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Monday, July 30, 2007

This Afternoon at the 25th International Papyrological Congress

More interesting papers this afternoon I have to miss.

Session HISTORY III (Chair Jennifer Sheridan-Moss)
14.00 PM (2pm) Maria Rosaria Falivene
Greek Anthologies on Papyrus and Their Readers in Early Ptolemaic Egypt

I shall argue for the common origin of a number of selections of poems on papyrus dating from the mid- third century BC. This assumption, if accepted, leads to further considerations on the nature and circulation of Greek books in the Egyptian hinterland at this time. Who were the editors, compilers, readers and owners of these anthologies?

HERCULANENSIA III (David Armstrong Chair)
Maria Clara Cavalieri
Per una nuova edizione dell’Index Stoicorum di Filodemo (P.Herc. 1018)

La comunicazione ha lo scopo di divulgare una serie di risultati scaturiti dallo studio autoptico del P.Herc. 1018, contenente il libro della Rassegna dei filosofi di Filodemo dedicato alla scuola stoica. Il papiro, che viene fatto risalire su base paleografica alla fine del I sec. a.C.-inizio del I sec. d.C., nel corso dell’eruzione vesuviana del 79 d.C. subì un notevole schiacciamento nella parte inferiore, circostanza che comportò, al momento del successivo srotolamento, eseguito nel 1808 con la macchina di A. Piaggio, la perdita pressoché completa della metà inferiore delle 79 colonne superstiti e la perdita completa della prima parte del rotolo, ove erano verosimilmente il titolo iniziale e sicuramente le prime colonne del testo. La revisione dell’originale, nonostante le cattive condizioni complessive in cui esso ci è pervenuto, dovute anche ad irregolarità stratigrafiche, ha consentito di migliorare in alcuni punti il testo rispetto alle precedenti edizioni di D. Comparetti (1875), A. Traversa (1952), T. Dorandi (1994). Inoltre, un’attenta analisi della problematica bibliologica e paleografica del volumen ha permesso per la prima volta di ricostruire quello che verosimilmente era il rotolo prima della catastrofe vesuviana. Questo aspetto era stato quasi del tutto trascurato nelle pur benemerite edizioni precedenti.


PAP. AND EGYPT. III (Terry Wilfong Chair)
Hans Foerster
The Coptic Papyri of the Doresse Collection in the Vatican Library

The aim of the presentation is to give a short introduction to the Coptic papyri of the Doresse Collection. A group of Greek and Coptic texts were given to the Biblioteca Vaticana by Jean Doresse. Most of the texts of both language-groups are from Aphrodito (Kom Isqaw). The Greek texts of this collection are published, the Coptic texts, still unpublished, have already been a topic of scholarly discussion. The aim of a three year research-grant of the Austrian “Wissenschaftsfonds” (FWF) is to prepare a publication of these texts. The project started in January 2007. Thus, preliminary results of the work on the texts will be discussed.


14.20 PM
Session HISTORY III (Chair Jennifer Sheridan-Moss)
María Jesús Albarrán Martínez
A Nun’s Dispute with Her Mother in the Late Sixth Century


P.Lond. V 1731, dated AD 585 in Syene, is a document in which a woman named Aurelia Tsone explains that she received a sum of money from her mother, Aurelia Tapia. She had claimed this money as her own and engaged in an economic dispute with her mother. Aurelia Tsone is a nun with the monastic title monache. She belongs to this family, and her claim is one of the many legal and financial documents in the Patermouthis archive. Most of the documents in this archive are transactions and legal or economic disputes, dated between AD 493 and 613, concerning the family of Kako, who is married to Patermuthis. As the document suggests, Tsone is a nun with independent social, familial and economic relationships. What is the monastic type that she represents? Does Tsone represent the urban ascetic type? If this is the case, it could indicate that the female urban ascetic model continues to exist in late sixth century Egypt.


HERCULANENSIA III (David Armstrong Chair)
Robert N. Gaines
P.Herc. 1423: The Case of the Missing Column

The standard text of P.Herc. 1423 (Phld., Rh. 4; Sudhaus 1892) poses a problem: the text contains nineteen columns, whereas the papyrus clearly comprises twenty. Collation of the text against the papyrus immediately suggests the location of the disparity. Sudhaus’ columns I-III and V-XIX correspond to papyrus columns 1-3 and 6-20; accordingly, the difficulty arises in the relation of Sudhaus’ column IV with the papyrus columns 4-5. When the contents of papyrus columns 4 and 5 are examined, it becomes evident that Sudhaus column IV merges a large sovrapposto on papyrus column 4 with the remains of papyrus column 5. The column restoration created by this merger is right-minded. However, it is accompanied by two troublesome mistakes: reconstituted papyrus column 5 has been numbered IV, and papyrus column 4–apart from the sovrapposto–has been entirely ignored. This paper explains Sudhaus’ omission of P.Herc. 1423, column 4, with reference to the history of the text and the various textual responsibilities carried out in the “Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi” by disegnatori Giovan Battista Malesci and Rafaele Biondi and interpreti Giuseppe Genovesi and Giustino Quadrari. Within this history, it becomes clear that Sudhaus derived his text from Quadrari (1855) and that Quadrari’s text was based on faulty evidence–due to a sequence of events set in motion by Biondi and Genovesi in 1852. New papyrological texts are proposed for P.Herc. 1423, columns 4 and 5.


PAP. AND EGYPT. III (Terry Wilfong Chair)
Jennifer Cromwell
Aristophanes Son of Johannes: an 8th Century Bilingual Scribe?


Aristophanes son of Johannes, an 8th century Coptic scribe from Jeme (on the Theban west bank in Upper Egypt) wrote 28 papyri texts and a large number of ostraca which survive. This paper will focus on his papyri. These fall into the following categories: sales, settlements, donations and receipts. The documents contain a large proportion of Greek words, a standard feature of Coptic legal texts of this period. The Greek vocabulary used falls primarily into two categories: nouns and verbs (other categories will not be addressed here). These are not employed using Greek syntax: the nouns do not appear in their declined forms and verbs are written in their Greek infinitival form, but in standard Coptic verbal constructions. There are, however, formulaic elements that appear with both Greek vocabulary and syntax. These regularly occur in three situations: the opening formulae, the repetition of the price and the scribal notation. Not only is Greek syntax employed, but the palaeography of these sections is markedly different from that of the standard Coptic sections. The papyrus with the designation British Library Or. 4664, a tax receipt published as P.Bal. 134, most strikingly illustrates the differences between Aristophanes’ Greek and Coptic scripts. 12 Using these criteria, in conjunction with the socio-historic context in which Aristophanes operated, this paper will examine the extent to which he can be classified as a bilingual scribe.


14.40 PM Session HISTORY III (Chair Jennifer Sheridan-Moss)
Jean-Luc Fournet
Les tribulations d’un pétitionnaire égyptien à Constantinople. Révision de P.Cair. Masp. III 67352

La révision du P.Cair. Masp. III 67352 m'a permis de remettre cette pétition sous son vrai jour: adressée à l'empereur Justinien, elle date d'un des séjours faits par Dioscore d'Aphrodité à la capitale pour défendre les affaires de son village (548/549 ou 551). À travers ce texte se dessine par bribes tout un milieu d'Égyptiens de Thébaïde venus à Constantinople pétitionner et s'entraidant le temps que durait leur séjour, long et sans doute difficile, à la capitale. La révision de ce texte sera aussi l'occasion de présenter les travaux récemment achevés ou en cours touchant aux archives de Dioscore, notamment la banque des images des papyrus d'Aphrodité qui est terminée.

HERCULANENSIA III (David Armstrong Chair)
W. Benjamin Henry
A New Edition of P.Herc. 1050 (Philodemus, On Death iv)
P.Herc. 1050 is one of the most important texts to have emerged from Herculaneum, and the rhetorical tour de force of the closing columns is among Philodemus’ most impressive pieces of writing. But the only complete edition, that of Domenico Bassi in Volumina Herculanensia III.1, published in 1914, has long been in need of replacement. Bassi conscientiously reported the proposals of earlier scholars, but he was unable to advance matters much himself, and in his reports of the Oxford apographs, he depended on the engravings, which often led him astray. The most frequently cited edition, that of Taco Kuiper in his 1925 dissertation, is not only incomplete but also disfigured by the incorporation of a large number of restorations incompatible with the traces and spaces in the papyrus. Kuiper also fails to indicate where the text that he takes over from Bassi incorporates conjectural emendations of earlier scholars, and he prints doubtfully read letters without the sublinear dots that Bassi had provided. Since 1925, only partial editions have appeared, the most important being those by Marcello Gigante in his Ricerche Filodemee (Naples, 19832) of the opening and closing columns. In this paper I shall illustrate some of the progress that has been achieved in establishing the text of the treatise with the aid of high-quality digital images of the papyrus (produced by MSI) and apographs.

PAP. AND EGYPT. III (Terry Wilfong Chair)
Jennifer Taylor Westerfeld
The Vocabulary of Sacred Space in Documentary Papyri from Late Antique

In Christian literature from late antique Egypt, authors used a wide array of terms to describe the sacred spaces of their pagan predecessors and contemporaries, so that a “temple” in one text might become in the next a “place of making sacrifices to Satan and worshipping and fearing him.” The vocabulary used for Christian sacred space shows a similar range and flexibility; at times authors clearly sought to differentiate themselves and their holy places from those of the pagans, while at other times they seemed to accept overlap and ambiguity in their choice of terminology. This paper will consider the other side of the page, as it were: the vocabulary used for sacred space when it appears, not in literature, but in the documentary papyri of late antique Egypt. Drawing on Greek and Coptic sources such as wills, leases, and deeds of sale, it will be possible to assess the basic working vocabulary of sacred space used in business and legal contexts; this vocabulary can then be compared with the descriptions of space which appear in literary sources. Such a comparative analysis will add greater nuance to our understanding of the position sacred space, pagan and Christian, occupied in the thought-world of the early Egyptian Christians, an understanding which, at present, remains heavily based on literary evidence.




