Volume 64, Issue 1

This article considers a new reading of the first lines in P.Ibscher s.n. (= P.Berol. 18122). Meleager and Theseus have a conversation in the underworld. The former hero asks the latter about his presence in the kingdom of death. The sequence of direct questions reflects the narrative modalities of meetings between heroes attested in Homeric epic.

The present article revisits the editions of the fragmentary novel which is usually referred to as the Panionis; it further explores, for the first time, possible points of contact between the Panionis and the extant novels, especially that of Achilles Tatius, with which it appears to share a number of verbal and thematic similarities.

The first three parts of this miscellany have their origins in the Nachlass of J.G. Tait (and partly of A.S. Hunt): editions and a series of critical notes. Other critical notes on O.Deissmann, dubious abbreviations and names occupy the other four parts.

The article contains new readings or interpretations to a few documentary Greek ostraca with different provenances.

The article presents an edition of a Greek papyrus belonging to the Austrian National Library. Its recto contains a long fragment of a money loan upon mortgage, which was drawn up in the capital of the Herakleopolite nome, and is one of the rare instances where the borrowers are a married couple. One of its main points of interest is the sum of the borrowed money, which amounts to thirty-six golden solidi. The verso preserves the remains of at least two unspecified texts.

This article presents an edition of the unpublished remnants of a 7th century letter which was reused for the Christian amulet P.Köln Inv. 521a. The letter is addressed to Kalomenas, vicedominus of a large estate in the Fayum around the time of the Islamic conquest. Certain related prosopographical problems are discussed. The appendix offers new readings and discussion of the following texts: SPP 10.152; P.Eirene 4.44; SPP 3.647; SPP 8.1139 (= BGU 2.675); SPP 20.199 (= SPP 8.1297); SPP 8.958, and SPP 20.206.

This paper is divided into two parts: the first presents all the papyrological and bibliological observations necessary for a new edition of P.Herc. 1428 (= LDAB 3563; TM 62400) which comes from the large Herculanean roll that contains Philodemus’ treatise On Piety. The second part provides a new critical reconstruction, along with translation and notes, of the ‘pre-Socratic section’ of P.Herc. 1428, in which Philodemus, via his harsh polemics against previous theological thought, critically lays out the Presocratic opinions on the gods, from Thales to the Sophists.

This article presents an edition of a 4th century Coptic fragment of a hitherto unknown Old Testament apocryphon that gives a non-canonical version of the events of Exodus. It offers a specifically Egyptian literary history of the legendary magicians Jannes and Jambres, which highlights the so far unappreciated dependence of their own Apocryphon on pagan Egyptian tales about magicians.

O.BYU Mag., a Coptic love spell written continuously over three successive ostraca, consists largely of a narrative in which Horus asks for the help of his mother Isis to win the love of a woman whom he meets in the underworld. It is one of twenty-two known Coptic magical texts that mention Egyptian or Greek deities, and its narrative is paralleled almost exactly in three of these. Dating to the seventh or eighth century CE, it provides important evidence regarding the knowledge and survival of Egyptian deities at a time when Egypt was thoroughly Christian.

In this contribution, a new approach to interpreting the semantic shift of the word mÈDr from „ear‟ to „handle“ in P.Berlin 6848 1/21 is undertaken. The main focus is on a comparison in Medinet Habu Ostrrakon 4038 A (14-17) which shows the same development in the word „on.t‟ „claw“.