Tag: Papyri

New book on Early Christian books in Egypt

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Papyrologist Roger Bagnall has a book out in September, in which he looks again at the physical books and papyri discovered in Egypt and generally has the drains up on the dates of them.   I only hope it isn’t a bit of revisionism; but I don’t get that sense from the little that I know.

Much of the established knowledge on this subject was done in some really rather splendid articles by T.C.Skeat, who did not seem to share the fear of numbers and statistics endemic in the humanities and consequently produced quite a  lot of hard data.  But much of this was now a long time ago, and a new take on it would be interesting.  Not that I will ever see the book, I suspect, being offline; but such a study ought to be interesting.

Thanks to What’s new in Papyrology for the tip, and more details.  The PDF link to chapter 1 does not seem to work, tho.

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Tebtunis temple library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This blog reports a publication (offline – these papyrologists really don’t get it, do they?) of some narrative texts from the temple in ancient Tebtunis in Egypt.  Look at the contents!

The book presents ten narrative texts written in the demotic script and preserved in papyri from the Tebtunis temple library (1st/2nd century AD).

Eight of the texts are historical narratives which focus on the first millennium BC. Four concern prince Inaros, who rebelled against the Assyrian domination of Egypt in the 7th century, and his clan. One is about Inaros himself, while the other three take place after his death. Two other narratives mention Necho I and II of the Saite Period. The story about Necho II is particularly noteworthy, since it refers to the king as Nechepsos and for the first time provides us with the identity behind this name. Nechepsos is well attested as a sage king in Greek literary tradition, above all in relation to astrology. Of the two final historical narratives, one belongs to the cycle of stories about the Heliopolitan priesthood and the other concerns the Persian occupation of Egypt in the 5th or 4th century. The volume further includes a prophecy that forms the continuation of Nectanebo’s Dream, known from the Greek translation by Apollonios, and a new version of the mythological Contendings of Horus and Seth. Apart from a translation of the prophecy, none of the papyri have previously been published.

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