honor with which my father is regarded, for the making of papyrus is a jealously guarded state secret.

There is a reed called Papyrus that grows all along the Nile and for which the scroll material is named. It is plentiful and I gather armloads of it. First we remove the outer green skin from the stalk. It’s the inner part called the pith that we’re after. We cut the pith into long thin strips and pound them to break down the fibers. Then we have to soak the strips in water for three whole days until they become clear and pliable.

We cut the strips to the length we want and then lay them vertically on a piece of cotton fabric, making sure the strips overlap each other a little bit. Then Zemti, who is thirteen, shows me how to overlap more papyrus strips horizontally, on top of the first ones. Zemti places the double layer sheet between two pieces of hard absorbent material and instructs me to repeat the whole process till I have a sizable stack of sheets. When I am done, he carefully places the stack in a press and squeezes the layers together.

We place the sheets in the sun. Every 8 hours one of us has to replace the soaked, absorbent material. (It must be a secret material because they won’t tell me what it is.) When I am at school Zemti’s brother, Jarha, lends a hand. We do this for 3 or 4 days or until all the papyrus is dry. The cream colored, flat sheets are still rough to the touch and will not take ink easily. Zemti shows me how to use a piece of shell to polish the surface until it is smooth and easy to write on. It takes me a long time. When I am a scribe, I will value the work of the papyrus makers. It is hard and patient work. Because I know that my father must write lengthy reports, I glue several sheets of the papyrus together, using a paste of flour and water and then I smooth over the seams. When I proudly present the neatly rolled scroll to my father, his beaming smile says how pleased he is. He unrolls the scroll and places it on his table, with the colored inks and reed pens and brushes. He writes my name, Katep, at the top and begins my story. Someday I shall read it to my children, under the stars while the waves of the Nile lap the shore.