From Egypt to
Ann Arbor: The
Building of the Papyrus Collection
The Michigan papyrus collection contains many items of great interest not merely to students of ancient Egypt but also to those engaged in Biblical studies, ancient literature, ancient science, ancient law, and ancient economic history. To enumerate the important texts which belong to the University of Michigan papyrus collection is not an easy task. There are a considerable number of Biblical and other early Christian texts. Here the choice item consists of thirty leaves of a third-century manuscript book of the epistles of St. Paul. These were acquired, largely through the efforts of Dr. Askren, in the spring of 1932 at a cost of $7,500. At the same time the major part of this codex was purchased from another source by Mr. Chester Beatty, then of London, a great collector of manuscripts, who generously refrained from competing for the University's share of the work. The writer had the pleasure of completing the purchase of this treasure in Egypt and the responsibility of bringing it to Ann Arbor. [This manuscript has been published in A Third-Century Papyrus Codex of the Epistles of Paul by H. A. Sanders, Ann Arbor, Univ. of Mich. Press, 1935.]
Of the non-Biblical Christian papyri, the most important is a sixty-two-page fragment of a codex of The Shepherd of Hermas, an apocalyptic work written in the second century of our era. Containing more than a quarter of the original and dating from the third century, the University's manuscript is the oldest and by far the largest known papyrus copy of this text. [Campbell Bonner, A Papyrus Codex of the Shepherd of Hermas, Ann Arbor, Univ. of Mich. Press, 1934] Interesting as tangible evidence of the first great persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire are two papyri dating from A.D. 250. They are certificates of conformity to pagan worship issued to certain residents of the Egyptian village of Theadelphia in accordance with the requirement that all persons in the empire should participate in the public cults. [P. Mich. III, Miscellaneous Papyri, Nos. 157, 158, Ann Arbor, Univ. of Mich. Press, 1936] The fragments of Greek literary texts in the Collection are not of outstanding significance, but they do include several Homeric texts of fair length. One fragment of the Iliad from Karanis was discovered lying just in front of an oven in a bakery, apparently ready to be used in starting a fire, when for some reason or other it was overlooked and became buried in sand.
Among the mathematical papyri is a lengthy table of fractions and a text containing a series of practical problems in arithmetic. A twenty-two-column astrological treatise by an unknown author, dating from the second century, illustrates the strange combination of exact astronomical calculations and illogical assumptions which characterize this pseudo-science. [These texts were edited by F. E. Robbins in P. Mich. III, Nos. 145, 146, 149.]
The collection contains as well several early literary fragments of the Homeric epics, little-known works of Greek dramatic writers like Aristophanes, Euripides and Menander, and fragments of known works of other Greek writers like Xenophon, Demosthenes, Isocrates, and Aristotle. These surviving fragments suggest which works were most popular among ancient readers; and because they sometimes differ in detail from the versions we have today, classicists can improve the accuracy of works that became garbled as they were transmitted through the centuries.
The documentary papyri and private letters in the Collection throw light upon nearly all phases of public and private life in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt. From the Greek or Ptolemaic period there is a group of one hundred and twenty letters and accounts, once part of the business records of a Greek immigrant to Egypt from Asia Minor, named Zenon. Zenon rose to be a business manager for Apollonios, the finance minister of Egypt under Ptolemy II, from 262 to 247 B.C. Although the Michigan Zenon Papyri probably comprise less than one-tenth of the total number now in possession of various museums and libraries, they are a representative lot and contribute materially to our knowledge of the economic history of Egypt in Ptolemaic times. [C. C. Edgar, P. Mich. I, Zenon Papyri, 1931.]
To the early Roman period belongs an important group of documents from the village of Tebtunis in the Fayum. These are the legal papyri acquired through the generosity of Mr. J. W. Anderson in 1922 and 1923. They date from the reigns of the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero, and formed part of the files of the public record office of Tebtunis and its subsidiary community, Kerkesouche Orous. Not only do these texts illustrate in great detail the operation of a village record office but they also give a general picture of the economic life of the villagers and contain examples of almost all of the types of written contracts employed in contemporary business transactions. [A. E. R. Boak, P. Mich. II, Papyri from Tebtunis, Pt. I, Ann Arbor, 1933; E. M. Husselman, A. E. R. Boak, W. F. Edgerton, P. Mich. V, Papyri from Tebtunis, Pt. II, Ann Arbor, 1944.] The prize item in this group (inventory number 622) is a roll seven feet ten inches long and about twelve inches wide. On one side it records the documents, two hundred and forty-seen in all, registered at the record office for a period of four months from April 28 to August 28, A.D. 42. On the other it gives summaries of fifty of these contracts, of which the most interesting are so-called alimentary contracts that is, property settlements incident to marriages.
It is fitting to close this account of the Michigan papyrus collection with a reference to its most impressive items. These are two tax rolls from Karanis, the one measuring about one hundred and seven feet in length and the other more than sixty feet when acquired. They have been cut into pieces of manageable length to avoid breaking from unrolling and re-rolling while under study. They were bought from Mr. Nahman in the spring of 1925 at a cost of $10,000. These rolls, containing lists of payers and payments of head taxes collected in the village of Karanis in the years A.D. 171-173, are by far the most complete records of this type so far discovered in Egypt. [H. C. Youtie, P. Mich. IV, Pt. I, Tax rolls from Karanis, Ann Arbor, 1936 and H. C. Youtie and O. M. Pearl, id., Pt. II, Ann Arbor, 1939.]
All these papyrus documents provide a unique insight into the ancient world, the social structure of ancient life in general and in detail. The contribution of the papyrus collection has been very important in the understanding of the history of Egypt under Greek and Roman rule, the structure of the society from the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine period, the administration, the personal religious beliefs of individuals, the official religions and their dogmatic clashes, the history of ancient scholarship, the schools, higher education and changes in literary taste over the periods.
Furthermore, scholars often find fragments from literary works that have been entirely or partially lost. Some religious documents illuminate pagan beliefs and practices, while others shed new light on the status of Jews and Christians in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. Among the most intriguing texts to have been unearthed are passages from sorcerers' handbooks that disclose magic spells and give instructions on their proper use. Because the traditions described in the magical papyri were inextricably bound with religion, these texts have revolutionized our understanding of the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Near Eastern religions, including Judaism and early Christianity.
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