15.00 PM Session HISTORY III (Chair Jennifer Sheridan-Moss)
Mark Depauw
Quantifying Language Shifts in Egypt (800 BC – AD 800) on the Basis of Trismegistos

The interdisciplinary research platform “Trismegistos” (www.trismegistos.org), developed by the project “Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Graeco-Roman Egypt” (Cologne) in cooperation with the K. U. Leuven, aims to bring together metadata about all published texts dating between the early 25th Dynasty and the disappearance of Coptic as a legal language in the 2nd millennium AD. Although some epigraphic lacunae remain to be filled, for papyri the set of metadata is practically complete and the platform now allows us to quantify the preservation of documents in the various languages and scripts of Egypt (Greek, Demotic, hieratic, hieroglyphic, Aramaic, Coptic, Arabic, etc.). The first results of a study of language variation over the course of about 2000 years will be presented, and problems with the interpretation of these data will be discussed.


HERCULANENSIA III (David Armstrong Chair)
Jeffrey Fish
Philodemus’ On the Good King: Political Protreptic or Homeric Scholarship?


Philodemus sees his way of reading Homer in De bono rege secundum Homerum as part of a program which he mentions in the final column of the treatise (col. 43 Dorandi). Although it is the most frequently quoted passage in the treatise, the text of the passage has undergone significant change. Since Olivieri’s 1909 edition, it had been thought that epanorthosin was followed by dynasteiôn “the correction of dynasties”, a reading which led several scholars to speculate that the passage could be particularly relevant to Piso as an ally of a dynast, Julius Caesar, and which in general led to a reading of the treatise primarily concerned with political protreptic. My rereading of this passage has shown that there is not room for Olivieri’s reading. Moreover, new discoveries in other parts of the papyrus also show that Philodemus conceived of his work primarily as a piece of Homeric scholarship
.


Coffee Break

1400 Chemistry 1640 Chemistry 1300 Chemistry

15.40 PM Session HISTORY IV (Chair Ann E. Hanson)
Benjamin Kelly
Petitions, Litigation and Feud in Roman Egypt

The Roman petitions complaining about alleged wrongs mostly claim, either explicitly or implicitly, that their senders wanted their disputes to be resolved. It is usually assumed in the modern literature that this was indeed the goal of petitioners and litigants. But in a fascinating group of cases, bouts of litigation display many of the features that anthropologists have identified as characteristic of feud. They were of long duration, and the parties launched repeated attacks and counter-attacks on each other – often concerning new grievances unrelated to the original dispute. As with feuds, these disputing relationships tended to exist between groups (especially family groups), rather than just between individuals. This paper takes a selection of cases, including the conflict between Satabous and Nestnephis, the “Drusilla-Prozess”, and the petition of Dionysia, and interprets them in light of a feuding paradigm. It concludes that we need to recognize that legal institutions had more complex functions and uses than mere dispute resolution.

LITERARY PAPYRI (Tim Renner Chair)
Timothy Renner
The Nile Waters, the Sky, and Capricorn: A New Greek Fragment of Geography or Mythography

P.Mich.inv. 1599 contains on its front the lower half of a column of previously unattested Greek prose in a decorated but somewhat irregularly executed book hand which appears to have been written in approximately the first century BCE. The text of the Michigan papyrus seems to have formed part of a continuous work of geography, history, or mythography—with such a small section of text preserved, it is hard to be sure which—that is represented also by fragmentary columns on either side. The first portion of the text preserved in the papyrus, which seems to require us to supply an omitted word or two, but the general sense of which is clear, draws either a parallel or a causal connection between the “recovery” (anakomide) of waters from the sky on the one hand and the flow of the Nile on the other. This is reminiscent of the kind of discussion that we find in Herodotus 2.20-27 concerning possible explanations for the annual flooding of the river, but the Herodotean explanation is only one of several (cf. D. Bonneau, La crue du Nil [1964] 176-193) that could be compatible with the approach taken by our papyrus. Further, and unlike Herodotus, the second section of the papyrus states that on the basis of the previously cited facts, certain individuals speak in obscure terms of the force (energeia) of Aigokeros and tell stories of this god’s change in form. Although the relationship of the zodiacal sign Aigokeros/Aigipan = Capricorn to the rhythm of the Nile’s rise and fall that is intended by this author requires investigation, the probable allusion to the transformation of Aigokeros into a constellation touches upon a theme which can be traced back to Eratosthenes’ Katasterismoi a few generations earlier. In addition to aiming at an improved understanding of the language and the thought of the Greek text of the passage, this paper explores contexts and parallels for this type of discussion and for the combination of scientific and myth-related ideas contained in it, with a special eye to assessing the importance of the papyrus for the history of geography and mythography near the close of the Hellenistic period.


RELIGION AND MAGIC (Chair Robert Daniel)
Renata-Gabriela Tatomir
Interdisciplinary Aspects Concerning the Connotations of a Cnsj.t

Often the Egyptian word nsj.t is related to an illness –“epilepsy”. The interpretation “epilepsy” was proposed by Bendix Ebbell, in “Die aegyptischen Krankheitsnamen” (ZÄS 62 [1927] 13-20). The word nsj.t is discussed also in the Grundriss der Medizin der alten Ägypter, vol. I - IX, Berlin, 1954- 1973, and according to this source nsj.t is an illness caused by bad demons (or by exterior demonic influences). It is said that the illness is located “in the stomach” or “in a man” and it probably enters the body through the eyes. Nonetheless the Egyptian sources refer also to two words: nsj (M) and nsjt (F), their translation being related to the suggested meanings “Krankheitsdämon”, and respectively, “Krankheitsdämonin”. From these considerations should we understand that nsj/nsj.t is a couple of opposed concepts related to the medical/psychological field, rather to the religious one? In this respect, while discussing about ancient Egyptian knowledge, a question arises: where medical science ends and where religion begins? The emphasis of my paper will lie in the offering of some interdisciplinary connotations for the word nsj.t, from the medical/religious interdisciplinary perspective. Examples will be provided from the Papyri Ebers, Hearst, Berlin 3038 and Chester Beatty VI.

16.00 PM Session HISTORY IV (Chair Ann E. Hanson)
Ari Bryen
The Village is Watching: Visibility and Violence in Petitions from Roman Egypt

Petitioners complaining about violence in Roman Egypt exploited the language of visibility and publicity in their complaints to legal authorities. This paper addresses a number of features that petitioners highlight with some degree of frequency: wounds on exposed parts of the body (faces, hands, legs), the lasting visibility of these wounds (signaled by the use of the verb fainesthai and its derivatives), as well as on other important instances in which the consequences of violence would be available for public view (such as the tearing or stripping of clothes, which is almost always done in public). This paper investigates the rhetoric of legal complaints and tries to understand petitioners as individuals engaging with their legal system as part of a face saving ritual. I argue that while the emphasis on visible wounds certainly has an evidentiary component, we should not neglect the symbolic consequences for an individual of having on his or her body lasting marks of violence. These marks would potentially expose one’s private defeat to public notice and, of course, comment. The potentially compromising situation that this could create made rapid recourse to legal authorities critical, especially as a public demonstration that one would not take one’s injuries passively.


LITERARY PAPYRI (Tim Renner Chair)
Daniela Colomo
Antinoos’ Mystery in a New Fragment from the Leipzig Collection

In this paper I present an unpublished papyrus fragment–P.Lips. inv. 1454–containing a puzzling composition which seems to be linked to Antinoos’ myth, in particular to the motif of Antinoos’ flower. This motif, which goes back to the poet Pankrates, appears in verses and prose works preserved on papyrus. I try to establish the relationship between these compositions and the unpublished fragment, pointing out the interpretative difficulties of the new text.

RELIGION AND MAGIC (Chair Robert Daniel)
Gil Haviv Renberg
Incubation at the Memphis Sarapeum

This paper will examine the questions of whether incubation was practiced at the Memphis Sarapeum and, if so, who engaged in it and which gods were consulted by those doing so. The Sarapeum complex featured not only the temple of Sarapis, but also temples of other gods and sacred animal necropoleis that likewise functioned as cult sites. A broad range of Greek and Demotic sources–including papyri, ostraka, inscriptions and graffiti–clearly indicates the importance of dreams to sanctuary officials and ordinary worshipers alike, but the evidence for incubation is far more complex than has previously been recognized. By reevaluating these sources, it can be shown that some repeatedly cited texts turn out not to be evidence for incubation, while others have been only partly appreciated or even misunderstood. Overall, the evidence that visitors to the Sarapeum could solicit dreams from Sarapis is flimsy at best, and assumptions that this occurred is partly based on the role of incubation at some of his other cult sites. While sources such as the Hor Archive and a recent graffito referring to an incubation chamber reveal that incubation was indeed practiced at the Sarapeum, it cannot be demonstrated that Sarapis was routinely consulted in this manner – and instead, it appears that incubation in the cult of Sarapis, which is well attested elsewhere, developed at Alexandria, where the god worshiped as Osorapis at Memphis became the Hellenized god worshiped beyond the land of Egypt.


