Volume 68, Issue 1

The article offers a rereading of recently published fragments of an Orphic poem discovered in a palimpsest from the library of St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai (Sin. ar. NF 66). In particular, it establishes that fragments 1-2 narrate a scene from Aphrodite’s catabasis to the underworld in search for Dionysus, as well as clarifying details of the account of the Titans’ attempt to lure Dionysus out in fragments 3-4.

Only two papyri (P.Oxy. 5355 and PSI 981) are preserved of the lost Greek novel known as Calligone, whose female protagonist goes to war as an ally of the Amazons. Here, I propose new hypotheses concerning the historical events which may have inspired the action of the novel and suggest a reconstruction of the plot.

This article is based on the study of two arguably different sources concerning the words which describe sickness and health: (1) the clusters of these words as they were compiled by Pollux of Naucratis at the end of the second century A.D., and (2) the various phrases or terms attested in the everyday language of the Greek papyri coming from Egypt, dated to the entire Greco-Roman period (III B.C.-VIII A.D.). The study of this converging, so to speak, of the two sources produces interesting results concerning the use of words used broadly in all aspects of one’s life, as recorded in various contexts. These range from the simplest and brief texts, such as memoranda, to classical literature, dated to various periods and attributed to various levels of literacy.

This paper proposes a re-edition of P.Oxy. XII 1466. Whereas previous editors recognised remains of another document on the verso, the whole piece appears to be a copy of a petition for a tutor mulieris addressed to the prefect of Egypt. It is drawn up in the form of a diploma, written transversa charta, with remains of three witnesses’ signatures on the verso at 90° to the text of the recto.

This new edition of SB III 7244, the only case of a quadruple private letter in the papyrological documentation, offers a detailed examination of its peculiar layout and attributes the text to the well-known Philosarapis archive. The article also provides the first edition of the recto of the papyrus, which contains part of a tax register from the beginning of the III CE concerning the Arsinoite village of Hiera Nesos.

Editions of six papyri published as descriptions in P.Lond. III and V.

Re-interpretation of a Coptic magical text on paper from Saqqara in light of parallels from earlier Egyptian as well as medieval Greek, Latin, and Syriac ritual texts: the central motif, which refers to wind, wave, and snakes, is applied to the cure of impotence, conceived as the releasing of ritual binding.

This article comprises the editio princeps of P.Ilves Copt. 12, a list of payments in Sahidic Coptic in which each entry indicates the name of the payer and the sum paid. The papyrus witnesses several personal names hitherto unattested in Coptic.