When you think about the Library at Alexandira, what do you imagine?
Shelves and shelves of scrolls?
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
Sure, back then, the Egyptians had papyrus, but you know the saying “Life is cheap.”
They would write things on their slaves, skin them, and then stack the skins on the shelves in the library.
Kinda gruesome, but properly-preserved skin had a longer shelf life than papyrus.
And it also provided an incentive not to piss off the librarians with a late return or lost book.
You’d have your library card taken away. And your skin, too.