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
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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.
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
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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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posted by G.W. Schwendner | 9:59 AM
