It's what feeds me and my children,' he told AFP. Papyrus workshop owner Abdel Mobdi Mussalam, aged 48, said that his staff has dwindled from eight a decade ago to just two. The sheets are placed into a compressor to compact them, and the resulting paper is left to dry in the sun before being decorated with writing, or with colorful designs. To make paper, workers use wire to cut the stems into thin strips, which are immersed in water and then layered on top of each other to create sheets. Its form has served as inspiration for decorating the columns of ancient Egyptian temples. The papyrus plant, with its fan-shaped foliage, grows in water and can reach four meters in height. I used to earn nearly $1,000 a month and now it's almost zero,' the 60-year-old told AFP as he showed off his replica Tutankhamun paintings. 'I lost about 80 percent of my total income. Today, Al-Qaramus has 25 farms trying to make ends meet by selling papyrus, compared to around 500 prior to the revolution, according to farmer and artist Said Tarakhan. The COVID-19 pandemic has further debilitated the sector: Egypt earned just $4 billion in tourist revenues in 2020, a quarter of what it had anticipated before the global health crisis. Once used by ancient Egyptians as writing paper, local artists now decorate the papyrus with hieroglyphics, Arabic calligraphy and representations from antiquity and nature to create souvenirs for eager visitors.īut tourism in the North African country has taken a battering since its 2011 revolution, and after a Russian airliner was downed by the Islamic State group in 2015. The village and its surrounds, located about 80 kilometers northeast of Cairo, now make up the largest hub of papyrus production in the country, experts in the sector say. In the 1970s, an art teacher in the village of Al-Qaramus taught farmers the millennia-old techniques for transforming the plant into sought-after paper decorated with ornate drawings and text. In the lush green fields of Egypt's fertile Delta Valley, farmers and artisans are struggling to make a living as they keep alive the Pharaonic-era tradition of making papyrus.

A wall painting from the 14th century BC Tomb of Nebamum at the British Museum, London shows a papyrus reed bed.

Papyrus reed