Module 1. Elements and Education

Thursday Jan. 10

Introduction to the class, and practicum on ancient writing materials. (no assignment)

Tuesday Jan. 15

Read: Oxford Handbook, chapter 1, Writing Materials in the Ancient World, Adam Bülow-Jacobsen.

Examine and experiment: facsimile wax tablet in papyrology reserve room; papyrus and pen at home.

Write: alphabet and syllabary exercises, using the ductus as described in Cribiore 1996. Carefully write out at least a couple of pages of alphabet and syllabary exercises. Try it with reed pen and papyrus, reed pen and paper, calligraphic marker and paper.

Examine: Rare Book Room, p.Duke.inv. 232 (wooden tablet)

Write: preliminary transcription and description of p.Duke.inv. 232. You may use outside resources to try to sort out this object, but DO NOT read either the catalogue description or the publication.

Thursday Jan. 17

Read: Johnson forthcoming; and Oxford Handbook, chapter 14, Education in the Papyri, Raffaella Cribiore.

Study: Gueraud-Jouguet papyrus, 1938 edition. (Optional comparandum: Collart 1926)

Write: using either reed pen or calligraphic marker on papyrus or paper, copy out at least two columns using the Guerard-Jouguet text as your model.

Presentations: Darius and Tim will present briefly additional examples of educational texts. Must be interesting, target is to be fascinating.

Tuesday, Jan. 22

Read: on the enkyklios paideia, Morgan 1998, 50-89 with tables and map, alongside the methodological discussion in Bagnall 2011, 27-35 (first part of chapter 2, discussion of the methodology), and 54-74 (demonstration of the method).

Ponder: the problem of accumulations of examples and statistics, and the accurate writing of history from the papyri.

Write: create an edition for Yale inv. 1245. DO NOT look up the edition of this papyrus, but otherwise all tools are in fair play. To hand in.

Thursday, Jan. 24

Read: Handbook, Chapter 2, The Finds of Papyri, Helene Cuvigny and read quickly Chapter 3, The History of the Discipline, James Keenan.

Write: For p.Duk.inv. 767 (on hold in Rubenstein) make a diplomatic transcription, and then break it into word divisions in the manner of a typical Greek edition.. Then (and ONLY THEN) look up the text in the TLG and collate it, marking any changes to your diplomatic & edition in pencil, but creating on the side a collation of where the text differs from the TLG text (which is from Allen’s OCT. You should bring to hand in then, (1) transcription with corrections, (2) edition with corrections, (3) collation.

Presentations: early Literary Finds at Oxyrhynchus. Alan and Mack will present on POxy 1 & 2.

Module 2. The Bookroll

Tuesday, Jan. 29

Study: GMAW introduction with the plates referred to. This is fundamental: study carefully. You will find yourself returning to this again and again. GMAW = E.G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (2nd ed. rev. P. Parsons). Both first and second edition are on reserve in the pap room.

Write: For each of the six images supplied in the Dropbox folder (under Assignments>papyri to date), use the palaeography volumes on reserve, along with any other resources, to date the papyrus. For each papyrus, describe the essentials of the hand —i.e. what characteristics you are focusing on when making the judgement— and what comparanda you find useful for the dating. You will find this challenging, and we will discuss in class. To hand in.

Thursday, Jan. 31

Read: Handbook,  (omitting the Latin and Byzantine discussions): Handbook, Chapter 5, “Greek and Latin Writing in the Papyri,” G. Cavallo. This should be read more rapidly for a different “take” from Turner’s on script categorization.

Write: Keep working to refine the writing assignment from Tuesday

Tuesday Feb. 5

Read: Handbook, Chap. 11, “The Ancient Book” by W. Johnson. Also read the selection from Bookrolls and Scribes, pp. 3-13 (on reserve in the pap. room).

Study: Go to the papyrology room and consult a couple of recent volumes (NOT the early volumes) of POxy, and study the editions of short fragments of extant texts. This will be your model for the written assignment, so read through several, and try to get a clear sense of how a contemporary edition is constructed.

