Oldest papyrus

The oldest surviving papyrus document is the Diary of Merer, a journal kept by a government official who led a work crew involved in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It is written in a mixture of hieroglyphs and hieratic (the cursive script ancient Egyptians used in everyday communication) and dates to the last years of Pharoah Khufu's reign, probably around 2570 BCE. The papyrus was discovered by archaeologist Pierre Tallet (FRA) in 2013 at the Wadi el-Jarf dig site near Ayn Soukhna, a town on the Red Sea coast in eastern Egypt.

The Wadi el-Jarf site consists of a series of 30 tunnels (originally used to store ships and other equipment) carved into the steep, rocky hillside overlooking what was an ancient harbour. The papyrus scrolls that make up the Diary of Merer were found in one of the tunnels, tied with string and wedged between two large rocks.

The Diary of Merer would be a major archaeological find even if it recorded nothing of importance, however, it has turned out to be a useful source of information on the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu – which was the tallest structure in the world for more than 3,500 years.

The papyrus consists of a set of tersely written journals or log-books kept by a government official who identifies himself as "Inspector Merer". He was in charge of a group involved in shipping limestone blocks from the quarry at Tura to the site of the Great Pyramid. His notes – akin to an ancient Egyptian Excel spreadsheet – record the schedules and assignments of Merer's work crews, the cargoes they hauled, and the locations they travelled to. Separate sheets record the accounting of food and other supplies purchased for his men.

Though fragmentary, the papryus provides a glimpse of the massive, decades-long engineering project that was the construction of the Great Pyramid. Merer's men did not work on the pyramid directly, but operated within the enormous system of infrastructure built specifically to support the project. This included canals, port facilities and a large artificial harbour – which Merer calls the "Basin of Khufu" – which was dug out at the base of the Giza Plateau and connected to the Nile.

During the roughly five months covered by Merer's journal, his 40-man team made around 10 round trips a month, transporting roughly 1,000 giant limestone blocks. (For context, is has been estimated that the Pyramid of Khufu contains 2.3 million stone blocks.)