A Reflection…

Stationery draws its name from all the products sold by a Stationer – a place where books were sold that included products widely used by students of schools, universities, businesses, corporates and offices. 

These days we even see common digital gadgets being included as a part of stationery. Why not ? After all we all live in the digital world.

More often than not, paper and office supplies as well as writing implements form the bulk of all stationery products.

Lets go back in time to understand how all of this evolved.

In Prehistoric times, Neanderthal and cave men used walls and stones to write. Later other mediums such as clay, wood, parchment made from animal skins have been used as well.

By the way, have you heard of the “Papyrus” ?

As early as 3000 BC, the Egyptians used reed brushes as pens to produce hieroglyphic and hieratic writings on papyrus scrolls. Papyrus was a writing surface (like a thick paper) made from the pith of papyrus plant.

Also, Ancient India had developed its own writing technology based on manuscripts written on palm leaves and temple architecture inscribed on rocks.

The Romans wrote on waxed tablets with a pointed stylus; this was popular for temporary notes and messages.

However,  about 2000 years ago, inventors in the Far East developed paper using mulberry bark, hemp and rags with water, mashed into pulp, which was then pressed into thin sheets and dried in the sun. The thin sheets were then used to record their drawings and writings. 

Paper thus evolved !!

This paper then arrived to India through travellers in late 7th century. During 8th century after 300 years, the secret of paper making travelled to middle east and after another 500 years reached Europe.

Paper has seen so much of evolution and owing to environmental reasons, more recently, a new form of paper has come into being for all those paper lovers out there — Recycled paper. Looks and feels a bit like our Papyrus right ?

Wasn’t that interesting ?