Write: Use TLG to locate p.Duk.inv. 3 (on reserve in rare books; this is a known text), and create an edition for this text. Concentrate in particular in your edition on the reconstruction of the bookroll. What can you say about the whole of the bookroll from this small fragment?

Thursday Feb. 7

We will continue working on reconstructions of bookrolls from fragments, using p.Duk.inv. 313 as a case study.

Read in Greek and study: the text of the Comoedia Dukiana, p.Duk.inv. 313, from the extract of the publication shared in our dropbox folder under assignments. You will find the Greek challenging, and this is perhaps part of the story. Get to know well this piece of comedy.

Study: go to the rare book reserve, and (a) Read over the more legible parts of the papyrus. Since you have just read the Greek, practice reading from the manuscript itself; read the legible parts through a few times until you see the words. (b) Study the fragment as an artefact. We know it is cartonnage. What other details strike you? Take measurements.

Write:: Tell the story of this papyrus. The part of the publication I am not sharing has a paragraph that starts, “The sheet of papyrus on which the passage appears is itself unusual and offers important evidence for the circumstances in which the papyrus was written.” Finish that paragraph: what can we reasonably infer about the circumstances in which the papyrus was written, and what does that tell us? Use comparanda where possible to help substantiate your claims (yes, more time in the papyrology reserve room). A page or two should suffice for the story itself.

Note: the next phase of the course features individual presentations that focus upon one or another of the great literary papyrus finds. For that, you will want to start work early, since it will be your job to set the assignment as well as to lead the class. For each assignment, you will want to ask your student colleagues to read at least some Greek, since these are mostly unusual authors. Otherwise, the range of possible assignments and class activities is open. BUT you will want to think through carefully how to bring out the interest of the papyrus and help your classmates get to know this particular artefact. You may want to get your classmates to write out part of the papyrus; or practice reading in scriptio continua; or read relevant secondary literature. I will do the first presentation, on the Timotheus papyrus, next Tuesday.

Module 3. The Manuscripts: Great Finds

Tuesday Feb. 12 Day off

Thursday: Feb. 14

p.Duk. inv. 4, textual transmission and ancient readers

Study: Comments on your edition of p.Duke.inv. 3; go to the papyrology reserve room, and read through more examples of recent editions, as necessary.

Write: Use TLG to locate p.Duk.inv. 4 (on reserve in rare books; this is a known text), and create an edition for this text. Concentrate in particular in your edition on the relationship between the known text, as represented in a major edition with the app. crit.. and the ancient “edition” as represented on this papyrus; also, focus on the puzzle presented by the marginalia. You will need then to locate an edition of this work with good app. crit. information (you may wish to share as a class), and you will also need to consult the bibliography (see Resources) to discover good materials to help with the analysis of the marginalia.

Tuesday Feb. 19

Timotheus, Persians (waj)

Read in Greek lines 139-240 (from midway in column 4 to the end). We will concentrate on the lines in the fifth column, but this will give you the context surrounding, including the famous and bizarre barbarian’s song. The standard edition is Page, Poetae Melici Graeci, which is the text used by TLG. Since the vocabulary is exotic, using the TLG’s linked LSJ feature will be handy. I have provided in our assignments folder Hordern’s recent Oxford Commentary, which you will find too wordy but plenty helpful; I also include the dialect portion of his introduction, which will be critical to those unused to seeing e.g. -αν as a 1st declension genitive plural instead of -ων.. Useful for the broader context for both Timotheus and his Persians is the recent edition by David Campbell in volume 5 of the Loeb Classical Library Greek Lyric (“The New School of Poetry”). This is lyric poetry, so you’ll want to allocate sufficient time to work through these short hundred lines.

Write: study carefully the ductus and style of column 5 (the one with the “bird”) of the Timotheus papyrus; you’ll find the image under assignments>Timotheus in the dropbox folder.. Create an “alphabet” that has examples of each letter (with variations) and its ductus; and then copy out the column in as careful a manner as you can. Try to duplicate the look, feel, spacing, and precision of the original. STOP once you have spent a half hour on the copying. We want to get the feel of copying in a slow hand, but a half hour will be sufficient for that. It will be interesting to see how far you’ve gotten.

