::The Zenon Papyri::
In this installment of Reading the Papyri, we look
at one of the papyri from the famous Zenon archive, a large
group of documents discovered at the site of ancient Philadelphia
in the Fayum region of Egypt. These papyri, which were documents
kept by Zenon, the secretary to an important official in the
Egyptian government, are some of our earliest Greek documents
from Ptolemaic Egypt, and date from the third century BCE,
between the reigns of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III. Like P46,
the papyri that comprise the archive were divided between
a number of institutions. Through the following webpages,
you will be given the opportunity to explore various aspects
of one document from this group, a complaint about the theft
of a donkey.
This section includes background information about the
Zenon Archive, such as where and when it was discovered,
when and where the different papyri were written, and what
sorts of events the archive records.
Here, you can take a closer look at features of one papyrus
in the archive, and learn some general information about archives.
This section offers the opportunity to read the
Greek text of one of the documents. Assistance is provided in deciphering
the script and reading the Greek.
After you've learned all about the papyrus from the other
three sections, check out this section to put everything
in context and see examples of why groups of documents such
as the Zenon archive are important.
Feel free to click on whatever interests you, but for the
best experience we recommend visiting sections 1-4 in order.
We sincerely appreciate all comments
and suggestions!
• A note on browsers and displaying
Greek text. |