16.20 PM Session HISTORY IV (Chair Ann E. Hanson)
Isabella Andorlini
Egypt and the Medicinal Use of Papyrus According to Soranus and Other Physicians

In his account of the manufacture of papyrus in Natural History xiii. 72, Pliny makes no mention of its medical application among the miscellaneous uses popular in the Egyptian chora. He does, however, refer to the reputation of medicinal ash obtained from burning papyrus in a number of other places (NH xxi. 84; xxiv. 88; xxviii. 214; xxix. 106; xxxiv. 170). Ancient doctors too prized the medicinal application of both 2 the plant and the paper made from it (e.g. PSI 1180 A.ii.11; iii.7). The employment of papyrus in a therapeutic context is discussed by Naphtali Lewis (Papyrus in Classical Antiquity [1974] 31, 97), who draws on Egyptian, Greek and Arabic evidence. The present contribution focuses on the additional information supplied by the Gynecology of Soranus, the distinguished Roman physician who studied in Alexandria in the first and second centuries AD. Soranus’ original comparison of the uterus layers with the arrangement of fibers in papyrus layers will be illustrated. Medical sources also provide evidence of learned doctors who made their way to Alexandria, often considered the cradle of advanced medical education. It will be shown how physicians visiting Alexandria and Egypt were likely to gain firsthand experience both in the anatomical schools and in the headquarters of the papyrus industry, where medical scholars and practitioners became acquainted with the usefulness of papyrus in treatment and healing.

LITERARY PAPYRI (Tim Renner Chair)
Cornelia Eva Römer
News from Jannes and Jambres

In his account of the manufacture of papyrus in Natural History xiii. 72, Pliny makes no mention of its medical application among the miscellaneous uses popular in the Egyptian chora. He does, however, refer to the reputation of medicinal ash obtained from burning papyrus in a number of other places (NH xxi. 84; xxiv. 88; xxviii. 214; xxix. 106; xxxiv. 170). Ancient doctors too prized the medicinal application of both 2 the plant and the paper made from it (e.g. PSI 1180 A.ii.11; iii.7). The employment of papyrus in a therapeutic context is discussed by Naphtali Lewis (Papyrus in Classical Antiquity [1974] 31, 97), who draws on Egyptian, Greek and Arabic evidence. The present contribution focuses on the additional information supplied by the Gynecology of Soranus, the distinguished Roman physician who studied in Alexandria in the first and second centuries AD. Soranus’ original comparison of the uterus layers with the arrangement of fibers in papyrus layers will be illustrated. Medical sources also provide evidence of learned doctors who made their way to Alexandria, often considered the cradle of advanced medical education. It will be shown how physicians visiting Alexandria and Egypt were likely to gain firsthand experience both in the anatomical schools and in the headquarters of the papyrus industry, where medical scholars and practitioners became acquainted with the usefulness of papyrus in treatment and healing.


RELIGION AND MAGIC (Chair Robert Daniel)
Malcolm Choat
Anatolios the Archiprophetes

Better known as a friend of Theophanes, well-to-do scion of early fourth-century Hermopolis Magna and traveler to Antioch, Anatolios (who writes P.Herm. 2-3 and SB XII 10803) is one of our last known holders of the office of “Chief Prophet”. Through him (and, really, only through him), Theophanes is linked with “Hermetic” circles in Hermopolis, and with late antique Egyptian “paganism”, which his archive is held to embody. But despite the frequency with which he is cited in passing, what do we know about Anatolios? Where did he live? Of where was he chief prophet? What was his relationship to Theophanes? Why did Theophanes carry his letters? Did Theophanes, in fact, carry his letters? The first full monograph on Theophanes (John Matthews, The Journey of Theophanes, 2006), and inspection of the papyri of the archive of Theophanes in the John Rylands Library, invite consideration of these and other questions, and reflection on the place of Anatolios and his fellow worshippers of the “old gods” in the social circle of Theophanes.

16.40 PM Session HISTORY IV (Chair Ann E. Hanson)
Sabine R. Huebner
Therapeuteria Reconsidered

In Greece and Rome, a female stood at the center of attention of her family and the outside world only at two occasions, at her marriage and at her funeral. Therefore a feast celebrated in the honor of a minor girl, recorded in three papyri, all from third-century Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. Hels. 50.17; P.Oxy. LXVI 4542; 4543) seems rather odd at first sight. From these papyri we learn that this feast, the so-called therapeuteria, was a family get-together to which relatives, neighbors and friends were invited. As the editors of P.Oxy. LXVI remark, the girls for whom the feast was celebrated were apparently still minors and yet unmarried since they lived at home. However, no convincing explanation has been advanced so far that would sufficiently explain this custom. The term therapeuteria itself is derived presumably from therapeuo, and the editors suggest that it might have designated “a place for therapeusis” and assign it a religious, ritual or medical context. In any case, it becomes clear that we have to look for a specific event that took place in a girl’s life before she reached puberty. Evidence on girls’ lives in Graeco-Roman Egypt is scarce; girls lived at home and were trained by their mothers and prepared for their future lives as wives and daughters-in- law. However, evidence from ancient ethnographic reports, medical texts, early Islamic sources and comparative evidence from modern Egypt, offer highly interesting parallels and a new interpretation of this feast, which would explain it as an indigenous tradition cultivated already for several millennia in this region.

LITERARY PAPYRI (Tim Renner Chair)
Nele Baplu, Marc Huys, and Thomas Schmidt
The Syllabic Word Lists in P.Bouriant 1 Reconsidered

The syllabic word lists in the famous school papyrus P.Bouriant 1, edited more than a century ago by P. Jouguet and P. Perdrizet, have not been the subject of a detailed discussion since then, although important remarks on the readings and on the choice of the words were published by J. Bingen and A. Blanchard. However, several similar word lists have been published during the last century, including that in P.Monts. Roca I, recently published by S. Torallas Tovar and K.A. Worp. These new word lists provide important comparative material. Therefore, on the basis of our inspection of the original papyrus and of digital images, we have prepared a re-edition of the word list, containing some new text restorations along with a line-by-line commentary. In this paper, we will present the most important conclusions of this re- examination, in particular the reasons for word selection and word order and their relation to similar papyrus word lists and to the occurrence of the same words in other texts of scholarly nature, such as lexica or commentaries. Finally we try to specify the practical, didactic, grammatical and literary function of each word.

RELIGION AND MAGIC (Chair Robert Daniel)
Theodore S. de Bruyn
Christian Amulets with Biblical Inscriptions: a Catalogue in Progress This paper will report on an aspect of a project to prepare a catalogue of edited Greek formularies and amulets (papyri, ostraca, lamellae, tabulae) containing Christian motifs and dating from the second to the eighth centuries CE. The catalogue is preliminary to a study of the incorporation of Christian liturgical sequences into Greek formularies and amulets. Scholars have differed in their criteria for identifying Greek formularies and amulets containing Christian motifs. Van Haelst’s catalogue of Jewish and Christian papyri included amulets consisting of prayers, acclamations, or citations from the Bible or the Christian liturgy (Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens, 1976, 414), whereas these were excluded from the more recent compilations of Brashear (ANRW II.18.5, 1995, 3492-3; cf. 3480 n.486) and Daniel and Maltomini (Supplementum Magicum I, 1991, ix). Both approaches have their merits. While the latter focuses on unique or specific features of magical texts, the former is more inclusive of the entire range of materials with Christian motifs that were used as amulets. This paper will (1) review criteria used to identify papyri inscribed with one or more biblical passages as amulets (e.g., evidence that the papyrus was folded or tied, evidence that the papyrus did not form part of a larger roll or codex, etc.); (2) present an up-to-date list of edited papyri inscribed with biblical passages and deemed to be amulets by their editors or commentators; and (3) discuss doubtful or problematic cases.



17.00 PM Session HISTORY IV (Chair Ann E. Hanson)
Hélène Cuvigny
Du côté de chez Zeus


This paper will provide an overview of the inscriptions and ostraca found during the two first excavation campaigns at the praesidium of Dios on the Koptos-Berenike road


RELIGION AND MAGIC (Chair Robert Daniel)
José-Antonio Fernández-Delgado and Francisca Pordomingo
Thèmes et modèles d’exercices scolaires sur papyrus


Nous allons considérer d'abord des papyrus scolaires qui prouvent que nous avons un matériel de professeur, qui pouvait être utilisé pour l’élaboration d'exercices progymnasmatiques. D’autres papyrus présentent ce qui pourrait être des exercices déjà plus élaborés, lesquels auraient pu servir de modèles à la dictée ou à la copie dans les niveaux inférieurs de l’enseignement; quelquefois le modèle est constitué par de simples énoncés. L’analyse est donc faite dans l’optique du maître et elle met en évidence la réutilisation des modèles scolaires dans des buts divers et le fait que dans de nombreuses écoles le maître était le seul responsable de l’enseignement aux différents niveaux, introduisant même les élèves à l’étude de la rhétorique. La paléographie, en particulier, et les caractéristiques bibliologiques montrent que le maître est l’auteur du texte original et de la copie. Mais certaines copies maladroites, typiques d’un élève débutant, laissent deviner la présence d’un exercice d’un niveau supérieur, qui transparaît derrière le type de texte et d'autres caractéristiques textuelles.

