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
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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