papyrology

papyrology, the decipherment and elucidation of anything written on papyrus, and the study of the papyrus roll as a form of book. For the manufacture and uses of papyrus see BOOKS AND WRITING 2. Most papyri discovered in modern times come from Egypt where the rainless climate favours their survival. Serious excavations began in the nineteenth century, and at Oxyrhynchus in particular. The earliest papyrus book we have, the Persae of Timotheus, dates from the fourth century BC. Since many of the papyri are of school texts, and the education available was the traditional Greek one (Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC), more than half of the several thousand surviving literary papyri are of Homer. Of the rest, fragments of works hitherto unknown slightly outnumber the fragments of works already familiar. New texts discovered include several plays of Menander (mostly incomplete), much of Bacchylidēs, some poems of Sappho, Pindar, and other lyric poets, much of Callimachus, the mimes of Herodas, the Ichneutae of Sophoclēs, and several other sizeable fragments of tragedy; and, in prose, Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia (a history continuing that of Thucydides), and several speeches of Hypereidēs. Other papyri contain fragmentary scientific and medical texts, and works on astrology and magic, important as social documents. Discoveries of Christian literary papyri have been equally important, adding further testimony to works already known, most valuably in the case of the New Testament text, and revealing hitherto unknown works, for example the Sayings of Jesus (part of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas).

Most of the papyri discovered, however, are not literary but documentary: private letters and accounts, legal and administrative documents. A great deal has been learnt from these about the Greek language at various periods, in its most educated and in its semi-literate forms; in particular, the language of contemporary documents has thrown new light on the syntax, vocabulary, and idiom of the New Testament.

Latin papyri have been found in Egypt and a few other places but are comparatively rare. Most date from after the late third century AD, when the emperor Diocletian opened up Egypt, making it equal in status to the rest of the empire and encouraging all the eastern provinces in the use of Latin. Nearly all papyrus fragments of Latin literary texts belong to prose works, but there are important papyri of Juvenal and of Terence's Andria. Some fragments of Christian texts have been found, including one of a trilingual phrase-book in Greek, Coptic, and Latin, presumably of use to those intending to visit the monasteries.

Papyrology is the study of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., as preserved in manuscripts written on papyrus, the most common form of writing material in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Papyrology includes both the translation and interpretation of ancient documents in a variety of languages, as well as the care and preservation of rare papyrus originals.

Papyrology as a systematic discipline dates from the 1890s, when large caches of well-preserved papyri were discovered by archaeologists in several locations in Egypt, such as Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe) and Oxyrhynchus. Leading centres of papyrology include Oxford University, Heidelberg University, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, and the University of California, Berkeley. Founders of papyrology were the Viennese orientalist Joseph von Karabacek (Arabic papyrology), ^[1] Wilhelm Schubart (Greek papyrology),^[2] the Austrian antiquarian Theodor Graf who acquired more than 100,000 Greek, Arabic, Coptic and Persian papyri in Egypt, which were bought by the Austrian Archduke Rainer, ^[3] G. F. Tsereteli who published papyri of Russian and Georgian collections, ^[4] Frederic George Kenyon,^[5] Ulrich Wilcken, Bernard Pyne Grenfell, Arthur Surridge Hunt ^[6] and other distinguished scientists.

The collection of pagan, Christian and Arabic papyri in Vienna called the Rainer papyri represents the first large discovery of manuscripts on papyrus found in the Fayum in Egypt. About 1880 a carpet trader in Cairo acquired on behalf of Karabacek over 10,000 papyri and some texts written on linen. Of those over 3000 are written in Arabic. The papyri originated from Kôm Fâris (Krokodílon Pólis) and Ihnasiyyah al-Madinah (Herakleopolis Magna), the textile pages from Kôm al-‘Azâma. They were exported to Vienna in 1882, and presented in a public exhibition the following year that caused a sensation. Later the papyri were bought by the Grand Duke Rainer and presented to the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna.^[7]

Footnotes

1. ^ Jane Turner, The Dictionary of Art, Grove's Dictionaries, 1996, p.548
2. ^ The Harvard Theological Review, Harvard Divinity School 1941, p.220
3. ^ Glenn W. Most, Disciplining Classics: Altertumswissenschaft als Beruf, 2002, p.192
4. ^ Bobodzhan Gafurovich Gafurov, Yuri Vladimirovich Gankovskiĭ, Fifty Years of Soviet Oriental Studies, Institut narodov Azii (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR) 1968, p.11
5. ^ Leo Deuel, Testaments of Time: The Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records, Knopf, 1965, p. 335
6. ^ Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, The Journal of Jewish Studies, Jewish Chronicle Publications, 1974, p.420
7. ^ Jean Anker, Libri: International Library Review, International Federation of Library Associations 1951, p.234

See also

• Leiden Conventions
• Oxyrhynchus
• Greek Magical Papyri
• Elephantine papyri
• Magdalen papyrus
• Nag Hammadi library
• EpiDoc
• Epigraphy
• Writing systems
• Palaeography
• University of Michigan Papyrus Collection

External links

• Places and discovery of papyri
• Introduction to Papyrology
• Columbia University Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS)
• Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (DDBDP)
• The University of Michigan Papyrus Collection
• John D. Muccigrosso's Papyrology Homepage
• Ancient Egypt papyrus collection and stories behind each scene
• papyri.info
• Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project
• Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Collections
• Association Internationale de Papyrologues, Links page
• Updates of papyrological publications, compiled from Papy-L et al.

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