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This Morning (Monday) at the 25th International Papyrological Congress

The vicarious Congress (still in Wichita, can't be there until Thurs.)

Three concurrent sessions this morning:
9 am
HISTORY I (Verhoogt chair)
Christelle Fischer-Bovet
Army and Egyptian Temple Building under the Ptolemies

In this paper, I examine building dedications to Egyptian gods that reveal the interplay between the military and state financing of Egyptian temples. My aim is to bring new insight into the debate by looking at temple constructions by the army. I argue that the King’s involvement was partly made through his army. Officers or soldiers were used as supervisors of temple construction for the Crown and even financed part of it to complement royal and temple funds. A survey of the sources for the Thebaid, the Fayum, and the Delta shows that, with variations in scale and time, the army served as a convenient institutional structure for royal building policy. People with both military and religious offices and officers stationed in garrisons played an essential role. I thus propose a new model of financing Egyptian temples with the army as a source of private and local funding. Three main conclusions emerge. First, the rather late date of our evidence confirms that temple building was increasingly sponsored by private and semi-private funding. Second, soldiers took on a large share of this funding because the temples were used as garrisons in Egypt and not only in the Dodekaschoinos. Third, the formation of a local elite made of Greek and Egyptian soldiers acting for the local gods challenges the idea of professional and ethnic divisions.


HERCULANENSIA I (Janko chair)
Mario Capasso
Per una ricostruzione dell’opera De vitiis di Filodemo

L’opera di Filodemo De vitiis costituisce l’unico tra i grandi trattati dell’epicureo di Gadara del quale non è stata finora tentata un’analitica ricostruzione, che avesse presente aspetti importanti quali: consistenza complessiva dell’opera, successione dei diversi libri, relazione tra l’analisi dei vizi e quella delle virtù, eventuale appartenenza di più papiri a singoli volumina originari. Complessivamente all’opera, che comprendeva almeno dieci libri, in alcuni dei quali l’autore si rivolgeva agli intellettuali augustei Vario Rufo, Virgilio, Quintilio Varo e Plozio Tucca, sono stati attribuiti in momenti diversi oltre 20 papiri; una decina di essi sono stati scritti da una medesima mano, di altri ci sono pervenuti per lo più soltanto disegni. Alcune di queste attribuzioni si sono rivelate sicuramente errate. Uno studio di tutti i materiali ha consentito una più attendibile ricostruzione dell’intera opera, nella quale vengono confermati la posizione iniziale e il ruolo fondamentale dei libri relativi all’adulazione e ai vizi ad essa affini. Soprattutto a questo trattato, da lui composto nella sua maturità, e all’altro, intitolato I modi di vita, Filodemo attribuiva il difficile compito di divulgare l’etica epicurea nella Roma tardo-repubblicana.


PAPYROLOGY AND EGYPT. I (Manning chair)
Rachel Mairs
A Demotic-Greek Ostracon from Aswan, from the Collection of the Brooklyn Museum

This paper will consider an only partially published Demotic-Greek ostrakon (c. first century) from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Shelton’s (1992) previous transcription of the Greek portion of the text (P.Brook. 81) highlighted a number of intriguing references to communities and activities typical of Aswan: quarrying, shipping and even the rare term “cataract-dwellers”. Although, for purposes of cataloguing, the two languages of the text have hitherto been considered in isolation, this paper will ask what linguistic and historical information holistic consideration of the Greek and Demotic sections of the text – and of their inter-relationship – might enable us to glean. The questions considered will include: The reasons for the choice of Demotic and of Greek for individual portions of the text; The origin of the names in the text’s second column, posited by Hughes (2005) to be Nubian; The overall purpose of the text, the position of the professional groups to which it refers, and the information contained in it on administrative and economic affairs in contemporary Aswan.

9:20
HISTORY I (Verhoogt chair)
Andrea Jördens
Zur Flucht von Liturgen

Neben der Steuerlast waren es bekanntlich vor allem die Liturgien, die das Phänomen der Anachoresis in der Kaiserzeit zu neuer Blüte gelangen ließen. Während jedoch dem Liturgiewesen im allgemeinen und dem Ernennungsverfahren im besonderen zahlreiche Studien gewidmet sind, wurde der Flucht von Liturgen ungleich weniger Aufmerksamkeit zuteil. Hier soll versucht werden, die Reaktion des Staates auf solche Fälle nachzuzeichnen, in denen Liturgen sich während ihrer Amtsdauer willkürlich den ihnen auferlegten Verpflichtungen entzogen, und damit diese Lücke wenigstens teilweise zu schließen.



HERCULANENSIA I (Janko chair)
Daniel Delattre Du nouveau concernant le
P.Herc. Paris 2

Ce rouleau carbonisé, qui appartenait à la série philodémienne Sur les vices, était consacré aux diverses formes de la calomnie. Ouvert depuis moins de 20 ans, mais de retour à Paris seulement depuis cinq ans, ce rouleau qui n'a pu être déroulé au sens propre, mais écorcé en 283 morceaux de tailles inégales, nécessitera à l'évidence un remontage long et fort délicat. Il commence tout juste à livrer ses premiers secrets, qui seront partagés pour l'occasion.

PAPYROLOGY AND EGYPT. I (Manning chair)
Foy Scalf

Among the collection of the Louvre are six unpublished Demotic funerary papyri dating to the first centuries CE. The texts consist of religious formulae expressing the essentials of Egyptian funerary theology; indeed, they represent the last known funerary papyri prior to the widespread Christianization of Egypt. These papyri belong to a group of Demotic formulaic funerary texts which have too often been ill described as “abbreviated” and it can be shown that these texts were not considered abridgements. Vignettes adorn several Louvre exemplars whose scenes form an overlooked, but important corpus best understood in comparison with Roman Period funerary stelae. Further details of this “genre” are illuminated by the titles contained on the verso of several of the papyri and theories about their usage are confirmed by interesting “instructions” accompanying one of them. Additionally, two of the Louvre papyri show an identical, but unique set of formulae hitherto unknown. This paper will examine the importance of such papyri for the study of Egyptian religious tradition and practice in their role as the last bastion of Egyptian funerary literature.

9:40
HISTORY I (Verhoogt chair)
Peter Arzt-Grabner
“And Tending Neither to Be a Truant nor a Fugitive”: Some Remarks on the Sale of Slaves in Roman Egypt and Other Provinces

In addition to more than 150 documents from Egypt that refer to sales of slaves, papyri and waxed tablets from places as distant as Side in Pamphylia, Alburnus Maior in Dacia Superior, and Ravenna and Herculaneum in Italy illustrate in detail the conditions and rules that had to be followed when it came to selling or buying a slave in the Roman Empire. One particular clause, where the seller guarantees that the slave “is tending neither to be a truant nor a fugitive” is found in contracts from Pamphylia, Dacia Superior, and Herculaneum, but not in one of the many contracts drawn up in Egypt. On the contrary, some documents from Egypt attest that Egyptian slave dealers sometimes explicitly refused to give such guarantees. In this paper, I will present the most important documents, and suggest what might have been the reasons for using such divergent formulae. The contracts from Egypt seem to be a reaction to those from Italy and elsewhere rather than a mere contrast. From this perspective, the complex history of a small formula like the one in question is a very good example for the importance of papyri, ostraca, and tablets from Egypt to illustrate not only Egyptian habits but also the social and cultural history of the entire empire.

HERCULANENSIA I (Janko chair)
Annick Monet
Contribution pour une édition du P.Herc. Paris 2

En 1802, Napoléon Bonaparte, alors premier consul, reçut du roi de Naples Ferdinand IV quatre ou six rouleaux de papyrus carbonisés provenant d’Herculanum. Près de deux cents ans plus tard, deux de ces rouleaux furent confiés à la Biblioteca Nazionale de Naples pour y être ouverts selon la méthode dite d’Oslo. Le P.Herc. Paris 2 est de loin celui qui a le moins souffert du traitement. Il est conservé dorénavant à la bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, à Paris, sous la forme de 283 fragments et doit faire l’objet d’une édition de la part d’une équipe de cinq personnes sous la responsabilité de Daniel Delattre. La présente contribution sera l’occasion de présenter des fragments inédits de ce rouleau nouvellement effeuillé.

PAPYROLOGY AND EGYPT. I (Manning chair)
Monica Signoretti
The Myth of the Sun’s Eye and its Greek Translation

Few ancient texts are known both in the original and in translation. The Greek translation of the Demotic Myth of the Sun’s Eye (Brit. Mus. 274) is an exception. Although both translation and Demotic text (P.Leiden Dem. I 384) are fragmentary, their joint reading leads to a better understanding of the events narrated and suggests reconstructions for damaged passages. The translation is remarkable for the terminology chosen to translate a text dense with unyielding Egyptian concepts and even more for the reformulation for Greek readers of Egyptian ideas and metaphors. When the translation of specific terms seems impossible, the text resorts to mere analogues on the basis of the immediate context: the Demotic srrf is translated as “lion,” and Ra alternatively as Helios and Zeus. The expunction of some passages and the changes undergone by others seem to have been made with the reception of the translation in mind: what was expected to confuse a Greek-speaking reader was omitted. When translating complex concepts, the Greek follows the Demotic “word by word”—or rather “image by image”—with no ambition of rendering less obvious—often theological—references. Most importantly, these choices—negotiated by a translator necessarily proficient in both languages and writing systems—allow us a unique glimpse into ancient biculturalism. In contrast with the interpraetatio graeca imposed on Egyptian culture by outsiders, the choices behind this translation are made by someone who negotiated daily between words, practices, and beliefs of different origin, “Egyptian” and “Greek”.