Thursday Feb 21

Herodas, Mimes - Mack Zalin

Read in Greek the entirety of the third mime. You’ll find the text and commentary under assignments>Herodas in the dropbox folder, along with images of the papyrus.

Tuesday Feb. 26

Hyperides, Arden papyrus - John

Plates for the Arden papyrus re in my Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus volume, which is on reserve in the papyrology room. Hi res images are available in our dropbox under Assignments>Arden papyrus.

Assignment:

1. Write out a brief description of the papyrus, the text, and the hand

2. Read as much of the Greek of "For Euxenippus" as you can in a reasonable amount of time. Read the rest in English We will read some of the papyrus beginning with Column 1, so you are essentially preparing to do this, but I also want you read the translation so you can think about the third part of the assignment.

3. We know that Attic orators were important models for later teachers and students, and that this is an important reason why Attic oratory survived. Is the Arden papyrus a student edition? Why or why not? If not, why has so topical a genre, legal oratory, found its way into this particular papyrus?

Thurs Feb. 28

The Yale Musical Papyrus - waj

You’ll find images for the papyrus in the dropbox under assignments>Yale Musical Papyrus. You will want to look at two books by Martin West, one a collection of the musical documents from antiquity (Documents of Ancient Greek Music, on reserve in the papyrology room), and one an erudite but very accessible (brilliant, in my view) book called, Ancient Greek Music,, which is available as an electronic resource. You can consult anything that does not speak directly to the Yale papyrus -- avoid in particular my 2001 editio princeps in JHS and West’s re-edition and comments in his book on the musical documents. The primary task here will be to (1) create a draft edition of the TEXT (including corrections), i.e. do not treat the music notes unless you want to; (2) to think through and write up the story of the papyrus -- what its format, look, feel, content tell us about what it is, who may have copied or owned it, how it may have been used, etc. You will definitely want to look at other examples of musical papyri before coming to firm conclusions. Put this in the regular format of an edition (with, as said, omission of the musical notation).

Tues. March 5

Menander, Bodmer Dyskolos - Mariangela

1) Study the Bodmer papyrus (see under assignments > Menander Dyskolos), becoming familiar with its ductus and other features you may notice, and then try to concentrate on the hand. What do you see? What are the features of the writing style?

2) Write a brief description of the papyrus, explaining what is your feeling about it: what might be the history of this fragment? What may its historical period and social context be? Avoid reading any article or publication about the P.Bodmer, but try to investigate only the papyrus and its characteristics.

Thurs March 7

Sappho, POxy 1.7 - Tim

Alcman, Louvre Partheneion - Darius

Sappho:

1. 1.Read Campbell's edition of the fragment.  It is number 5 in his collecti
   

2. 2.on (he uses the Lobel-Page fragment numbers which is the edition used on the TLG).  I have also provided several other editions of the text in the subfolder labeled 5. 
   

2. Read the papyrus closely (P Oxy 1 7).  Write up a short paragraph describing the hand.  Write a story of the papyrus.

DO NOT look at fragment 2.  I was considering it as a second option but have decided to go with P Oxy 1 7 given the shared class with Darko. 

Alcman

A partial plate for the Alcman papyrus is loaded in the Dropbox folder under Assignments. It is plate no. 16 in Turner, GMAW, if you wish to see it in person. The Alcman assignment is as follows:

1. Spend at least 20 minutes familiarizing yourself with the Greek text itself, available on TLG under Alcman Lyr. Fragmenta 1. Start at line 35 (this is the first full column of text on the plate). Take another 10 minutes at least to compare the TLG's text to what you see on the plate. Use this time particularly to distinguish the marginalia from the text proper.

2. What strikes you about this papyrus? In particular, consider the 'look and feel' of the hand, any notable ductus, etc.; the marginalia/scholia (how many different hands do you think there are?); lection marks/accents. Start thinking about the story of this papyrus. Write at least a short paragraph of your thoughts and observations.

