Volume 69, Issue 1

Starting from a re-interpretation of the reading KEΡATAYΛEI at line 17 of P. Matr. inv. 44+119, this article compares the content of the Madrid mime papyrus with a famous scene of Menander’s Theophoroumene which also relates to the performance of rituals connected with Phrygian cults.

For five lacunose passages in papyri of Chariton’s novel new reconstructions are proposed removing or harmonising divergences from the medieval codex unicus F, and in one case bringing out a new variant, possibly correct; two F readings confirmed by a papyrus, yet still usually emended or suspected, are defended with a different interpretation.

Comparison of the content of P.Oxy. XI 1368, which preserves a fragment of Lollianus’ Phoinikika, with a passage from the first chapter of the Shepherd of Hermas. The similarities between the two passages show that Lollianus and Hermas adopt the same literary motif, namely the topos of the solitary journey, in order to narrate encounters with spirits or other supernatural realities. The same topos is employed in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana IV, 25. Hermas, however, christianizes the motif through some additions.

With the fourteen musical papyri that have been discovered in situ, all dating from the Roman period, the city of Oxyrhynchus, in Middle Egypt, constitutes the largest reservoir of ancient “scores” found up to now. By their fragmentary appearance, these papyri are often difficult to interpret and raise many questions, especially as to the interpretation of certain musical signs they contain. This article aims to open up new perspectives in the study of an enigmatic V -shaped melodic sign in the musical papyri of Menander (P.Oxy. LIII 3705).

The article contains the edition and study of three ostraca in the British Library (Ostracon 5878) which join with another fragment in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (P.Mon.Epiph. 607). The join of these pieces helps to date the British Library fragments to the turn of the 6th-7th centuries and assign them to Apa Moses from the Monastery of Epiphanius in Thebes. The ostracon now provides a complete and unique text of the Great Doxology as used in the Coptic Church of the late 6th century and probably the earliest version of the so-called Constantinopolitan version of this liturgical chant.

P.Cair.Zen. IV 59538 (TM 1174), dated to 16 January of 257 BCE, is a fragmentary papyrus from the Zenon Archive that preserves the final part of a letter. Along with a significant part of its content, the identity of both its sender and addressee has been lost. However, a careful analysis of the material aspects of the letter reveals that its author and scribe can be identified with Amyntas (TM Per 769), the administrator of the Alexandrine household of Apollonios.

The publication of a list of names that appears between columns two and three of Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians (P.Lond. VI 1912). Though the hand of the list is different from the hand of the letter, it shares paleographic and onomastic parallels with other documents in the archive of Nemesion.

In the so-called epikrisis documents, soldiers sometimes also presented their citizenship diplomas. From these, an extract in Greek was occasionally included in the administrative records. These have not been considered as fully valid documentation in the collections of military diplomas until now. Therefore, the partially preserved diplomas were not included in the collections. Here three such cases are retranslated into the original Latin form.

The article presents a new edition of P.Berl.Bibl. 6 (= SB I 423), which appears to be an acknowledgement of receipt of a leased ammokopregon ship. It is argued that the ship was used for collecting silt fertiliser in the marshy parts of the Nile near Memphis, and that the name of the ship, Myrismos, is a Greek epithet of the Memphite god of the water lily and of fragrance, Nefertem.

Edition of a papyrus preserved at the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig which contains the end of a petition, originating probably from Oxyrhynchus and dated on paleographical grounds to the 5th century. Aurelia Anniene files a complaint to the ekdikos against a man, Ioseph, who assaulted her and inflicted serious injuries. She asks for a compensation of eight solidi. The petition might have been signed by the petitioner herself.

Editions of three papyri published as descriptions in P.Lond. III.

The article reconstructs the provenance of the papyrus collections in the universities of Bonn and Frankfurt. It is argued that they both originate in the acquisitions made by Siegfried Sudhaus for Kiel University through the “Deutsches Papyruskartell”.

The Robinson Papyri and the Mississippi Papyri were first introduced by William H. Willis at the ninth International Congress of Papyrology. This article deconstructs Willis’s paper and, using archival evidence, reconstructs the provenance and makeup of these two distinct collections, moving past Willis’s presentation to provide the history of both collections since 1958. The author brings to light the cross contamination and mislabeling between the Robinson and Mississippi Papyri collections caused by Willis and argues that some pieces published as “Robinson Papyri” are parts of other collections.