Coffee Break - 10am-10:40

10:40
HISTORY II (BOWMAN chair)
Janneke de Jong
What’s in a Title? New Epithets in Third-Century Imperial Titulature

In many papyrus texts Roman imperial titulature occurs, in most cases with the purpose to date the document. As has often been observed, the appearances of the Roman imperial titulature that was employed could vary greatly, from the mentioning of ‘the xth year of our lord’ to ‘the xth year of’ followed by an elaborate series of the names and titles. However, apart from this observation of the variety of use in the Roman imperial titulature, a thorough analysis of its constituting elements has scarcely been attempted. This is striking, since imperial titulature can be considered one of the means by which imperial qualities and virtues could be expressed, in other words as a medium of imperial representation. In this paper, the imperial titulature of the third-century AD will be discussed. In this century, the Roman Empire faced many difficulties, amongst others in the imperial succession. Therefore, it was of utmost importance for emperors to present themselves in a convincing way, which traditionally was based on dynastic, military and divine legitimation. I will argue that the struggle for power is reflected in the use of epithets that for the first time appear in the imperial titulature in third century papyrus texts from Egypt, in which especially an inclination to associate the emperor with the divine can be observed.


HERCULANENSIA II (RISPOLLI chair)
Jürgen Hammerstaedt
Christian Jensen’s and Wolfgang Schmid’s Unpublished Herculanean Papers: a Preliminary Report on the Content and the Relevance of the Material

In February 2007 Dr. Karl August Neuhausen, who recently retired from his position at Bonn University, handed over to me a suitcase containing the papers of his teacher Wolfgang Schmid. The prominent Herculanean scholar had entrusted him with these documents in 1980, shortly before his death. Most of the notes, readings and letters concerning the Herculanean papyri had previously belonged to Christian Jensen, Schmid’s teacher. Schmid had retrieved them during the Second World War from Jensen’s house in Berlin. A will signed by Jensen’s son provides for the storage of these papers in several institutions. One of them is the Papyrus Collection at Cologne University. The work of both Jensen and Schmid achieved a high standard in Herculanean philology. Their proposals and reflections on Herculanean papyri, especially on those parts which are represented only by the Neapolitan and/or Oxonian disegni, are likely to give new impulse to Herculanean research. This paper aims to give a first account of the material, which regards Philodemus’ On Poems, On Piety, and other writings. Moreover, I shall illustrate with some examples the relevance of this material for future editions of and commentaries on Philodemus.

PAPYROLOGY AND EGYPT. I (JOHNSON chair)
Leslie S.B. MacCoull
A Date for P.KRU 105?

This fragmentary document, unfortunately lacking its beginning with any explicit dating information that might have been contained therein, has rightly been viewed as amounting to the foundation charter for the Monastery of St. Phoibammon built into the ancient Deir el-Bahri temple at Thebes. This monastery, a landowner and pilgrimage goal that was interwoven into the economic, social, and religious life of the Thebaid, became a carrier of Egyptian Christian culture that spanned the seventh century conquest and lasted at least into the ninth century. For the first third of the twentieth century Crum and Steinwenter’s dating of the document, and the monastery’s foundation, to the late sixth century prevailed. However, in 1938 Steinwenter changed his mind and opted for the late seventh century (post-conquest), in which he was followed by Till in the 1960s. The later dating seems impossible, however, in view of the explicit mention of “the damages that our lords the Christ-loving kings have defined” in lines 12-13. On a rereading of the papyrus I have concluded that elements of the formulary and prosopography, combined with the legal details and ecclesiastical events in Egypt, yield a date late in the reign of Justin II, specifically to between 576 and 578.

11 am
HISTORY II (BOWMAN chair)
Colin E. P. Adams
Bureaucracy and Power in Diocletian’s Egypt: The World of P.Panop. Beatty

P.Panop. Beatty 1 and 2, dating to AD 298 and 300 respectively, contain some 87 letters and programmata received and issued by the office of the strategos of the Panopolite nome. As such, these long papyri preserve some of our most important evidence for administration in Egypt during a period of transition from the Roman to Late Roman periods. These important documents, however, have not received the attention they deserve. This paper sets out the main themes and questions raised by the two papyri, which are the focus of a forthcoming monograph: the dynamics of the relationship between state and local government, the appointment of liturgists, taxation and requisition (especially in response to Diocletian’s visit to Panopolis in 298), military supply, and communication. Study of these main themes allows for an assessment of, among other things, the efficacy of Roman administration, documentary practice, and the concern of the state in administration displayed through administrative policy and concern for the local population. Finally, bureaucracy being what it is, valuable comparisons in administrative practice and ideology can be made between the nature of administration in the Beatty papyri and modern sociological theory from Weber through to Richard Sennett. The paper shows that such comparison offers a genuinely important way of thinking about Roman bureaucracy; both its nature and ultimately its failure.


HERCULANENSIA II (RISPOLLI chair)
Roger T. Macfarlane
P.Herc. 817 from Facsimiles to MSI: a Case for Practical Illustration of Progress


P.Herc. 817, containing the carmen de bello actiaco, enjoyed its last formal edition in 1958 (Garuti, Bologna), and Immarco published significant new scholarship toward a new edition during the 1980s and 29 1990s (e.g. Pap.Lup. 1 [1992] 241ff.; CErc 19 [1989] 281f.) . Zechini’s (Stuttgart 1987) analysis of the poem’s text is significant, but it does not constitute a scholarly edition. The application of multi-spectral imaging technology makes the text of P.Herc. 817 more accessible than ever before. Enhanced accessibility is not limited to improved legibility—for the BYU-MSI facilitate many aspects of Herculaneum papyrology—but this combines with new scholarly approaches to the carbonized P.Herc. texts to necessitate a new, more definitive edition of P.Herc. 817. My paper will present new readings of the fragmenta of the CDBA, portions never edited by virtue of autopsy—for Garuti and successors worked only with facsimiles (disegni). The paper will be illustrated with multispectral images of the relevant passages, and issues pertaining to the general collection of the Latin papyri from Herculaneum will also be addressed. The resultant edition of P.Herc. 817, toward which this paper aims, will be the first that can be accompanied by trustworthy images for verification, i.e. up to the standards called for nearly 40 years ago by D. Sedley (CErc 3 [1973] 5).


Georg Schmelz
Letter to a Bishop

P.Heid. inv. kopt. 211 (Sahidic Coptic, 6th/7th c.) is a letter from a monastic superior to a bishop: the writer reports about his recovering from an illness and compares this experience with the wonders of the ark of covenant. These allusions do not seem to appear elsewhere in Coptic and Christian Oriental literature and make this text unique. But many grammatical problems and major lacunae turn the reading and understanding of this neatly written letter into a real challenge.

11:20
HISTORY II (BOWMAN chair)
Carolin Arlt
Age Structure and Cultural Bias in Graeco-Egyptian Mummy Labels

About one quarter of all mummy labels from the Roman Period give the age of the deceased. The majority come from the area around Akhmim and date to the second and third centuries CE. This large corpus from one place over just two centuries of Roman rule would seem to present an excellent opportunity for applying quantitative methods of demographic analysis. In this paper, I examine the age pattern that prevails in the mummy labels, separating males and females, and using statistical techniques to interpret the data. Comparing the resulting diagrams with model life tables shows discrepancies that can only be explained by assuming biases in commemoration practices. Males and females in different age groups were disproportionately likely to receive mummy labels. The age distribution that emerges from mummy labels differs surprisingly from tombstones but shows a few similarities to biases noticed in the census declarations. The quantitative analysis of such commemorations raises questions that are important for social and cultural history.

HERCULANENSIA II (RISPOLLI chair)
Aaron K. Olsen
P.Herc. 394: A Test Case for Further Editions of Latin Papyri from Herculaneum

15 years ago, at the 20th International Congress of Papyrology, Knut Kleve called for a renewed focus on the long-neglected Latin portion of the Herculaneum library. However, besides the famous carmen de bello actiaco and three important discoveries by Kleve himself, we still know practically nothing about the contents of these papyri. The application of multi-spectral imaging in recent years allows for a better reading of carbonized papyri than previously possible and gives a new opportunity to re-examine the possibility for editions of the remaining Latin papyri. Del Mastro (CErc 35 [2005]) showed how application of this technology has doubled the number of known Latin papyri in this library. Our test case is P.Herc. 394. Lindsay, in his 1890 survey of the Bodleian facsimiles of the Latin papyri, asserted this papyrus to contain a “panegyric on some emperor, probably Augustus,” basing this reading on the Oxonian facsimile of a fragment since destroyed. In my paper, I review the extraordinary difficulties which stand in the way of an edition, including the disagreement between Oxonian and Neapolitan facsimiles, modern destruction of valuable fragments of text, and the miserable condition of the papyrus. Using multi-spectral images of the papyrus for illustration, I show to where Lindsay’s conjecture about the papyrus’ subject can be refuted, and where strengthened and extended; in my examination I bring Kleve’s call for further research on the Latin papyri up-to-date, and, using the example of this particular text, demonstrate viability for further editions of Latin texts from Herculaneum.