=SPRING BREAK=

Tues March 19

Herculaneum - the Villa of the Papyri - waj

Read: D. Sider,  The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum (2005), pp. 1-23, 46-95 (book on reserve in pap room; PDF under assignments>Herculaneum). This is a book for a general audience, and thus a quick read, but gives a good overview. Read also the review by W. Johnson, in JRA 2006 (assignments>Herculaneum).

Write:: under assignments>Herculaneum you will find an image of PHerc 1427 frame 1, including a close-up of the top of column 4, and the Oxford disegno for that column. (After reading Sider, you will know what a disegno is.) Using both the papyrus image and the disegno, transcribe and puzzle out a text for the lines in the close-up (9 lines of text). Translate the Greek text you come up with and bring to class.

Thurs March 21

Bacchylides - Hans

The Bacchylides materials are loaded in a folder in the dropbox.  We will be looking at Bacch. 5, written for Hieron of Syracuse, the most important patron of both Bacchylides and Pindar.  I put up two editions of the papyrus: the entire facsimile of p.Lond.733, and a scan just of the part that covers Bacch. 5 (beginning on the ninth line of column 6).  For the text, I’ve included Campbell’s Loeb, and the introduction, text and commentary from Maehler’s Green and Yellow.

The assignment, in two parts:

1. Examine the bookhand.  What are the features of the ductus? What time period is the ductus consistent with?  What are the other features of the text?  White up a short description covering these points, as well as the physical features/quality of the papyrus.

2. Prepare Bacch. 5 for in-class translation.  The poetry can be difficult, and the ode is long (in fact, it is the longest), so consider the following stopping points: lines 55, 92, 154. After some translation we will be reading the Greek off of the papyrus, starting at the beginning (and doing our best with the first few lines), so it would be good to check the text against the papyrus in preparation for that.

Tues March 26

Aristotle, Constitution of Athens - Alan [facsimile on filing cabinet in pap. room]

Reading materials are loaded in a folder in the dropbox.

Read 1. 1891, FacsEdition (2 pages); 2. 1893, Sandys, AthPol pp xxxi-xxxix (pages 48-56 of the PDF; 8 pages); and 3. 1981, Rhodes (5 pages). Pay particular attention to the abbreviation charts provided in 1891 and 1893.

Study: We will only analyze hand #2 (columns 13-20). However, I do want you to glance over a couple of the other hands as well. 1. Glance over column 10 (see first link below) to get a feel for hand #1. Spend at most 2 minutes looking at hand #1. Write out a tiny description of what is going on in this column and the source of the struck text (no more than 3 minutes). The first word of column 10 ωστε corresponds to the end of section 23.5. You should see a bar before ωστε denoting that this is a new column. 2. Look at column 21 (see second link below) to get to know hand #3. Spend at most 10 minutes looking at hand #3. The first word of column 21 -κυρωσιν corresponds to the middle of 41.3. Again, look for the bar. 3. Analyze column 13 (see third link below) to become familiar with hand #2. Spend at most 30 minutes looking at hand #2. The first word of column 13 ταυτην begins section 31. 4. Now, put your TLG or other Greek text away. Your assignment is to analyze column #20 (see fourth link below) with all of your might. Without consulting any edition of this text try to figure out what is going on in this column. I will tell you that it begins with hand #2 and then switches to hand #3 at some point. Your job is to find where the hand switches. Write up where you think the hand switches and why. Again, no consulting any editions. Translate the text below. Take as long as you need but there is no need to take more than one hour. If you don't finish the translation all the way then that is okay but please do everything else.

Link #1 (col. 10)             Link #2  (col. 21)           Link #3  (col. 13)            Link #4 (col. 20)

Text to translate: ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἄλλαις πόλεσιν οὐχ οἷον ἔτι προστιθέασιν τῶν οἰκείων οἱ δῆμοι κρατήσαντες, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν χώραν ἀνάδαστον ποιοῦσιν. διελύθησαν δὲ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι [κατο]ικήσαντας, ἔτει τρίτῳ μετὰ τὴν ἐξοίκησιν, ἐπὶ Ξε[ναι]νέτου ἄρχοντος.

