The International Summer School in Papyrology

zyxwv THE INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL IN PAPYROLOGY Institute of Classical Studies University of London A REVIEW PATRICK N. HUNT The considerable success of the second International Summer School in Papyrology is largely due to Professor Herwig Maehler and Dr Jennifer March who planned the lectures and activities and assembled a stellar company of scholars at the Institute of Classical Studies from July 17-23. Mostly graduate students from twelve countries were offered current research in such wide areas as decipherment, palaeography, textual criticism, interpretive methods, new literary and documentary discoveries, archaeological principles and conservation techniques, and state-ofthe-art computing as they relate to papyrological studies. Where possible, the contributors made applications to a broad spectrum of historical disciplines which have all profited from papyrology, underscoring the need for even greater cross-fertilization between specialized branches of study in Classics, particularly those pertaining to Graeco-Roman Egypt in historical, epigraphic, and literary and philologic research. In the opening lecture, Dr March (University College London) surveyed the importance of papyrology in Classics, noting as well the physical properties and production, conditions for survival, lectional signs, and diachronic linguistic benefits. Professor Maehler followed with palaeographic decipherment rules, and suggested interpretive formulae for common and uncommon problems likely to be encountered. An excellent film documentary ‘Greek Papyri’, introduced by Dr Walter Cockle (University College London), was also shown on the first day. Proving especially informative as a summary of the history of papyrology, it was notable for its archival record of the seminal Oxyrynchus expeditions under the direction of Grenfell and Hunt from 1897 to 1906 and the following Egypt Exploration Society publications which have set the standard for papyrological scholarship ever since. Thus supplied with appropriate tools, including major research bibliographies and resources to be utilized, the students of the summer school were well prepared for the subsequent week of specific papers and workshops. Demonstrating the excitement along with challenges posed by new literary papyri discoveries, Professor Eric Handley (university of Cambridge) magisterially outlined the state of scholarship for new Menander texts and gave caveats on interpretive processes. In the same vein Dr Peter Parsons (University of Oxford) brought brilliant light to a new papyrus of Simonides, and Dr Annette Harder (University of Gronigen) reconstructed texts of Callimachus’ Acfiu as they illuminate his literary output and enlarge on myth v;iriants. Professor John Van Sickle (City University of New York) also provided convincing and amusing insights into literary criticism with his research on interpretive pitf;ills in r e p r d to zyxwvutsrq zyxwvutsrq zyxwvutsr Archilochus’ Cologtw Epodc. Fine balance was struck for the Romanists as well with Dr Alan Bowman’s lucid lecture on new Latin texts from Vindolanda. Documentary papyrologists and ancient historians were also well represented by a wide range of lectures. Professor Patricia Easterling (University College London) discussed the unique contributions of Alexandrian scholarship to the modem as well as ancient world. Especially significant was her emphasis on the systematic and encyclopaedic collection of texts and the seminal textual criticism initiated by the first commentators, a fact often overshadowed by the role the extant Alexandrian Library maintained in preserving what ancient texts we have. In another illuminating address, Dr Rosaria Falivene (Instituto di Filologia Classica, Urbino) presented via papyri carefully-drawn glimpses of Ptolemaic administration with the necessary hierarchies of Greek and Egyptian officials imaged from texts of Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, and others. In similar sleuthing, Dr Andrew Lewis (University College London) reconstructed the operations of tribunals and the legal process in Roman Egypt in order to show how the legal system reflected society in ideal and real terms. Reading from the court cases found in P . Mich. 148, the students in the summer school were reminded of provincial legal praxes where local culture interpenetrated Roman law and the importance of Roman Egypt’s tradition of authoritative legal precedent in contrast to other provinces. In other documentary matters, Dr John Ray (University of Cambridge) and Dr Jane Rowlandson (Birkbeck College, London) with separate yet complementary lectures apprised us of the very essence of Egyptian life at all times from the Pharaonic period onward as a bureaucracy resting on the agricultural productivity of the peasant, as attested by the role and flow of documents throughout Egypt. The point was made by Dr Ray that society was possibly more heartless in Hellenistic Egypt than in Pharaonic Egypt and that Roman suppression of Egyptian animal cult religions removed a popular asylum for the peasant anachoresis (or ‘runaway’) where family no longer served as natural protector for peasant troubles. Highlighting the Oxford segment of the course was a discussion tour of the Papyrology Rooms of the Ashmolean Museum, followed