PAPYROLOGY AND EGYPT. I (JOHNSON chair)
Alain Delattre
Nouveaux textes coptes d’Antinoé

Présentation des textes coptes découvertes à Antinoé lors des campagnes de fouilles 2005, 2006 et 2007 (Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli” – Università degli Studi di Firenze). On trouve parmi ces nouveaux documents de nombreux textes littéraires et documentaires ainsi qu’une série de billets oraculaires adressés au “Dieu de Saint Collouthos”. Ces derniers éclairent d’un jour nouveau les pratiques oraculaires à l’époque copte et illustrent certaines fonctions du complexe religieux situé dans la nécropole nord d’Antinoé.

LUNCH

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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Today at the 25th International Congress of Papyrology

Registration and Congress Check-in
3 – 6 PM
Michigan League: Concourse

6 PM
Michigan League: Mendelssohn Theatre
Opening Ceremony of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology

7.30 PM
Reception
(Michigan League)

(I can't get there until Thursday, sadly.)

Thursday, July 26, 2007

TOC Helsinki Proceedings (2003 Papyrological Congress)

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Relatively Recent dissertations

"Hellenica Oxyrhynchia": Text and translation. State of the question. Historical commentary
by Lerida Lafarga, Roberto, Dr., Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), 2006, 827 pages; AAT 3257518

The aural "Iliad": Alexandrian performances of an archaic text
by Mitchell, Jack George, Ph.D., Stanford University, 2006, 285 pages
CV at Holy Cross

Materia magica: The archaeology of magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain
by Wilburn, Andrew T., Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2005, 294 pages.

Social networks in Byzantine Egypt
by Ruffini, Giovanni Roberto, Ph.D., Columbia University, 2005, 391 pages.

Traveling the desert edge: The Ptolemaic roadways and regional economy of Egypt's Eastern Desert in the fourth through first centuries BCE
by Gates, Jennifer Erin, Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2005, 393 pages.

Access to law in Late Antiquity: Status, corruption, and the evidence of the "Codex Hermogenianus"
by Connolly, Serena Dawn, Ph.D., Yale University, 2004, 406 pages.

Simonides on the Persian Wars: A study of the elegiac verses of the "new Simonides"
by Kowerski, Lawrence Melvin, III, Ph.D., Rutgers The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick, 2003.

Church finances from Constantine to Justinian, 312--565 C.E
by Serfass, Adam, Ph.D., Stanford University, 2002, 189 pages.

Fragments from Oxyrhynchus: A case study in early Christian identity
by Luijendijk, Anna Adrienne Marianne (AnneMarie), Th.D., Harvard University, 2005, 324 pages.
forthcoming with Harvard UP

Actresses in the Roman world
by Starks, John H., Jr., Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004, 463 pages.

A grammatical analysis of the late Demotic tale Setne II (papyrus BM EA 10822)
by Woods, Andreas, Ph.D., Brown University, 2006, 279 pages.

Literary papyri from the University of Utah Arabic papyrus and paper collection
by Malczycki, William Matthews, Ph.D., The University of Utah, 2006, 255 pages.

The Demotic drama of Horus and Seth (P. Berlin 8278a, b, c; 15662; 15677; 15818; 23536; 23537a, b, c, d, e, f, g)
by Gaudard, Francois P., Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 2005, 481 pages.

Ancient angels: Hellenic angel veneration and Christian reaction (ca. 200--450 C.E.)
by Cline, Rangar H., Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 2005, 215 pages; AAT 3204854

Keeping the imperial peace: Public order, state control and policing in the Roman Empire during the first three centuries AD
byFuhrmann, Christopher J., Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005, 321 pages

Studies in the reception of Menander in antiquity
by Nervegna, Sebastiana Giuseppina, Ph.D., University of Toronto (Canada), 2005, 183 pages

Source: ProQuest (not subscribed to at my institution) search by Chuck Jones , for which, heartfelt thanks

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SALOMONS and WORP Onomasticon Hibiticum (Khargeh Oasis)

ONOMASTICON HIBITICUM:
AN ONOMASTICON OF PERSONAL NAMES
found in the
KHARGEH OASIS
compiled by
R.P. Salomons Radboud University, Nijmegen) and K.A. Worp (Leiden University)


In the Avertissement (p.vii) to his well known study Les Oasis d’ Égypte (Cairo
1987), and on many pages elsewhere in this volume, the late Guy Wagner alludes to an exhaustive
prosopography of the Great Oasis, compiled by himself but unfortunately for financial reasons
not incorporated in Les Oasis. However, a separate publication of this prosopography, as
announced in the Avertissement, did not appear either. Therefore, the need for such a
prosopography remained unfulfilled.

The idea of composing a new onomasticon of the Dakhleh Oasis, or an
Onomasticon Mothiticum as we wish to call it, was born independently during the 5th Dakhleh
Oasis Project conference held in Cairo, June 2006, where Worp gave a paper on Christian names
in fourth century documents from Kellis. An additional incentive for compiling such an
onomasticon was the consideration that Worp himself had already published a substantial number
of documentary papyri, ostraka and wooden tablets from this area ( in particular in P.Kellis, vol.
I, and in O.Kellis). It was, therefore, only a matter of merging his various indices nominum and
adding names of persons from the Dakleh oasis figuring in papyri and ostraka already published
elsewhere. This activity involved collecting the relevant texts from, e.g., the list given by Wagner
in the introduction to his Les Oasis, pp. 3- 6, and a search in the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis
for ‘Ort = Grosse Oase’). Moreover, our colleague R.S. Bagnall kindly made the digital file of his
own index nominum for P.Kellis IV available to Worp.

Source: Papy-L

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Monday, July 23, 2007

CAPASSO - DAVOLI, New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches

M. CAPASSO-P. DAVOLI (eds.), New Archaeological and Papyrological Researches
on the Fayyum, Proceedings of the International Meeting of Egyptology and
Papyrology, Lecce, June 8th-10th 2005 = "Papyrologica Lupiensia" 14 (2005)
[2007]

INDICE:
M. CAPASSO-P. DAVOLI, Premessa.
ALESSANDRO ROCCATI, Indirizzo di saluto.
R.S. BAGNALL, Reflections on the Greek of the Narmouthis ostraka
I. BEGG, Tebtynis: the insula of the papyri in 1934.
M. CAPASSO, Alcuni papiri figurati magici recentemente trovati a Soknopaiou
Nesos.
W. CLARYSSE, Toponymy of Fayyum villages in the Ptolemaic Period.
S. DARIS, Strutture urbanistiche di Soknopaiou Nesos nei papiri greci.
P. DAVOLI, The temple area of Soknopaiou Nesos.
T. DERDA, The Arsinoite komogrammateis and their komogrammateiai in the
Roman Period.
A. JOERDENS, Arsinoitische Landregister aus der Antoninenzeit
S.L. LIPPERT, Die Abmachungen der Priester-Einblicke in das Leben und
Arbeiten in Soknopaiou Nesos.
H. MAEHLER, Le scritture dell'archivio di Zenone e lo sviluppo della corsiva
greca.
A. MONSON, Private associations in the Ptolemaic Fayyum: the evidence of
Demotic accounts.
N. PELLE', Xénophon dans le Fayyum.
N. QUENOUILLE, Some aspects of the textile industry in Roman Egypt.
D.W. RATHBONE, Mechanai (waterwheels) in the Roman Fayyum.
F. REITER, Ostraka di Bakchias dalle Campagne di Scavo 1999-2003.
M.A. STADLER, Zwischen Philologie und Archaeologie: das Taegliche Ritual des
Tempels in Soknopaiou Nesos.
D.J. THOMPSON, The exceptionality of the Early Ptolemaic Fayyum.
I. UYTTERHOEVEN, Hawara in the Graeco-Roman Period.
G. WIDMER, Sobek who arises in the Primaeval Ocean (PBM EA 76638 and
PStrasbourg Dem. 31).
A.T. WILBURN, Excavating love magic at Roman Karanis.

ISBN: 9788880867401

Prezzo: euro 35,00

Per acquisti:
CONGEDO EDITORE s.r.l.
Piazzale Stazione 80/88
73013 GALATINA (LE)
Italia

Tel. +39 0836 568809
Fax +39 0836 563543
e-mail: info@congedoeditore.it.

Per scambi:
Centro di Studi Papirologici
Università degli Studi di Lecce
via V.M. Stampacchia, 45
Pal. Parlangeli
73100 Lecce
Italia

Tel. +39 0832 294606
Fax +39 0832 294607

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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Menico CAROLI, Il titolo iniziale nel rotolo



Menico Caroli

IL TITOLO INIZIALE NEL ROTOLO LIBRARIO GRECO-EGIZIO

librario greco-egizio, Levante Editore, Bari, maggio 2007; ISBN 978-88-
7949-448-9; Euro 34,00

maggio 2007, pp. 416, € 34,00
Publisher's blurb
Esplicito, chiarificatore, talvolta ingannevole, il titolo librario (epigraphé) si presenta, a partire dall'età classica, come un formidabile indizio di autenticità. Assimilato in origine all'incipit e alla sphragís, sezioni compositive con le quali conti nuerà a mantenere rapporti di reciproca dipendenza, il titolo è al contempo 'guardiano' e 'vigile' dell'opera letteraria: primo segnale linguistico che l'autore antico rivolge al suo destinatario. Questo libro presenta l'edizione complessiva dei rari titoli iniziali, di provenienza greco - egizia, attestati su frammenti di papiro. Testimoni, non di rado unici, dell'esi stenza di opere letterarie fagocitate dai meccanismi 'capricciosi' della tradizione manoscritta, essi contribuiscono a valorizzare un dato talvolta trascurato dalla critica: dei trentacinque testimoni esaminati nel presente lavoro, la stragrande maggioranza risale ai secoli I-III d.C., notoriamente caratterizzati dalla massima circolazione libra ria nel mondo greco-romano. Tutto ciò a conferma della crescita-quantitativa, rispetto ad epoche precedenti, di individui capaci di leggere e scrivere, i quali, il più delle volte, appongono essi stessi il titolo al libro sprovvisto di intestazione, configurando uno di quei casi in cui il lettore è nello stesso tempo 'autore' di una parte, tutt'altro che marginale, dell'opera letteraria, qual è il titolo.

