What does a papyrus look like when it is found?
Papyrus documents that come out of the sand of Egypt are often in bad shape, such as the heap of papyri shown here. Having spent on average two-thousand years in the desert sand, many papyri are damaged by time, insects, or humidity. They are often found in places that do not provide optimal conditions to preserve papyrus, such as tombs, rubbish heaps and even, occasionally, ancient mummy casings.
How do you conserve a papyrus?