Egypt papyrus makers keep tradition alive despite pandemic struggles

A woman lays out soaked thin strips of papyrus to form a sheet, before compression and drying at the workshop in the village of al-Qaramous in Sharqiyah province in Egypt's northern fertile Nile Delta region, northeast of the capital Cairo. Photo: AFP

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.

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.