Sommario: Ringraziamenti – I. Guida alla consultazione: 1. Le origini del titolo in Grecia; 2. La documentazione papiracea. Titoli iniziali; 3. Titoli iniziali su etichette (sillyba); 4. Titoli iniziali interni; 5. Titoli iniziali e finali?; 6. Le coordinate librarie - Catalogo delle testimonianze iconografiche: T 1; T 2; T 3; T 4; T 5; T 6; T 7; T 8; T 9; T 10; TT 11-12; T 13; TT 14-15; T 16; T 17; T 18; T 19; T 20; T 21; - Catalogo delle testimonianze papiracee: P 1 (P:Petr. II 49a = P.Lond.Lit. 60); P 2 (P.Whrzb.inv.1); P 3 (P.Oxy.xxxvII 2803); P 4 (P.Laur. III 56); P 5 (P.Oxy. XXIII 2358); P 6 (P.Ryl.I 19); P 7 (P.Oxy. XXXV 2741); P 8 (P.Oxy.XLVII 3318); P 9 (P.Duke inv.l000); P 10 (P.Oxy. II 301 = P.Lond.Lit. 95); P ll (P.Oxy. XXIV 2396); P 12 (P.Oxy. inv.51B44/G(b)); P 13 (P.Oxy. XXV 2433); P 14 (P.Cair. [P.Soc.Ég.Pap.]s.n.); P 15 (P.Oxy. VIII 1091 = P.Lond.Lit. 47); P 16 (P.Ant. I 21); P 17 (P.CtYBR inv.4006); P 18 (P.Oxy.inv. 5B54/G(2-4)b); P I9* (P.Sorb.inv.2252); P 20* (P.Harr. I 120); P 21* (PSI II 139); P 22* (P.Oxy. XXXIV 2699); P 23 (P.Lond.Lit. 13 + P.Paris 3ter + P.Castello Sforzesco inv. E0.9.40133); P 24 (P.Berol. inv. 9780 verso); P 25 (P.Oxy .XI 1367); P 26 (P.Oxy. IV 663); P 27 P.Lond.Lit. 132 (P.Lond. inv. 108 + 115) + P.Louvre inv. 7169 + P.Babington inv. I-VI [+ P.Iand. v 80?]; P 28 (P.Mich. VI 390); P 29* (P.Oxy. LIII 3715); P 30 (P.Mich.inv.4968); P 31 (P.Harr. I 123 verso); P 32 (P.Oxy. III 568 verso); P 33* (P.Oxy. XI 1366 verso); P 34* (P.Oxy. LX 4026 verso); P 35 (P.Musée Borély inv. 1638-1645) - Siglario bibliografico e sitografico – Tavole.

In copertina: P.Oxy. IV 663 © The Syndics of Cambridge University Library, per gentile concessione.

ISBN 978-88-7949-448-9

Source: Papy-L

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Friday, July 20, 2007

S. DARIS, Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell'Egitto


Nuova Pubblicazione a cura del Centro di Studi Papirologici dell'Università
degli Studi di Lecce:

S. DARIS, Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell'Egitto
greco-romano. Supplemento 4° (2002-2005), Biblioteca degli "Studi di
Egittologia e di Papirologia", Collana diretta da M. Capasso, 5, pp. 152,
Pisa-Roma, Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2007.

ISBN 978-88-6227-004-5 (brossura) Prezzo: euro 165,00

ISBN 978-88-6227-005-2 (rilegato) Prezzo: euro 245,00

ISSN 188-874x

Per acquisti:
Accademia Editoriale.

Uffici di Pisa: via Santa Bibbiana 28 I 56127 Pisa
Tel.: 0039 050542332
Fax: 0039 050574888
e-mail: iepi@iepi.it

Uffici di Roma:
via Ruggiero Bonghi 11/b I 00184 Roma
Tel.: 0039 0670493456
Fax: 0039 0670476605
e-mail: iepi.roma@iepi.it

per scambi:

Centro di Studi Papirologici
Università degli Studi di Lecce
via V.M. Stampacchia, 45
Pal. Parlangeli
I-73100 Lecce
(Italia)

Tel.: 0039 0832 294606
Fax: 0039 0832 294607
e-mail: cspapiri@ilenic.unile.it

Source: Papy-L

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The 10th International Demotic Congress of Demotic Studies

The 10th International Demotic Congress of Demotic Studies will take place in Leuven, from Tuesday 26 August
2008 (registration in the evening) until Saturday 30 August (noon).


The organizing committee,

Willy Clarysse
Mark Depauw
Katelijn Vandorpe


A Circular will be released in October 2007.

Source: Papy-L

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

REVIEW of MANNING, J.G., Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Structure of Land Tenure.

Brian McGing, The Classical Review, 57, no. 1 (2007): 160-162

Publisher's site for Prof. Manning's book

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JONGKIND, Dirk. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus



Author: Dirk Jongkind
Title: Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus
Subtitle:
Series: Texts and Studies Third Series 5
Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Publication Date: 5/2/2007 10:18:11 AM
Availability: In Print
ISBN: 978-1-59333-422-2
Language: English
Format: Hardback 6 x 9, 1 volume(s), xvii i+ 323 pages, illustrations
Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest manuscript containing the complete text of the New Testament. Besides the New Testament, this codex from the fourth century also contains large parts of the Greek Old Testament, though quite a large part of this section did not survive. Codex Sinaiticus is much more than simply a particular instance of the Greek text of the Bible. At least three different scribes copied the text out by hand, and these scribes were faced with many decisions in the process of writing: How many letters do I put on this line? Will I contract this word as a nomen sacrum or will I spell it out in full? What do I do when I spot an error in the text I have just copied? What is the right spelling of this word? Is it time for a new paragraph? How do I fit the text I have copied to that of my colleague?

This book studies a wide variety of textual and non-textual phenomena of Codex Sinaiticus. Thus we not only learn more about this important biblical manuscript, but are also able to discern much about the individual scribes. The Codex Sinaiticus is not a homogenous book, but the product of individuals with their own habits and different qualities. This study shows that it is possible to rate the scribes of the New Testament according to their individual copying ability.

Dirk Jongkind finished his doctoral work at Cambridge University in 2005. Before taking up a research fellowship at Tyndale House, Cambridge, he was employed by the British Library in London to work on the curatorial preparation of the Codex Sinaiticus Digitisation Project. He is a fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge.

Source: Gorgias Press, Evangelical Textual Criticism , Worldcat

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Monday, July 16, 2007

The 24. Congress of Papyrology, Helsinki, 1–7 August, 2004

Proceedings of the 24. Congress of Papyrology, Helsinki, 1–7 August, 2004,
Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 122: 1–2, 2007.
Edited by J. Frösén, T. Purola and E. Salmenkivi,
ISBN 978-951-653-345-5.

Table of contents
Available in August.

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REVIEW of Katja Mueller, Settlements of the Ptolemies

Katja Mueller, Settlements of the Ptolemies. City Foundations and New Settlement in the Hellenistic World. Studia Hellenistica 43. Leuven: Peeters, 2006. Pp. 249. ISBN 978-90-429-170-5. €59.00 (pb).


Reviewed by Sara Saba, The Australian National University (Sara.Saba@anu.edu.au)
Word count: 1474 words

Katja Mueller's monograph is a most welcome and dense work that approaches the topic of Ptolemaic strategy for implanting and fostering settlements through the analysis of papyrological, epigraphical, and archeological material derived from all the regions that had been under Ptolemaic rule. This, however, is often filtered and interpreted through a methodology borrowed from Geographical Studies, with which the expected audience may not be familiar. The book is certainly very informative, informed, and interesting, but it claims the undivided attention of the reader at all times.

More at BMCR

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Friday, July 13, 2007

Analecta Papyrologica XVI-XVII (2004-2005)

Dipartimento di Filologia e Linguistica dell'Università degli Studi di Messina; 356 pp., ISSN 1122-2336; Euro 90,00.

Contenuti:
Diletta Minutoli, ‘Due frammenti Laurenziani: Thucydides, Historiae V 56,4; Homerus, Ilias VIII 241-254’

Luciano Canfora – Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Frammento di orazione giudiziaria (P.Cair. J.E. 47991)’

Diletta Minutoli – Giuseppe Ucciardello, ‘Nota paleografica a P.Cair. J.E. 47991’

Giuseppe Ucciardello, ‘P.Oxy. XXXIX 2880 (lirica corale?): nuova edizione e note di commento’

Wolfgang Luppe, ‘Goetter-Sukzessions-Mythos bei Satyros (Zu Philodem Perì eusebeias 1088 Kol. VIII 12 ff.)’