Module 4. Transmission of Texts; Literacy and Literary Culture

Thurs March 28

The Petrie Papyri & the Early Transmission of Texts: 1. Homer 2. Plato

Study: Images in dropbox>assignments>Petrie papyri for 1. P. Petrie 1.3, Homer and 2. P.Petrie 2.50, Plato. Use these images rather than the printed edition so that you have the joy of discovering for yourself the specific texts they contain. #2, P.Petrie 2.50 is included in a much clearer b&w as well as the original autotype. Do the collation for the b&w photo (that is, you can omit the additional lines visible at the bottom of the autotype if you like).

Write: create a collation (not an edition) of these papyri against the TLG text. Do not consult a printed edition. Bring to class.

Think: what might this imply about the pre-Alexandrine transmission of these two texts?

Read: PDF (in dropbox>assignments>Petrie papyri) of the first chapter in West 2001 = Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad.

Tues April 2

The News: New Simonides (1992), New Sappho (2004), New Empedocles (1998), New Posidippus (2001), New Archilochus (2006) , Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (2012)

Read: Chapter 12, Papyrology and Ancient Literature (Tim Renner) in the OUP Handbook

Study and present: Individual 10-12 minute reports

Thurs April 4

The Greek Romances: Literacy and Literature

P.Duke inv. 772, Achilles Tatius, on hold in the Rubenstein

Read: Achilles Tatius, Clitophon & Leucippe, book 3 entire in translation; read carefully in the Greek book 3, chapters 19-22.

Study: Look carefully at the images (assignments>Achilles Tatius) and at the papyrus itself = p.Duk.inv. 772. Work through some of the text, and accumulate telling details that will help you narrate the story of this papyrus. You will want to date the hand, to study the voluminology (layout, physical features), and think about the text as well. In studying the papyrus you are welcome to use the transcription and notes from the editio princeps, but you are NOT to read the introduction to that publication. Your “story” should be, in effect, a prècis of the introduction you would write for this piece. The editio princeps is by William H. Willis, published in Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies in volume 31, issue 1, 1990. Also, be aware that you will not get a good look at the papyrus if everyone waits until Thursday to work on it.

Write: Write out the story of this papyrus, adducing the telling details, and bring this narrative to class. Narrative only; no need to include collation or text edition.

Tues April 9

Books and Letters

POxy 2192 - see web link to the image in dropbox under assignments > Letters

Write: create a draft edition of the famous letter on books, POxy 2192. You can use any resource EXCEPT the two published editions and the various translations spread about web and print. Your introduction to the draft edition should sketch out how many hands you see, whom you think to be whom, and where they are located, and what exactly is the set of interactions the letter suggests.

Thurs April 11

NO CLASS. Time to focus on your final project, which is due at the end of the last week of classes = April 26.

Tues April 16

Papyrology past and future

Read and ponder the implications: (1) Johnson 2013 (forthcoming in BASP) = “The Oxyrhynchus Distributions in America: Papyri and Ethics,” located in the dropbox under Assignments>Papyrology Past & Future; (2) van Minnen 2009,  “The Future of Papyrology,” which is chapter 27 in the OUP Handbook of Papyrology.

Review: We will take 20 minutes of class to quickly quiz ourselves on the papyri we have studied over the semester. For each papyrus, you will be expected from the image to be able to (a) identify the papyrus, (b) date and (where possible) identify the script, (c) say at least two critical things that speak to the importance and/or fascination of the papyrus. (This is called iterative learning, which I subscribe to as fundamental pedagogy.)

Friday April 26

Final Project due. Plan A = devise a medium sized project of your own devising, as described in the syllabus. This can be conventional or unconventional. Best to check with the instructor when devising this plan to be sure that it is both suitable and manageable. Plan B = Write a draft edition for P.CtYBR 5018. See description in the dropbox under Assignments>Final Project Plan B.