Writing Materials in the Ancient World

Paper did not exist in the ancient Mediterranean world. Instead, people wrote on an enormous variety of other materials. While almost every substance imaginable has been used as writing material at one time or another, this article focuses on the common ones. First, it considers papyrus since the overwhelming majority of ancient texts are written on this material. It discusses parchment, ostraca, and wooden tablets which receive considerable attention. It also discusses linen (e.g., mummy bandages) and stone (mainly Coptic limestone ostraca inscribed with ink). Looking at Coptic documentary texts, which extend past the end of antiquity, ostraca are the most important medium (47.5%), while papyrus is second (40.5%). Limestone accounts for 10.5%, while skin (leather/parchment), paper, and wood represent less than 1% each.

The Ancient Book

From the beginnings of Greek written literature until deep into the Roman era, a “book” was fashioned by taking a premanufactured papyrus roll, writing out the text, attaching additional fresh rolls as the length of text required, and, when finished, cutting off the blank remainder. This article notes that literary texts were produced, in general, with strict attention. It describes what constituted the ancient book. Books on papyrus in the form of rolls (bookrolls) were the norm from the beginnings through the early Roman era. Over the course of the second to the fourth centuries ce, the codex came to replace the bookroll. The article also considers the content of the books, and the Oxyrhynchite texts.

Manichaeism and Gnosticism in the Papyri

The church fathers were appalled in particular by the Gnostics' condemnation of creation. But the fact that much of their teaching was in many respects not so far from Christian dogma must have disturbed the advocates of the “real” Christian church. In some of these Gnostic systems, Christ was the main savior figure; in others, it was the forefathers of the Old Testament who guaranteed salvation; in Manichaeism, it was the new Messenger of Light, the apostle Mani, who, coming after Christ, would finally give the right revelation to the people and excel Christ in doing so. This article deals with religious groups such as these as they existed in Egypt in the Roman and late antique periods. Papyrology has played a decisive role in our understanding of the religious movements of the first centuries ce in Egypt and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

Archives and Dossiers

Documentary papyri describe ancient people. Where unrelated texts are like instant snapshots, archives present a coherent film of a person, a family, or a community and may span several months, years, or decades. Bilingual archives show how some Egyptians tried to become Hellenized, but their private accounts betray their native language. An archive is bound to be of greater interest than isolated texts, and the possibilities of archival research for any aspect of life in Graeco-Roman Egypt are practically unlimited. This article offers a systematic approach to archival documents and explains what constitutes an archive, how archives come to light, how we can reconstruct them, the type of archives that may be discerned, and the types of documents in them. Such an approach to archival documentation of the ancient world has in general been attracting increasing interest and brings together scholars who are studying different regions.

The Multilingual Environment of Late Antique Egypt: Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Persian Documentation

This article considers three languages—Coptic, Latin, and Pehlevi—all of which were widely spoken and written in Egypt in the fourth to seventh centuries, analyzing their use and interaction with Greek, which remained the official language and is by far the most abundantly documented. Each of these languages poses in a distinctive way the problem of multilingualism or of multiliteracy and presents a nuanced picture, ranging from a nearly total and deliberate absence of bilingualism to a deep bilingualism (where the relationship between the languages tends to reverse itself), passing by way of diglossia.

Writing Histories from the Papyri

Papyrology has a long tradition of broader inquiry and historical synthesis that extends all the way back to the days of Wilcken. Nor has the process itself of writing history from the papyri altogether escaped inquiry and discussion, with Peter van Minnen and Roger Bagnall making the most important contributions in recent years. This article has been written in conscious dialogue with their criticisms, prescriptions, and conclusions. Those who work with the material remains of Graeco-Roman Egypt are in a unique position among scholars of antiquity: the evidence is such that a much wider range of methods and approaches is available.

Law in Graeco-Roman Egypt: Hellenization, Fusion, Romanization

The Ptolemaic kings of Egypt ruled a variety of ethnic groups that were diverse in language, culture, religion, and legal practices. The main themes were tolerance and even the protection of particular legal traditions. By the beginning of the Roman period, changes were under way. The autonomous courts of law had by then ceased to exist. The second century ce witnessed the abandonment of demotic script in legal documents and the emergence of a new law, “the law of the Egyptian”, which was applied by the entire population and consisted of Greek and Egyptian elements alike. In the late third century bce, agoranomeia were established in the throughout Egypt to allow the state to monitor foreclosure on assets placed as security for debts. In the Roman empire, Roman citizens in Egypt followed major elements of the Roman law of succession, family, and personal status.

Papyrology and Ancient Literature

This article discusses literary and subliterary papyri; papyri and Egyptian literature; the study of Greek literature; and papyri and Latin literature. The texts inscribed on these materials are the source for the longest and most important Egyptian literary compositions known from the Pharaonic and Hellenistic periods. “Subliterary” papyri include papyri containing texts such as commentaries, lexica, and grammatical treatises, which are in some sense ancillary to the study of the major genres and have traditionally been so regarded. Hieratic and demotic papyri, including wooden writing boards and ostraca, are responsible for our knowledge of most of the Egyptian texts that contain narrative tales and fables, instructions or precepts, and love poetry. Meanwhile, the body of ancient Greek literature continued to expand on the basis of papyrological evidence.

The Greek and Latin Languages in the Papyri

For the first thousand years after the end of the classical period, documentary papyri constitute the most important source of information on the development of the Greek language; they are also important for our understanding of Latin, but less so. Greek phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary underwent major changes between the classical and Byzantine periods. These changes are known primarily through the mistakes made by writers of papyrus documents, who would have liked to write in a more classical Greek but (unlike the authors of literary texts) often did not have the education to do so. This article describes these changes in detail, with the probable dates of each, and also examines the language of Latin papyri and ostraca. Sample documents in each language are analysed, with translations into their classical equivalents.

Geography and Administration in Egypt (332 BCE–642 CE)

This article outlines the administrative geography of Egypt under the Graeco-Macedonian regime and as it evolved over the next millennium. This information comes from papyri and ostraca—sources that differ from the material evidence of archaeological finds yet are not so distant from these as literary evidence often is. What makes papyrological texts so informative is their being on the same timescale as the actors involved: their speaking, as it were, in everyday words. There are some downsides as well. Mahaffy's observation applies most aptly to the difficulties we encounter when trying to reconstruct the administrative framework of Graeco-Roman Egypt and having to deal with the intricacies of a territory and its management as it evolved over time and under changing regimes.