Salvatore Costanza, ‘P.Gen. inv. 161: un trattato di ieroscopia’

Salvatore Costanza – Rosario Pintaudi, ‘PSI VI 728: frammenti di un codice di palmomanzia’

Gabriella Messeri: ‘Un nuovo trierarco e la presenza della flotta romana nel Mar Rosso’

Adriano Magnani, ‘Filone, Lampone e le “letture” di Caligola’

Maria Grazia Assante, ‘Domande oracolari in greco: miglioramenti di lettura e riflessioni’

Paola Pruneti, ‘Osservazioni sull’uso e il significato di Kastellon nella lingua dei papiri’

Leslie S.B. MacCoull, ‘The Antaiopolite estate of count Ammonios: managing for this world and the next in a time of plague’

Georges Nachtergael – Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Documents de fouilles en provenance de Narmouthis et d’Antinoé. Deuxième livraison’

Hermann Harrauer – Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Neue magische Gemmen’

Hermann Harrauer, ‘Eine unedierte Gemme’

Gloria Rosati, ‘Blocchi Amarniani da El Sheick ‘Abadah-Antinoupolis - 2’

Paul Canart – Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Il Martirio di San Pansofio. Edizione critica’

Francesco De Nicola, ‘Contributo critico-testuale ed esegetico alla Passione di San Pansofio’

Tommaso Braccini, ‘Note sulla komotrophia’

Enrico Livrea, ‘Il papiro di Dongo: un nuovo libro di Luciano Canfora’

Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Mario Tesi ed Antonietta Morandini. Un bibliotecario e una direttrice della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana’

Rosario Pintaudi, ‘Enrico Rostagno: Diario 1932-1936; Libro di cassa 1927-1936’


Per gli ordini rivolgersi a GEM s.r.l., VIA CATANIA 62, 98124 MESSINA
Oppure mediante e-mail a info@gem.me.it


Source: Papy-L

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

R.S. BAGNALL, Papiri e storia antica




Papiri e storia antica
Bardi Editore

Edizione italiana a cura di Mario Capasso
Translates Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History
Reviewed in BMCR

Roger S. Bagnall
isbn: 88-88620-34-6
issn:
€ 25,00
€ 25,00 (per ordini fuori Italia)


Collezione Storica
Collana che accoglie opere monografiche a carattere storico basate su studi scientifici, ma con taglio divulgativo

In 8°, 193 pp., con 8 ill. in b/n
Abstract:
Come dovrebbero usare i papiri gli studiosi di storia antica? Il mondo mediterraneo antico, come ci è stato presentato da Erodono, Tucidide e Tacito, è caratterizzato dalla politica, dalla guerra e dalle élites di potere della Grecia e di Roma. C’era però un altro mondo antico, in cui la gente comune si guadagnava da vivere, vendeva le terre, governava le città e si faceva causa a vicenda. Questo è il mondo che i papiri portano alla luce; questo libro tratta del modo in cui ciò si realizza.
Papiri e storia antica dimostra come gli storici possano raccogliere informazioni da documenti sparsi e spesso assai danneggiati allo scopo di mettere insieme un quadro della società, dell’economia e della cultura del mondo multiculturale e multilingue dell’antichità. Attraverso la discussione dell’analisi storica contemporanea dei documenti, Roger Bagnall esamina accuratamente modi alternativi di avvicinarsi a queste fonti. Egli dimostra come lo storico dell’antichità possa utilizzare le metodologie dell’antropologia, della storia comparativa e della statistica, insieme a strumenti più tradizionali, allo scopo di trasformare questi testi in domande e risposte.
Studenti e insegnanti di storia antica troveranno Papiri e storia antica una guida indispensabile per utilizzare questi testi antichi nel loro lavoro.
Autore:
Roger S. Bagnall è professore di Storia e Letteratura Classica alla Columbia University. Tra le sue pubblicazioni, Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993) e The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994).
Mario Capasso è direttore del Centro di Studi Papirologici dell’Università di Lecce.
Indice:
Mario Capasso: Come scrivere la storia utilizzando i papiri secondo Roger S. Bagnall: la volpe, il riccio e le quattro dracme del contadino egiziano.
Prefazione
Prefazione alla traduzione italiana (2006)
Introduzione
Storia e papiri
Capitolo I:
La cultura del papiro
Capitolo II:
Scelte antiche e moderne nella documentazione
Capitolo III:
Particolare e egenerale
Capitolo IV:
Tempo e luogo
Capitolo V:
Quantificazione:
Capitolo VI:
Porsi delle domande:
Capitolo VII:
Continuità e rinnovamento:
Opere citate nel testo e nelle note:
Bibliografia generale:
Indice analitico


Source: papy-L

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Monday, July 09, 2007

Vienna Papyrus Collection (Austrian National Library) Online

KATALOG der PAPYRUSSAMMLUNG, ÖNB

Bibliography for each volume can be found at the Publications page for the Collection.
The format has is more-or-less the same as APIS: scans of varying sizes, links to the DDBDP (although updates for the more current volumes have not been forthcoming), planned links to the BL (Berichtigungsliste, suggested corrections to texts on papyri etc.) but without translations.
Volumes available are:
CPR XIII,
CPR XVIIB,
CPR XIX
CPR XXII,
CPR XXIII,
CPR XXIV,
CPR XXV,
CPR XXVI
MPER XXII
SPP III2 (Faszikel 1 u. 2)
P.Bad. V
Grohmann, A., Texte zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte Ägyptens in arabischer Zeit, Archiv Orientální VII (1935)
Grohmann, A., Ein Qorra-Brief vom Jahre 90 d. H., in: E. F. Weidner (Hg.), Aus fünf Jahrtausenden morgenländischer Kultur (Festschrift Oppenheim), Berlin 1933
Grohmann, A., From the World of Arabic Papyri, Cairo 1952
P.Count
P.Jahn


Source: Papy-L (Dr. Römer).

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

PAPERBACK release: D. RATHBONE, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century AD Egypt


Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century AD Egypt
The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate
Series: Cambridge Classical Studies

Dominic Rathbone
King's College London
Paperback

(ISBN-13: 9780521037631)
Also available in Hardback
For price and ordering options, inspection copy requests, and reading lists please select:
Europe, Middle East and Africa | Americas | Asia | Australia and New Zealand
This book reconstructs the life and workings of the Appianus estate in the Fayum district of Egypt under Roman rule in the third century AD. Basing his study on the extensive documentary evidence of the Heroninos archive, consisting of hundreds of letters and accounts on papyrus, Dr Rathbone examines first the nature of rural society at the time, and in particular the status of estate owners, their relations with their upper-class managers and the social and economic position of the estate’s workforce and outside contacts. He then looks at the organization and running of the estate, the production and marketing of its crops and centrally directed transport system, and, above all, its use of credit arrangements and its system of accounting. This was one of the most sophisticated yet known in the ancient world and the author uses this example of economic rationalism to challenge the common belief that economic thought and practice were uniformly ‘primitive’ in the ancient world. Appendices include an index of all the published texts of the Heroninos archive, and two of Heroninos’ accounts with an English translation.

• Growing interest in Roman Egypt • Valuable presentation of papyrus records • Much more saleable than is immediately suggested by the title

Contents

List of figures and map; List of tables; Preface; List of abbreviations and notes for the reader; 1. The archive and the estate; 2. Owners and managers; 3. Permanent labour; 4. Occasional labour; 5. Lessees and other contractors; 6. Production on the phrontides; 7. Transport, marketing and monetisation; 8. The accounts; 9. Conclusions; Appendix I. Papyrological matters; Appendix II. Measures and prices of wheat and of wine; Indexes.

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Sammelbuch XXVII 1, Index 1 zu SB XXVI

Sammelbuch griech. Urkunden, XXVII 1, Index Teil 1 zu SB XXVI.
Verlag Harrassowitz Wiesbaden, 2007.
ISBN 978-3-447-05597-0.
Ladenpreis 22,- Euro.


Soure: Papy-l

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REVIEW of Victoria C. Gardner Coates, Jon L. Seydl, Antiquity Recovered. The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.06.48
Victoria C. Gardner Coates, Jon L. Seydl, Antiquity Recovered. The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007. Pp. 304; figs. 121. ISBN 978-0-89236-872-3. $60.00.


Reviewed by Eric M. Moormann, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (e.moormann@let.ru.nl)
Word count: 2374 words

below is the part of the review dealing with the Herculaneum papyri

James Porter contributes a paper on the discovery of ancient texts in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. No new text of Aeschylus, Homer or Livy or any other major author was discovered among the carbonised scrolls. He sketches how eagerly scholars dismissed the importance of the texts by Philodemus, which are interesting in their own right. Porter presents a sound debunking of the romantic vision of the villa as a philosophical retreat, e.g. of Calpurnius Piso, with Philodemus as the pet philosopher. We cannot deduce that from the facts. Even the 'library' was nothing but crates and heaps of papyri found in disorder. Porter rides his hobbyhorse in stressing the problem of classicism (or not) in these texts and concludes that the readers of these texts were strongly deluded by Antiquity, which offered a different face than they wished.2 He refers to suggestions of new excavations to find more texts and apparently does not know of the dig made in the 1990s at the behest of the then director of the Papyrological Institute at Naples, Marcello Gigante. More or less unpublished, offering almost nothing to either archaeologist or tourist, these new ruins at the northern side of excavated Herculaneum are decaying rapidly.3 All these disappointments, however, did not prevent literary reactions: the number of literary texts "found at Herculaneum" increased incredibly in the run of the 18th century. I mention only the pamphlet cited supra and the Voyages d'Antenor en Grèce et en Asie, presumably translated from a Greek manuscript from Herculaneum by E.-F. Lanthier in 1795.

read the whole review here

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