by an excellent address by Dr John Rea in which he presented an exciting new document from the Roman prefect Rammius Martialis corroborating accounts of Hadrian’s alacrity in assuming imperial authority in the provinces. Such needed documentary details and insights demonstrate well the debt of ancient historians to PaPYrologYPalaeographic foci were provided by Professor Maehler (University College London) with several forays into Byzantine bookhands and diachronic orthography. In this same area, Mr Robert Ireland (University College London) showed developments of Latin scripts in the Dark Ages, specifically the Ductus litterarum (‘a sequence and direction of component strokes’) and other techniques including pushed and pulled writing motions and stylus angles, concluding with the exquisite spidery hands of the Ravenna and Merovingian chanceries. Likewise Mr Joseph Spooner (University College London) demonstrated the subtleties of Ptolemaic bookhands and their distinguishing factors, with dating criteria and epigraphic formulae to be carefully applied. The cautions rigorously suggested by Mr Spooner in dating criteria for Ptolemaic hands were much appreciated, clarifying the tenuous nature of such analyses. Coptic research was addressed by Dr Mark Smith (University of Cambridge) and Ms. Julia Clayton (Kings College London). Dr Smith surveyed Coptic magic in its eclectic yet syncretic conservatism, exemplifying magic types as aphrodisiacal potions and spells, healing and protection devices, maledictions and curses, and procurements of blessings or gifts in formulae. Of note is Papyrus Berlin 8183 with its melange of Egyptian and Christian mythology and magic, an attempt to manipulate nature into cosmic sympathy with those using such P. N. HUNT zyxwvut 161 ‘grimoires’. Ms. Clayton clearly defined the role of Coptic documents in early Islamic life in Egypt as adduced from period papyri which evidenced the oft-forgotten religious tolerance of early Islam for other faiths. Archaeological interests were illustrated by Dr Jaako Frosin (University of Helsinki) in discussion and video demonstration of cartonnage removal and papyrus conservation, showing new methods for extracting texts from mummy cases and the role these techniques can have in future papyri discoveries. Dr Walter Cockle presented a superb slide lecture on epigraphic remains, particularly ostraka, from recent archaeological expeditions to Mons Claudianus in the eastern Egyptian desert, noted for Roman granite quarries and the nearby imperial porphyry quarries. In allowing us to visualize the intensely arid conditions and other extremes of the Mons Claudianus site, Dr Cockle was well able to trace some aspects of Roman stone technology and dauntless appetite for exotic building materials. Also offered jointly by Dr Cockle and this reviewer was an analytical session on a papyrus fragment from Oxyrynchus on the scanning electron microscope at the Institute of Archaeology, utilizing high magnification resolution (up to 100,000 x) and spectroscopic elemental analysis of the papyrus for environmental traces. Demonstrating the tremendous research advantages offered by computing of the highest order, Dr Robert Sharples (University College London) gave several sessions on the Ibycus hardware and software developed by Dr David Packard. With its nearly total program assimilation of all Greek and Latin classical texts up to Late Antiquity (including the Thesaurus Linprae Graecae and even the LXX as well as Hebrew O.T. for cross reference), the research tools available in one of the newest model of the Ibycus at the Institute of Classical Studies make word search possible on a definitive scale and underscores the indispensability of the computer to modern scholarly pursuits. Probably the highlights of the school were the several sessions of translation and decipherment of papyri co-ordinated by Professor Maehler and Dr March. These practical workshops gave each participant opportunity to test new textual critical skills or to hone prior acquired skills in papyrological problem solving. Using quality photographs of both documentary and literary papyri distributed at the outset of the school, these workshops exposed students to the kinds of interpretive problems presented in the lectures and thus reinforced theoretical with experiential knowledge, creating an optimum learning praxis. Not all of the programme was entirely academic. An opening reception at Gordon House, University College, and a splendid party at the Institute of Classical Studies with luminaries of the Institute Committee of Management, University of London officers, Warburg Institute and British Academy administrators provided ample opportunity for further social contact. Culminating the activities was a wonderful luncheon for members of the course at Oxford, in the rooms of Dr Peter Parsons at Christ Church. Truly this was an international programme with both participants and lecturers representing between them at least twenty institutions and countries, evidencing the broad response of classicists to the discipline of papyrology. May such an event become assured of even greater regularity. The host Institute of Classical Studies and Professor Maehler and Dr March should be commended for a programme so beneficial to the continued development of classical studies. zyx Simpson College, San Francisco