The aim of the research is to study the chemical components of Cyperus papyrus.Chromatographic techniques such as Sephadex LH-20,normal phase silica gel,MCI and high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) were adopted to isolate and purify the compounds,and the spectral methods were used to elucidate their structures.Nineteen compounds have been isolated from the petrol ether and ethyl acetate extraction sections of the methanol extract of C. papyrus including α-cyperone (1),cyperenoic acid (2),isopatchoulenol (3),3,4,8,8-tetramethyl-4,5,6,7,8,8a-hexahydro-1H-3a,7-methanoazulen-4-ol (4),(6S)-patchoulan-4-ene-6-ol (5),(+)-5βH-eudesma-3,11-diene (6),β-sitosterol (7),(24R)-24-ethylcholest-4-en-3,6-dione (8),stigmast-4,22-dien-3-one (9),(24R)-24-ethyl-5α-cholestan-3β,5-diol-6-one (10),stigmasterol (11),stigmast-4-en-6β-ol-3-one (12),stigmasta-3,6-dione (13),stigmast-4-en-3-one (14),cis,cis-9,12-octadecadienoic acid (15),methyl hexadecanoate (16),octacasanoic acid (17),3-nonyloxirane-2-carboxylic acid methyl ester (18) and methyl 9,10-dichlorostearate (19).All the compounds were isolated from C. papyrus for the first time.Compounds 1,2,3,5,6,10,12,13 and 16 could inhibit TNF-α-induced NF-κB activation in plasmid transfected HEK293T cells with the IC₅₀ values between 34.96 and 98.23 μM.