The researchers suspect that the copy of the gospel was created as a writing exercise in a monastery or school, possibly by a monk training to become a scribe. "In the case of our papyrus ...

The result is a wonderful surface for writing on - papyrus went on being used across the Mediterranean until about a thousand years ago, and indeed gave most European languages their very word for ...

On their papyrus writing paper, they amassed a formidable volume of records, accounts, calculations and book-keeping. The scribes were the essential administrative backbone of a highly organised ...